I would imagine that my reaction and thoughts were the same as most who are not members of the LDS Church when opening up The Book of Abraham for the first time: fascination and curiosity. Even Mormons might have the same reaction if they were converts to the Church and then discovered The Book of Abraham themselves for the first time. I would venture to say that the reaction of either of these groups would pale in comparison to the reaction of Mormons when Michael Chandler rode into Kirtland, Ohio on July 3, 1835. His wagon cart contained four Egyptian mummies with papyri. Joseph Smith desired to have these artifacts and some Mormons gave Chandler $2,400 for them. That was a large sum of money back then. I wonder what the equivalent would be today?
Joseph Smith made bold claims about the papyri parchments. He stated that these were the writings of Abraham while he was living in Egypt. He further explained that these were written by hand by Abraham himself! Smith claimed that he could translate the Egyptian language, a language practically unknown in America at the time. This wasn’t the first time Smith claimed the supernatural ability to translate an Egyptian-based language: The Book of Mormon was supposedly written originally in “Reformed Egyptian”.
“The remainder of this month, I was continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham, and arranging a grammar of the Egyptian language as practiced by the ancients” (Documented History of the Church 2:238)
After Joseph’s death, Emma Smith remarried a man named Lewis Bidamon. The scrolls that belonged to Joseph Smith were sold and thought to be lost until they were rediscovered in New York over 100 years later. A certification letter from Emma was found with the parchments verifying that they were the property of Joseph Smith.
“In 1966, Dr. Aziz S. Atiya of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, discovered papyri known to have been used by the Prophet Joseph Smith in producing the Book of Abraham.” (Improvement Era, January 1968, p. 12)
With this discovery one can only imagine again what excitement was taking place in the Mormon community. Could this finally be the proof that the LDS Church had been looking for to validate their founding prophet, Joseph Smith, as prophet, seer, revelator? Until this point the LDS Church had no other manuscript evidence to validate their scriptures. The LDS Church claimed that the golden plates, the ones supposedly used by Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Mormon, had been taken back by the angel Moroni. Mormons now had manuscript evidence for their scriptures with The Book of Abraham. Surely now it would be possible to validate Joseph Smith as divinely appointed by God.
The experts in Egyptology were called in to examine the papyri and the news wasn’t good. It appeared that these papyri showed no relationship to Abraham. The name of Abraham wasn’t even mentioned in the parchments. Instead, the papyri were from the Book of the Dead which was a common Egyptian funerary text. The papyrus was written for a man named Hor. He was a priest of Amon-Ra. Hor died around A.D. 60 – long after the time of Abraham!
“It has been proven that the Book of Abraham collection is nothing more than a common collection of Egyptian funeral documents that are based on pagan myths related to Egyptian idolatry.” (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Autumn 1968, pp. 109-34)
What particularly fascinated me were the facsimiles that are presented throughout The Book of Abraham. There are three facsimiles. Pictured below is the first one:
The parchments that Joseph Smith had were torn in many places so Joseph Smith had to fill in what was missing from the parchments he had purchased from Michael Chandler. The parchment found in New York that belonged to Joseph Smith is pictured below. You can see what was missing and how Joseph Smith filled in the missing pieces.
How close were Joseph Smith’s divine drawing skills given through revelation and inspiration in putting these missing pieces back together again? Egyptologists state this portrayal by Joseph Smith in Facsimile No. 1 is not accurate – not even close. The actual portrayal of the missing pieces in the parchment is quite common as part of the funerary text in the Book of the Dead. Compare Joseph Smith’s rendition with the actual Egyptian portrayal:
It’s very clear that Joseph Smith was way off on his “divine” drawings. A complete analysis of this picture above is given by Bill McKeever and you can see the presentation here:
Notice some of the characters seen in the picture above. Several of them will be mentioned again in the series of blog posts. Egyptologists state that the figure on the far left is the jackal-headed god Anubis. He is embalming Osiris who is lying on the lion-headed embalming couch. (This isn’t Abraham!). The bird with the human head to the far right is the soul of Osiris about to enter his body. Isis, wife of Osiris, has taken the form of a falcon and is on top of Osiris’ phallus (male organ) which he is holding to impregnate her with his future son Horus. The four sons of Horus are shown as the heads of the canopic jars below the couch. Their names are Amset, Hapi, Duamutef, and Qebehsenuef. In the water below is the crocodile god Sobek.
It is amazing to see the difference between Joseph Smith’s creation and the actual portrayal from the Book of the Dead side by side. How can any person honestly and sincerely not admit that there is a credibility problem with Joseph Smith? In the next segment of this series we will look at Facsimile No.2 to see what other messages Joseph Smith supposedly received for us from his god.
HankSaint,
The Bible interprets the Bible.
Jehovah actually calls Himself the Rock several times in scripture.
Mormons like to say: well, yeah, all those other verses are talking about this, but this verse here is special, and talking about something entirely different.
I.e. the talk about 1 Cor 15 being split into two groups, celestial and terrestial… all the verses in the chapter can be split into those two categories BUT THE ONE VERSE, which IS SPECIAL, and needs rewriting by Joseph Smith, and now includes Joseph Smith’s “of the distance” kingdom
In this case, the ROCK is Jesus in all the other Messianic verses, but this verse is special, because it talks about revelation? No. It is the same as the other verses.
The Greek word petra is used in two ways in the New Testament. One, literally: “rock”. Two, symbolically: Jesus.
Here are some other references to Jesus being the Rock (same Greek word “petra”)
Matthew 7:24,25; Romans 9:33; 1 Corinthians 10:4; 1 Peter 2:8.
The LDS problem is, they don’t see Jesus everywhere in the Bible. They just keep trying to see THEMSELVES.
Whitsell says: Thanks for the admission. To some it may not seem like a lot, but I think some of us who have frequented this blog for awhile take for granted how hostile it can seem at times.
mutu: I didn’t consider it an “admission,” David, just an explanation of my own belief. As for your note of the board “hostility,” I thank you for your humane acknowledgment. Generally, I can’t tolerate it here long, but there is occasionally a proposition that I just can’t resist replying to. This forum, whatever its lumps, provides a stage for some of my religious thoughts not found many other places.
Whitsell: I think your view is out of sync with Joseph Smith’s view of the BoA as well as tht of the Mormons of his day. Every indication is tht, up until the time of the rediscovery of the papyri, SLC Mormons believed tht the BoA was a literal translation. To now claim tht the BoA is otherwise seems like a cop-out, an ad hoc apologetic defense.
mutu: I’m well aware tht my view “is out of sync with Joseph Smith’s view of the BoA as well as tht of the Mormons of his day.” I believe Joseph was a prophet, not a divine, & certainly not a scholar, let alone a scholar ahead of his time. What I believe is tht he received revelations from God, & was left to his own mind to make sense of those revelations w/in his personal, historical & religious context. Did he think his Egypt. parchment represented literature straight from Abraham & Genesis’ Joseph? The comments from the Times&Season’s state as much, so I am left to presume that he likely did, & journals from his associates seem to concur.
As for my belief being a “cop-out,” well, tht’s a highly idealistic & rigid judgment coming from a person of faith. Do you not occasionally wonder if you hold to a form of faith capable of proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection if it were an event reported by a small inner-circle group in, say, 2003? The world is always there to crush the convenient.
Sincerely, mutu.
HankSaint,
What the other here are trying to say is that
Peter had experiential knowledge of Jesus and all that He was teaching the people BEFORE He had witness from the Holy Spirit that Jesus was who He said He was.
He didn’t just have some random spirit pop up and tell him something about Jesus, different from what Jesus was saying, and then have spirit witness to the truth of it.
Your story is completely different. You were not with Jesus, walking around listening to Him. If you want to understand what Peter understood, you need to really dig into your Bible, and read what is being said there IN CONTEXT. Study the New Testament (not from an LDS manual) because it’s the witness of Jesus, and study the Old Testament, because Jesus referred to the OT as truth.
After truly studying the Bible, to see what it says, instead of what the LDS manuals are trying to push into it, you will have the understanding that God intended you to have about Jesus, BEFORE having a spirit convict you about its truth.
See, you want to disregard the Bible where it doesn’t line up with Mormonism, and you willingly go with the same kind of spirit that Joseph Smith had, after playing in the occult for all that time.
If you want to have a spirit witness like Peter did, you FIRST have to get into your Bible, read it and figure out what it is really saying, so that you know what the truth is about Jesus. Then, God’s spirit can witness to you the truth that God’s Word is trying to teach you.
Understand?
Enki,
I just wanted you to have this link:
http://www.confidentchristianity.com/
in case you were interested
M from Brisbane writes:
Mantis mutu wrote “You can call these revelations “pagan” if you will, but in all fairness you have to at the same time acknowledge we are talking of the Osiris myth–the one tht a good many scholars (much like the ones behind Egypt. translation) say is foundational to the myth & faith of the resurrected Christ.”
Mantis, Why look to Egypt to see into the heavens?
Shouldn’t you be looking to Christ, the incarnate Word of God?
Perhaps I misunderstood; maybe you have no connection to the Christian revelation & no desire to be part of it?
Martin, many scholars would answer this question by saying tht long before Jesus & Christianity, we find in Egypt the sacred story of Osiris, who was also considered a human incarnation of the Gods. We conveniently call these things “myths” nowadays, but any scholar would scoff at your apparent presumption tht your faith in “Christ,” tht is, tht the power of resurrection & final judgment is found through the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth–is categorically different from the ancient Egyptians’ belief in their Christ: tht the power of resurrection & final judgment is found through the person of Osiris, who they believed to be a historical person resurrected as a God in the heavens following his conspiracy-plotted assasination by the wicked Pharaoh Seth.
What rational explanation do you have tht your Christ is the right Christ, while the ancient Egyptian Christ was a wrong imposter? Scholars would tell you tht your “imposter” takes the historical precedence. Like every Mormon you are left with two rational conclusions for your Christian faith: (1) the similarities of the two Christs are coincidence, or (2) the ancient Egyptian Christ, Osiris, was a corruption of a pre-Christian prophecy of the coming Savior of mankind.
If JSmith’s Egyptian parchment is “pagan,” every honest Christian should at least admit it is a very loaded piece of pagan parchment.
Sincerely, mutu.
I was thining about Hank’s response about Peter, and still find it all to interesting he relies on that to make his conclusion that he is like Peter. Wouldn’t a better example of a transformation story or a confirmation story be that of Paul? Paul was actually out killing people and God just stops him on the road before he gets to complete his mission.
What do we know about that story? Well, we know that Jesus, after appearing in a bright light, tells Saul who he is and for him go into town. We know the others in Saul’s party saw the light, but not Christ, though they did hear a voice. Saul also lost his sight. This story is found in Acts 9.
This story is actually better, I think, to show the power of God and his ability to convince. Paul, then as he was then known, did as Jesus told him. This is a more powerful revelation sotry, no doubt.
But why doesn’t Hank use it to speak of how God can reveal himself? He uses a story of someone who simply says Christ is the Christ, but after he’d been with Christ and witnessed everything Christ has done. (This is an important story, don’t get me wrong, but it is fishy as used by Hank).
Part of the fishy is that in the Peter story is the line about wisdom being revealed, whereas Paul’s doesn’t have any like that, but as a whole Paul’s story fits much better with what LDS are trying to prove.
Also, I think it worthwhile to state that Paul’s conversion does show that God can and does communicate with us, and does so in ways outside of the Bible alone.
A final note, notice that when Paul goes preaching, the Bible says his “proofs” that Jesus was the Christ were such that Jews, who he was preaching to, could not answer him. He had proofs, and not just a testimony, then, didn’t he?
RickB,
I posted another comment about the phoencian script, its still awaiting moderation, so perhaps you can’t read it. Basically there isn’t much support for the idea that the phoencian script had its origins in Egyptian hieroglyphics. However, old hebrew does appear to have its origins in Phoenician orthography.
Setfree,
Thats an interesting link, certainly the closest to addressing some information that I have come across. It will take some time to read and contrast with other information. Thank you for sending it.
I must say that Mary Jo’s promo video is sensational with the heavy drum beat. That certainly makes it seem ‘exciting’ but is rather distracting since it made it difficult to hear and focus on much content. I found it difficult to hear her speaking. By contrast her actual speaking and locations seem less so sensational and exciting.
When someone claims that a/the spirit revealed something to them, I want to know what spirit that is. We know, that Joseph Smith did not operate under the power of the Holy Spirit. Do I need to list all of the evidence regarding this? So when Mormons get something revealed to them, I must conclude that it is the same spirit that revealed things to Joseph Smith since Mormons are following Smith. This spirit of Mormonism reveals and confirms Mormonism to those who claim Joseph Smith as their prophet.
I’ve quoted extensively from the book “Temple Manifestations: Heavenly Manifestations in Temples built by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” by Joseph Heinerman. This book, written by a Mormon, is a virtual guidebook to Mormonism’s connection to the occult and demonic visitations.
What we see with this unmasking of the BoA is more of the deceit that shadows any hope of true spiritual understanding with TBMs. They’ve bought into Joseph Smith’s not so well disguised spiritism (mixed with a little 19th century evangelical Christian revivalism and some Bible) to con people into buying this religious con. How anyone can look at the evidence presented here regarding the bogus nature of the BoA and just keep rolling along, speaks to the depth of the delusion of the spirit of Mormonism.
I really get a kick out of you Creedal Christians and how you have to stretch to make the scriptures work to fit you Christian agendas.
Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Petera, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
So, here is how Jackg thinks it should read:
Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood (Christ) hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father (Christ incarnate) which is in heaven. 18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock (Christ or God) I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Such a simple verse, what a shame to manipulate it to the extent you take the meaning out, and incorporate some of the Creedal Precepts.
But of Course you say the Creeds don’t count, they are just the guideline backed up by the Word (Christ), of God (Christ/God).
Lets see now, Christ ask Peter who they say he is, Peter responds, thou art the Christ, so far so good. Now flesh and blood, hmmm, tricky insert here, what is the meaning of flesh and blood, we know that Christ was Flesh, Blood and Bones, so it wasn’t him. Aw, but he follows up with, but my Father which is in heaven. Wow, not here on earth, but up in heaven. So did God appear unto Peter, did he speak unto Peter, It is clear though he (God) did something from HEAVEN. But what did he do? 🙂 continued
Continued 🙂 Falcon likes these so I put them in for just his amusement.
So what did God do? Well he revealed from Heaven that Jesus is the Christ. That is something you cannot dismiss, it’s right there in black and white, “But my Father which are in HEAVEN. Amazing.
Now upon this rock, sometimes I hear Christians state that It means Peter, but now you’re telling me it’s Christ. Hmmm, unity of faith, isn’t there something about unity of Faith in the scriptures, oh well lets get back to this really simple scripture that has everyone in a flux.
So right after Peter claims Jesus is the Christ, and God told him so, we find the following: and upon this rock I will build my Church.
Peter, Christ or Revelation? Since you don’t have a spokesperson that Speaks for God, you kind of have to twist here, bend there, and hopefully wade through all the Scriptures to make any sense out of it. 🙂
So lets just say, we LDS know it to be Revelation and Christ, and you guys can sort out if its Peter or Christ.
Good luck.
Richard.
The papyri used by Joseph Smith to bring about the Book of Abraham especially in his explanations of the Facsimiles are on display today for anyone wanting to seriously look at the evidence. It’s displayed at the top of this thread. The LDS Church has these in their possession. Again, I refer the reader to the quotes I gave in the article. More is coming in part 2.
It is clear that Joseph Smith’s rendition and re-working of the Facsimiles is in error. What Joseph Smith filled in with his drawings to replace the torn pieces of the fragment do not match these common Egyptian burial papyri. Joseph Smith didn’t know what he was doing. He could con the other Mormons because nobody could correct him. Nobody in North America at that time knew anything about Egyptology. Today we do and Joseph Smith has been shown to be in error and his credentials as a prophet are once again washed away.
REQUEST: Please supply the names and titles of any Egyptologist oustide of BYU who agrees that Joseph Smith’s translation of the papyri parchments and facsimiles explanations are correct. Is there any non-Mormon Egyptologist that says Smith got it right? I know of NONE.
Dr. Richard Parker, Department of Egyptology, Brown University, states: “The pictures you [Marvin Cowan] sent me [from the Book of Abraham] are based upon Egyptian originals but are poor or distorted copies…The explanations are completely wrong insofar as any interpretation of the Egyptian original is concerned…Number 1 is an altered copy of a well known scene of the dead god Osiris on his bier with a jackal-god Anubis acting as his embalmer.”
Hank, I pray God opens the eyes of your heart so you can see the truth. The concept above regarding being like Peter in regards to revelation is a simple concept. It really is. All you have done is dig in your heels and are not even discussing. Maybe this is our fault, too, but I really do pray you relax and separate yourself from your defensive position and really consider what it is we are saying about Peter’s revelation and how you are not exactly like Peter.
Andy, I’d love to see such a list, too.
If you take the drawing above showing the complete picture of what an actual document like this looks like, and compare it with what JS filled in it reveals how completely JS got EVERYTHING wrong. There is literally nothing that he added that is correct, nothing. It’s like one of those drawing where you look for the differences, only what JS did is so blatantly wrong that there is no challenge.
Here are the differences I see broke down in Non-Egyptologist lingo (how many can you find?):
1) The real guy has no shirt, JS filled in the shirt all the way up
2) Real standing guy has a jackal head, JS guy has a head similar to the one laying down
3)Real guy has a whole mess of stuff floating over his belly, JS guy has a simple knife being held over his belly
4)Real bird has a different head than JS bird
Everything filled in by JS is wrong; JS interpretation is completely off (bearing no resemblance to reality.
I could not stand on a faith built on such a farce. If Christians brought forth such a wrongly interpreted and incorrect document in support of our faith we would be rightly ridiculed. The Book of Abraham is indefensible, that’s been confirmed by some of the Mormon arguments above – they won’t defend it, but rather reinterpret it, or just say “you can’t engage every criticism” etc. I agree – you can’t defend it, and by extension JS as a prophet is indefensible.
The what, how and why of the Book of Abraham according to LDS Members.
1). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no official position on how the Book of Abraham was translated or from what papyrus.
2). Approximately 1% thinks that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from the existing fragments that were in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
3). The next largest group thinks that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from papyrus fragments that no longer exist.
4). About one-third think there is or was no connection between the Book of Abraham and any papyrus fragments.
5). The largest group, more than half of church members, do not care where the Book of Abraham came from.
“Critics routinely assert that the Latter-day Saint position is the one that is actually the least popular of all. They want it to be our position because it is the most convenient straw man. The only eyewitness to the translation process to describe it was Joseph Smith’s scribe Warren Parrish, who after he left the church claimed, “I have set by his side and penned down the translation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks as he claimed to receive it by direct inspiration from Heaven.” The majority of Latter-day Saints are probably comfortable leaving discussion of the translation of the Book of Abraham at that”. Dr. Gee.
All I need from Mormons, or anyone for that matter, is for them to tell me who their God is. In the case of Mormons, we know who they claim as God. So their revelation is of a god who, like the gods of the Egyptians, does not exist. Our God is the One, everlasting, never changing deity revealed in His Holy Word. All other “gods” are the figment of someone’s imagination; in the case of Mormons, Joseph Smith’s.
Joseph Smith drew heavily on his experience in the magic arts for guidance. This has has been well documented by Mormon writers Palmer, Bushman and Quinn. So Mormons may wonder why we return constantly to this theme? Well, if you don’t get God right, there’s really no need to go any further with the discussion.
The information presented here regarding the bogus BoA, is just more evidence as to the destructive nature of Mormonism (when it comes to the eternal salvation of those who cast aside God to follow another god). Mormons may as well worship a golden calf because by rejecting God one false god is as good as another.
Falcon,
““Temple Manifestations: Heavenly Manifestations in Temples built by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” by Joseph Heinerman. This book, written by a Mormon, is a virtual guidebook to Mormonism’s connection to the occult and demonic visitations.”
Its getting a bit off topic, but what makes you think these were demonic visitations?
Lurkers, visitors and guest, what is a deflection, and a rabbit trail.
Here is a good example, 🙂 Thanks to our school teacher, Falcon. With a ten year or with out makes no difference.
All I need from Mormons, or anyone for that matter, is for them to tell me who their God is. In the case of Mormons, we know who they claim as God. So their revelation is of a god who, like the gods of the Egyptians, does not exist. Our God is the One, everlasting, never changing deity revealed in His Holy Word. All other “gods” are the figment of someone’s imagination; in the case of Mormons, Joseph Smith’s.
Joseph Smith drew heavily on his experience in the magic arts for guidance. This has has been well documented by Mormon writers Palmer, Bushman and Quinn. So Mormons may wonder why we return constantly to this theme? Well, if you don’t get God right, there’s really no need to go any further with the discussion.
Wow, deflection is noted by changing the topic, most likely due to lack of follow up from his source he gets his borrowed talking points from.
Rabbit trail: introduces new topic, magic arts. What this has to do with “Indecent Exposure” is anyones guess. 🙂
Well anyway the rhetoric is consistent.
Regards Richard. 🙂
RickB,
I found an interesting article about Psalm 20:2-6 written in Demotic script, apparently its modified egyptian writing to fit aramaic.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/601883
I know this isn’t what you requested, in fact you specifically requested the exclusion of mormon commentary about the issue of ‘reformed egyptian’. But I am going to submit it, because I would be interested in reading how a fundementalist christian would debunk it. It gives some examples of ‘reformed egyptian’, although the term is not necessarily used outside of LDS contexts.
The most interesting examples are modified egyptian scripts used to write NON-EGYPTIAN languages.Byblos Syllabic texts, Cretan hieroglyphics, Meroitic.
http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/bom/Reformed_Egyptian.htm
Just had to give another “card” to HankSaint for copying-and-pasting from FARMS in a way that violates the comment policy.
HankSaint, be careful who you call “Christian”. Roman Catholics are the other cult that misinterprets Matthew 16:18. They believe that “Peter” is the “rock” that Christ was speaking of. The Catholics also claim to have a divinely inspired head of their church in the person of the Pope that “speaks for God.” Like Mormons they claim to have a line of divinely inspired leaders with pedigrees going all the way back to Peter, an Apostle. Like Mormons they also claim unity of faith, but when their doctrines and beliefs are examined it becomes apparent that everyone is not on the same page. You cannot even get two prophets to agree on the nature of God. So much for your infallible Presidents. Like the Mormons they blame our doctrine of Sola Scriptura for all of the fractures in our denominations and they scoff at only using the Bible. Like the Mormons they claim to use the Bible, but when push comes to shove they also bring up textual variations, corruption of scripture, church traditions become doctrine, and further contradictory revelation by their divinely inspired leaders. Catholics are also famous for denying some of their more blashpemous doctrines like the worship of saints and their exaltation of the Virgin Mary to co-redemptrix status. Am I wrong in stating that a person must have a personal testimony about believing JS was a prophet of God to gain exaltation? I don’t see Jesus Christ anywhere in the standard LDS testimony except for in the name of your organization.
So how do we know who is right? Sounds like Mormons and Catholics have dualing inspired, infallible heads of their churches. Both choose to deny the Bible when it refutes their doctrine. We know who is right by using scripture to interpret scripture, not so-called revelation. The Bible is our standard of truth. Go to clear verses like 1 Corinthians 3:11 “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Or Ephesians 2:20 for your answer.
Poor Hank,
He’s really struggling here. He still can’t quite get it right regarding my professional status and I’m not going to help him out. He parrots the “borrowed talking points” comment which is not unlike other Mormon slogans. Another sign he’s getting overwhelmed. Actually, that’s kind of funny coming from a guy who’s gotten carded twice in two days for cutting and pasting from a Mormon flak website. I think in psychology this is called “projection”.
Enki,
Actually the topic of spiritual influences is not off topic. How did JS claim he received and interpreted the BoM? What spirit was he operating under. I’ll give you an example from “Temple Manifestations” and you tell me what spiritual entity is involved.
“There were other spiritual incidents which were manifested in the St. George Temple when the spirits in prison sought for the performances of their temple ordinances. Perhaps the best known of these instances is the coming of signers of the Declaration of Independence to President Wilford Woodruff in the St George Temple in early March, 1877. Six months later he described the coming of these beings to him in an address delivered in the tabernacle……’every one of these men that signed the Declaration of Independence with General Washington called upon me, as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Temple at St. George, two consecutive nights, and demanded at my hands that I should go forth and attend to the ordinances of the house of God for them.’ (p. 69)
Now anyone who can’t discern what was going on in regards to this account is surely without any discernment and is indeed blinded by the spirit of this world. This is spiritism and it is what passes as a spiritual experience within Mormonism. The conjuring-up of the spirits of dead people is nothing more than a seance.
Our topic here is the credibility of the BoA. Given the spiritual influences within Mormonism, the reader can be the judge.
Enki, I am not going to try and debunk it, I figure that if the only source that exists is from LDS then that to me just wont work. If reformed Egyptian
Really does exist, then it would be used or mentioned by a credible source. I know that seems harsh but, if the evidence really is their and so over whelming then their must be more.
But if as I believe, JS lied and lead people astray, then I believe that their are some high ranking LDS that know their church is a lie and maybe for money, power or something else, they will continue to lie and make things up.
So as I said, if it really does exist then their must be other outside neutral sources.
Take many Atheists, Many will admit it seems they found Noahs ark, or they admit to the evidence from the dead Sea scrolls, Do they come to admit in Jesus? No, but they at least are honest about the other evidence. Same goes for this, if it is real then their MUST be other groups who can verify it. Look at the debate on the Papyri scrolls, they needed people from outside the LDS faith to view them and say yes or no they are real or fake. Rick b
So, someone may ask, what does any of this have to do with the BoA? It has everything to do with it because it reveals the spirit of the god that is recognized, acknowledged and worshiped within Mormonism. From his earliest years, Joseph Smith operated under a spirit of deception. He defrauded people by convincing them that he could see buried treasure in the ground by the use of his magic rock. These poor dupes would be conned into paying Smith money for the privilege of going on fictitious treasure hunts. He was convicted in a court of law as a disorderly person for his activities. When he turned to religion he operated under this same spirit of deceit to pull any number of con jobs including his work of fiction, the BoM, and also his sexual seduction of young girls and married women. The guy was a snake!
Mormons have had to rewrite history to present this guy in a favorable light which continues the deceit. The evidence regarding the BoA is overwhelming in showing that it (BoA) was just one more of Smith’s cons. The fact that the TBMs can’t see it speaks volumes to the spirit of deceit that infects them and clouds even their most basic reasoning abilities.
Hank, what is a ten year? Do you mean tenure? What sets Joseph Smith apart from men like Jim Jones and David Koresh? Their followers had the same commitment you have to Joseph Smith. Do you ever look at that similarity?
When Hank says “ten year” to Falcon in a derogatory sense what I believe Hank really means is the word TENURE (a scholastic term that in my line of work we call “seniority”). If Hank doesn’t know the word TENURE and says TEN YEAR instead, then I believe it further weakens his proposition of intellectual horsepower in attempts to downsize Falcon. It’s unfortunate that Hank and many Mormons in their attempts at making a point on a position that is indefensible for their cause, they decide to attack someone personally in something they know nothing about. If one can’t win or prove their argument, then go after the person in some other way that has nothing to do with the subject. It’s immature, childish, pathetic and shows great weakness educationally in not being able to debate a point without going down that road. I know Falcon personally outside of MC – Hank doesn’t. Falcon is highly educated, brilliant, sharp, firm in the Faith and loves Jesus Christ.
I was really hoping that Hank or any of our Mormon posters would come to my aid and grant me my request of supplying any Egyptologist outside of BYU who is non-Mormon who agrees that Joseph Smith’s translation and explanations as stated in the BoA are correct. This should be a “red flag” of concern for Mormons. It’s sad and unfortunate that the LDS Church has put its people “in a box” on this indefensible claim in the BoA. The only place that the Mormons can run to are BYU, FAIR or FARMS articles and none of these venues have any LDS Church authority and don’t speak for the Church.
I feel bad for Hank in that it appears he has been abandoned by his Church members on this thread. They were out in full-force on the thread about becoming gods. Now they have grown silent. Hank would be well-served to drop the militant, smug attitude that comes across here. I’ve warned him to stop because he doesn’t realize how he is coming across in his remarks.
I look forward to my requested list. Thanks!
🙂 Aaron, just a question. I understand the first time I was carded, if you could please point out my second mistake it would be appreciated. I went back and have no idea what you carded me for the second time. If you get a chance it would be really appreciated.
Another question of the rules, the following is something I totally agree with,
“Welcome to our coffee house. We have some simple rules:
Don’t attack a person as a substitute for dealing with their positions”.
With out mentioning one persons name, I was wondering why this is not used on some of your faithful Christian poster? Just wondering if there might be a bias, or selective use of this rule. 🙂
Sincerely, Richard Johnson.
Andy stated, “I feel bad for Hank in that it appears he has been abandoned by his Church members on this thread. They were out in full-force on the thread about becoming gods. Now they have grown silent. Hank would be well-served to drop the militant, smug attitude that comes across here. I’ve warned him to stop because he doesn’t realize how he is coming across in his remarks.
Well Andy, guess what good buddy. I came here to post, and my first responder was your good friend Falcon. Did he greet me with love and compassion? no, but in his usual fashion denigrated me, and all Mormons under his usual umbrella of sarcasm, witty remarks, and name calling.
I notice most other posters here are not so condescending as your good Christian and Fellowshipper Falcon has become. 🙂
Being a General Contractor, does in no way make me a expert or a learned professor in the art of debating and use of some terms. Tenure is good, for all those out there who have faulted me on my english skills, just remember Christ did not go to the learned, but picked his disciples from the working class, everyday Fishermen, etc. Correcting me is fine, labeling me as lacking in intellectual horsepower is fine, but what you can not take away from me is the truth that has set me free, and that no one can know that, ” Jesus is the Christ”, without revelation from Heaven. Good day to all. I have been carded and am only allowed to post per day. Interesting.
richard. 🙂
Hank,
It was just a guess on my part that you meant “tenure” instead of “ten year”. Look, it’s no big deal as far as I’m concerned. It’s only a big deal if you come across as attacking someone’s educational ranking or profession. It came across as that way to me. If it wasn’t and you really meant something else, then I think you could clear it up later.
I’ve already told you what I do for a living so you know I’m just a working “grunt” like most. I can relate very well to the employment status of the disciples that Jesus picked. Jesus was a blue-collar grunt too and he learned His trade from his eartly father, Joseph. Jesus Christ can use anyone despite their employment professions and intellectual horsepower. Praise God for that! The important thing in that is choosing the right Savior. The “jesus” of the Mormons is not the Jesus Christ of Christianity.
“It is true that many of the Christian churches worship a different Jesus Christ than is worshipped by the Mormons. Christ followed by the Mormons is not the Christ followed by traditional Christianity.” (Bernard P. Brockbank, Elder, First Quorum of the Seventy, 147th LDS General Conference, Ensign, May 1977, page 26)
Have a nice weekend!
[email protected]
I didn’t mean to insult your intelligence either. But I would still like to know what elevates Joseph Smith to a status of prophet when Jim Jones and David Koresh also called themselves true men of God? You don’t believe in the teachings of the latter two men. So why in the face of evidence against the BoA do you cling to Joseph Smith? Please start to examine this and open your mind to the fact that JS may have been a con man.
When someone says that they have received “revelation” that Jesus is the Christ, that means a certain thing to me. If when I ask them who is this Jesus that has been revealed, by heaven to them, as being the Christ and they describe a being that is the offspring of a mother and father god that live on a planet somewhere near the star Kolob and that this jesus is the spirit brother of Satan, I dismiss them and their revelation.
Then when I read and study and find out who these folks claim as a prophet, what was his character, influences and “spiritual” practices, that just fills in any remaining gaps regarding the source of their revelation of “jesus” being the “christ”. These folks are deluded, without question. Deluded to the point where they think that they will also become a god, have their own planetary system and have endless celestial sex with their goddess wife or wives depending on their circumstances. And they believe this and will defend their false prophet at all costs to maintain the deluded state they find themselves in.
The only question, I guess, is why do we waste our time interacting with people who spiritually have no grasp on reality? Well I guess if they were just off doing their little deal, we’d simply ignore them. But the fact that they claim to be Christian and through sins of omission and deceit are trying to seduce others into joining this delusion, gives us a responsibility before God to defend the Faith.
So why do people choose to believe such obviously fraudulent concepts, principles, teachings, practices and “writings”? Well, there’s a variety of techniques that are use to seduce people into believing, what seems to a rational mind, loony and laughable. What a “prophet” will do, for instance, is convince the person that what is being proposed is deep, I mean really DEEP, and only those who are truly enlightened can receive this deeply spiritual concept. So if you don’t receive it? Well you’re just not spiritually up to snuff. You just don’t quite have it. You’re still drinking milk and not ready for meat. You feed the person’s ego about how special they are that they can accept and practice, for example, plural marriage. So you get to be in the “in group”.
So when one of our Mormon posters insists that he’s receiving “revelation” just like Peter the apostle, well there you have it. These guys have the super duper priesthood which makes them super duper special and DEEP and mystical, and have I mentioned DEEP? And as a bonus, boys and girls, they get to be gods. Now not everyone can accept this deep, spiritual, mystical teaching and concept. Only the “in” folks can truly get it.
So it doesn’t matter if it’s Joseph Smith, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Charlie Manson or Adolf Hitler for that matter, it’s the same techniques applied to different situations.
Hank, you did a copy and paste from Gee’s article with some minimal editing. If you feel like someone else has violated the comment rules, please e-mail [email protected] or [email protected] with specifics. Thanks,
Aaron
Yesterday Claire Clivaz announce a new New Testament (P 126) papyrus containing parts if the Book of Hebrews dated from the 4th century.
How many Book of Abraham manuscripts do we have?
The LDS Church has 1 manuscript that is made up of 11 fragments for the Book of Abraham and it’s in their possession.
“In 1966 eleven fragments of papyri once possessed by the Prophet Joseph Smith were discovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. They were given to the Church and have been analyzed by scholars who date them between about 100 B.C. and A.D. 100.” (Pearl of Great Price Student Manual Religion 327, p, 28)
The 1 manuscript they have for the Book of Abraham is 1 more than they have for the Book of Mormon. Christianity has almost 26,000 copies of manuscripts for the New Testament alone going back to A.D. 125 while the Mormon Church has ZERO copies for the manuscripts for the Book of Mormon. Somehow, our Mormon friends say that the Bible is not reliable and has no credibility. If one can figure that out please let me know. I’d love to see “reformed Egyptian” writing.
Thomas Monson’s title as prophet also include seer, revelator and translator. He has the BoA fragments. I say that he should go public with them and tell the world exactly what they mean if Smith got it wrong. If Smith didn’t, then Monson should concur with Smith and not be ashamed to say it instead of having the BYU people do his talking for him who have no Church authority.
I’d also like Monson and the Quorum of the Twelve to look at the Bible manuscripts all over the world and translate them correctly and ditch LDS Articles/Creeds of Faith #8. They should make the bold step of writing the Bible correctly if we have it wrong instead of giving away for free on their website a Bible that is not translated correctly. I never understood that. Alas, Monson and the Quorum of the Twelve don’t know Hebrew, Greek & Aramaic. They have Smith’s seer stone. I wish they would use it.
The Community of Christ had the guts to drop the KJV and went with the JST. Then again, they aren’t trying to win a popularity contest either due to sagging membership numbers.
Andy,
I know where the gold plates are. Maybe you can help me a little here, but isn’t there an account about the “witnesses” going up the hill and it opened up in front of them and they saw all of these gold plates like thousands of them setting on tables of stone……something like that.
Well what the Mormon church could do is have the current prophet take Joseph Smith’s seer stone aka “the magic rock” up to the hill there in New York and get a peep inside the earth, kind of like a metal detector. Anyway, when they look through the magic rock and see the gold plates in the ground they could dig until they find them.
Maybe you have a better grasp of the details of this than I do. Joe and his homeboys were really into second sight vision. For those who don’t know what that is, they saw things through the eyes of faith. In-other-words, they imagined what they saw and today’s Mormons think they actually “saw” something.
Andy and Falcon. Apparently HankSaint has the missing papyrus in his possession, and he can read Egyptian, or whatever language the LDS church wants to claim is on the scrolls. He claims to know exactly what was on the papyrus that JS translated from.
Fom post #202 in the August 20 thread: HankSaint said, “written by his own hand, upon papyrus” is really and actually part of the original Egyptian Title, and was Abraham’s own title. Are you starting to get it. Not at all related to Joseph Smith as the originator of this Title.”
So there we have it. I think HankSaint should be promoted to Apostle or maybe even President. All in favor say, “Aye!”
In reality we do have many copies of the scrolls that were found with the mummies seeing how the facsimile in the BoM is from a common funerary text that is well known by Egyptologists. Maybe someone could answer this question for me. We have writings all over the ancient Biblical landscape. We have Babylonian tablets or cylinders, ancient scrolls found with mummies, ancient Greek writing, and even fragments of the OT books, etc. An established culture with writing leaves evidence of its existence. If the BoA was seen as scripture like other Hebrew scriptures, we should find just as many copies of it lying around, or at least other writings that make reference to it, alongside other Hebrew texts. Why do we not find them? They cannot backtrack now and claim that we have the only two in existence, essentially the originals, because we already know LDS claim that the papyrus the church possesses were copies of copies and so forth so many times that, like the Biblical text, error crept in.
If they do want to claim now that we have the originals due to lack of manuscript evidence, then how did these documents from over a thousand years prior end up with mummies from the first centure A.D. or B.C?
Rickb,
Are you saying that Byblos Syllabic texts, Cretan hieroglyphics, Meroitic scripts exist only in the minds of the LDS people. What about the paganized Psalm 20:2-6 written in Demotic script?
You had asked earlier about why would the hebrews write in an enemy script? There is one example, although its small, it exists. There are also examples of egyptian scripts modified for other languages. I don’t think that an LDS scholar made those up. They are using these to show that it is possible that egyptian writings could have been used for hebrew, and has been used for aramaic.
There does appear to be many problems with the appearance of the book of abraham. The disc under the head seems just too egyptian in origin. I have never heard of anything like that in jewish, christian or muslim belief, but there are always new things to learn. Perhaps there is some obscure sect out there that does that or did that. The age of the script also appears to be a problem. Other than that I might be tempted to suspend some disbelief, maybe the script doesn’t read how other scripts read, if its written in a different language. Perhaps the disc thing later became a cultural relic that no longer served its original purpose as a diagram.(kind of like children sleeping with the book under their head, believing they will learn something that way)…eh…thats really, really a stretch! Perhaps the real purpose of the pearl of great price and the book of mormon is to select for people who are just too eager to believe. The question is WHY. What causes people to over look problems, things that don’t fit?
Andy,
“I’d love to see “reformed Egyptian” writing.”
Here is one modified egyptian script, Meroitic, from Cornell university. The script of ancient Nubia (modern Sudan).
http://www.library.cornell.edu/africana/Writing_Systems/Meroitic.html
The one lds site states an egyptian influence on Cretan Hieroglphics, but this source states that its an independent developement. And they do look different. So there is a disagreement between the scholars the LDS source sites, and this.
http://www.kairatos.com.gr/linear1.htm
Byblos Syllabic texts
This wikipedia source states this about the Byblos Syllabic texts:
“Some signs, for example , look like modified common Egyptian hieroglyphs, but there are many others which do not. Hoch (1990) points out that many of the signs seem to derive from Old Kingdom hieratic, rather than directly from hieroglyhic. It is known that from as early as 2600 BC Egyptian influence in Byblos was strong:..”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byblos_syllabary
For comparision, here is what the an LDS believe is modifed egyptian.
http://reformed-egyptian.com/
Falcon said:
“Andy, I know where the gold plates are. Maybe you can help me a little here, but isn’t there an account about the “witnesses” going up the hill and it opened up in front of them and they saw all of these gold plates like thousands of them setting on tables of stone……something like that.”
I think you are referring to this account given by Brigham Young:
“When Joseph got the plates, the angel instructed him to carry them back to the hill Cumorah, which he did. Oliver [Cowdery] says that when Joseph and Oliver went there, the hill opened, and they walked into a cave, in which there was a large and spacious room. He says he did not think, at the time, whether they had the light of the sun or artificial light; but that it was just as light as day. They laid the plates on a table; it was a large table that stood in the room. Under this table there was a pile of plates as much as two feet high, and there were altogether in this room more plates than probably many wagon loads; they were piled up in the corners and along the walls; but when they went again it had been taken down and laid upon the table across the gold plates; it was unsheathed, and on it was written these words: ‘This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and his Christ.’ I tell you this as coming not from Oliver Cowdery, but others who were familiar with it, and who understood it just as well as we understand coming to this meeting, enjoying the day, and by and by we separate and go away, forgetting most of what is said, but remembering some things. So is it with other circumstances in life. I relate this to you, and I want you to understand it. I take this liberty of referring to those things so that they will not be forgotten and lost.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol.19, pp. 39-40; June 17, 1877)
Falcon,
“The conjuring-up of the spirits of dead people is nothing more than a seance.”
Do LDS people do that? The account sounds like the spirits appeared on their own without any conjuring. Out of curiosity I did attend a church service with “the Aquarian foundation”. That organization claimed to be ‘christian mysteries’ and it openly claimed to be a spiritist church with mediums, ‘holy communion seances’, spiritual healing sessions, spiritual readings etc…
I was expecting things to be really scary, but it was just cheesy, like adults playing make believe. One similiarity with mormons is that there were two different levels of association with the organization, and two seperate services. One was open to the general public, the other was only available to the intiated. They played a recording of the founder speaking while he was supposed to be channeling a spirit. I thought I would witness a live session, but nothing doing. It was actually quite boring, didn’t seem to have anything remarkable other than theatrics, with added sound effects to make it more dramatic.
They did believe in contact with the spirits of the dead, but to my knowledge they never did rituals on their behalf. I never quite understood what exactly they thought was the purpose for trying to contact them. Some have suggested that such things are just people acting, and taking advantage of people who are grieving for the departed.
The work of demons? Why would a demon support anything even vaguely christian? Anything advancing the name of ‘jesus christ’ isn’t the work of a demon. Isn’t there the fundementalist christian belief that there is power associated even with the mention of the name ‘jesus christ’?
liv4jc said:
“If they do want to claim now that we have the originals due to lack of manuscript evidence, then how did these documents from over a thousand years prior end up with mummies from the first centure A.D. or B.C?”
Along those lines I have OTHER QUESTIONS: How and why would the writings of Abraham either by himself or some other devout Jew get placed inside the mummified remains of an Amon-Ra priest who was a pagan? Why would the Jews put their writings with these pagan Egyptians? The importance of Abraham to the Jewish people is tremendous. They would have a tight grip on his supposed writings. It makes no sense historically, spiritually or religiously for these supposed writings to just get put inside the mummy of an Amon-Ra priest.
ANOTHER QUESTION: If the Book of Abraham isn’t an actual translation, but rather only a revelation that was given to Joseph Smith not dependent upon the Facsimiles or the papyri as is claimed by the Mormon Church today in some scholarly circles, then why would the Mormon Church spend so much money to purchase these Egyptian papyri parchments?
Andy,
That is a strange account indeed of a cave and room full of gold plates. If there were so many, why is it that some of these aren’t found? From what I understand there was plenty of mayan, olmec, aztec gold etc…but it was distinctly native american, non-christian. But who knows with all the stealing of riches its possible that gold plates also got melted down along with other objects.
It seems like there should be some, and especially other copies of the BOM in the original gold plate format. The idea that they are protected because of the gold content is kind of slim. Some objects can actually have much, much greater value than gold, for various reasons. Gold objects have arrived to the hands of museums intact, but I am sure what would be of greater value is the CONTEXT of how they were found, for archeology. Yes someone could potentially get very, very rich from finding an original gold copy of the BOM. But if they were smart, they would realize that it would have the greatest value as an intact book. If you melted it down into a bar, it would only have the value of any other bar of gold of equal weight. It would be evidence, and the world could examine it, and discuss it. Still might not believe it, trust it etc…but that would still be a matter of faith.
Enki wrote “Isn’t there the fundementalist christian belief that there is power associated even with the mention of the name ‘jesus christ’?”
Enki,
I think, sadly, you’re right to a degree – there are some Christians who believe that the name ‘Jesus Christ’ has a kind of magical power. When I was a young Christian, I thought this for a short while, before I found that appending the words ‘Jesus Christ’ to my prayers did not guarantee the outcomes that I wished for.
This problem comes, I think, from an immature reading of passages such as John 14:13-14. On the face of it, these passages appear to guarantee an outcome if we use “the name”. This approach falls apart, however, in the context of such verses as John 1:12 and John 2:23. What these, and other verses, indicate is that “the name” means something other than a magical incantation.
There are, I think, two inter-related things happening here; one is that ancient near eastern people closely associated a person’s reputation and character with his name; the other is that, to the Hebrews, there was only one “name” – that of YHWH, the Nameless one Himself (Ex 3:14).
So, when John says something like “believe in Jesus’ name”, he is saying like “believe in the kind of person Jesus is”. He’s also equating Jesus with YHWH (and there is only one “Name above all names” Phil 2:9-11, despite what Ralph and others assert).
Also, when we go “in Jesus’ name”, we’re saying that we represent Jesus and what he stood for. Misrepresenting “the Name” is actually a direct contravention of the intent of the 3rd commandment (Ex 20:7). This means that if we proclaim a Christian Gospel, we need to be really careful that it is Jesus’ message we proclaim, and not something that is opposed to it.
This is what should inform us when we pray “in Jesus’ name”. The message we should hear is that we need to pray for the kinds of things Jesus wants to happen, and we need to trust in the kind of person He is, to answer our prayers
Enki,
You bring up an interesting point about the demons showing-up on their own and also the name of Jesus. A book could be written on this topic. First of all, let me say that this is an important and related issue to our topic at hand. If we know the spirit under which a religion is operating, than we know what we need to know about the source of that religion. It’s part of the folklore of Mormonism, that the spirits of dead people will manifest themselves through the “thin veil” during the baptism for the dead rituals. We know these spirits aren’t those of the dead but demonic spirits. The conditions are being created by which these demonic spirits are being welcomed into the environment of the Mormon temple. We also know that Joseph Smith was a practitioner of folk magic and that the rituals he introduced into Mormonism came either partially or wholly from Free Masonry. The sad thing is that Mormons think they are involved in sacred, spiritual rituals.
As to the name of Jesus, there are a couple of accounts in the Book of Acts that are instructive. Look at Acts 19:13-16. A couple of Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of Jesus to deal with a demon possessed man and got the snot kicked out of them (by the man). If you continue to read it talks about how “believers” who had continued to practice magic arts brought there books, burned them and confessed their sins regarding these practices. There’s also the account of the demon possessed girl (spirit of divination) in Acts 16:16-19. She was following them around yelling “These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.” She did this for several days until Paul commanded, in the name of Jesus, that the demon come out of her. He did this because he didn’t want that demon possessed girl to be associated with the living God in a way that would seduce and fool people.
Enki said
My answer would be yes. Satan will do anything to destroy people. there is plenty of evidence that the BoM and the BoA is a fraud. How come the only evidence I’m asking for can be found among LDS?
It’s not like non-believers are hiding the fact because they have some hidden agenda. Your not going to go to the Smithsonian and find it their, or take on-line classes and learn it as a second language. It seems if the only people who now it exist are LDS, Then does it really exist? If yes how come no evidence can be brought fourth? Thats all I’m asking. Rick b
For those of you who have seen a few new blog posts appear and this disappear, it’s because I accidentally misscheduled them. They should still be on the posting schedule but weren’t meant to be released this week.
I have hated missing this thread, in large part because the BOA is such an interesting study and critics usually have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Couple of interesting points:
Ancient Egyptian texts have been discovered with striking similarities to facsimiles 1 & 2, but with references to Abraham. The text called “Leiden I 384” contains an illustration of a lion couch scene not unlike facsimile 1. The papyri with this text and illustration comes from Thebes and dates to the same period as the Joseph Smith Papyri. The text next to the illustration reads “The sacrifice (or burning) of ….” Below this scene in the text is the sentence fragment “Let Abraham who …. upon… wonder marvelously …”
The British Museum contains the Demotic Magic Papyrus, dating to the same period in Egypt. In this text is the phrase “Abraham, the pupil (and iris) of the wedjat-eye.” The phrase “the pupil of the wedjat-eye” is an epithet for a hypocephalus. The round figures were given this name due their resemblence to an eye. This reference to Abraham in the text falls in a portion wherein is given instructions of obtaining revelations. Interesting that facsimile 2 in the BOA has much to do with receiving revelation.
Both John Gee and Michel Rhodes have used these examples, discovered and translated by non-mormons, in their arguments for the BOA.
Familiar with the Apocalypse of Abraham? It is a 1st century AD document recording many Abrahamic traditions and pseudoepigraphic writings. In these supposed writings of Abraham, he describes “what is in the heavens, on the earth, in the sea, in the abyss, and in the lower depths.” The BOA has very similar language in describing Abrahams visions from God.
He also sees “the fullness of the universe and its circles in all.” He describes seeing a “picture of creation” with “2 sides.” Interesting description of a hypocephalus. He describes 4 figures in that picture with “the head of a jackal, hawk, etc.” Again- see facsimile 2.
In Apocalypse, Abraham sees “the host of stars, and the orders they were commanded to carry out, and the elements of the earth obeying them.” This is exactly what is described in Abraham 4:1, 18, 21, 25.
He is promised the priesthood which is to continue with his posterity and be associated with the temple.
In the Testament of Abraham, another pseudoepigraphic document, Abraham sees a vision of the last judgment and angels holding scales, weighing the souls of men. Non-LDS experts agree his description is a clear reference to the 125th chapter of the Book of the Dead. Interestingly, facsimile 3 in the BOA portrays the next step in the judgment as one is brought before Osiris.
Couple other points. Critics insist that the fragments we possess today are what Joseph translated the BOA from. Giving them that point for sake of argument- consider the following two things. Due to the fragmentary nature of many of the surviving Egyptian papyri, non-LDS Egyptologists have come up with complex formulas to determine the length of original papyri based on the features of the much smaller surviving fragments. John Gee applied this formula to the Joseph Smith fragments and the predicted length of the original is over 20 feet long.
Another criticism is that the fragments of text we possess do not reference Abraham. There are several examples of papyri containing versions of the Book of the Dead that also contain other writings and text. One such example includes the story of a person who was sacrificed on an alter by the priest of Pharoah.
In the rush to win the argument, most critics are blinded to some pretty interesting finds and correlations.
RickB,
I made a post for Andy of some interesting links. One link about a modified egyptian script, Meroitic, was from Cornell university.
Another was of a link about Psalm 20:2-6 written in Demotic script, apparently its modified egyptian writing to fit aramaic. It was from JSTOR, associated with the University of California.
So these examples of modified egyptian scripts mean absolutely nothing? The most interesting is the ‘paganized script’ of Psalm 20.
Its not fantastic proof in and of itself, but christians dismiss problems of aramaic writing in the O.T. because it appears in scripts elsewhere. Why is there this double standard?