Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

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Shulem
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Re: Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

Post by Shulem »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 8:05 pm
Shulem wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 5:03 pm



Can you provide an example of this in the teachings of Joseph Smith?
The JST.

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (the book).

Regards,
MG

The Book of Moses was certainly the grandest part of the JST. The vision of Moses and the chapters from that account has some pretty amazing stories in them. The creativity and depth therein is definitely on par with the Book of Mormon. Here, perhaps, is another example of midrash in which Smith worked on but did not process or refine in order to ready it for publication:

Joseph Smith wrote: Valuable Discovery of
hidden records that have
been obtained from the ancient
burial place of the Egyptians,
Joseph Smith Jr.


Image

Katumin, Princess, daughter of On-i-tos Pharaoh- King
of Egypt, who began to reign in the year of the
World 2962
Katumin was born in the 30th year of the reign of her
father, and died when she was 28 years old, which was
the year 3020.


Image

Needless to say, the information from the above statement finds no place in legitimate Egyptian history or chronology. It is 100% fictitious. Does that qualify it as midrash?
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Re: Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

Post by MG 2.0 »

Shulem wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 8:46 pm
MG 2.0 wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 8:05 pm


The JST.

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (the book).

Regards,
MG

The Book of Moses was certainly the grandest part of the JST. The vision of Moses and the chapters from that account has some pretty amazing stories in them. The creativity and depth therein is definitely on par with the Book of Mormon. Here, perhaps, is another example of midrash in which Smith worked on but did not process or refine in order to ready it for publication:

Joseph Smith wrote: Valuable Discovery of
hidden records that have
been obtained from the ancient
burial place of the Egyptians,
Joseph Smith Jr.


Image

Katumin, Princess, daughter of On-i-tos Pharaoh- King
of Egypt, who began to reign in the year of the
World 2962
Katumin was born in the 30th year of the reign of her
father, and died when she was 28 years old, which was
the year 3020.


Image

Needless to say, the information from the above statement finds no place in legitimate Egyptian history or chronology. It is 100% fictitious. Does that qualify it as midrash?
Something like that. Possibly mixed with some inspiration/revelation.

I’d guess that you are aware of competing views to your own on the Katumin controversy.

https://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blog ... neage.html
let’s review the other translations for Katumin in the Egyptian Alphabet sections of the Kirtland Egyptian papers, where it is spelled “Kah tou mun.” Remember, that in the Egyptian alphabet, some of the translations are presented in order of five “degrees”:

1st degree: “The name of a royal family in the female line.”
2nd degree: “A distinction of royal female lineage.”
3rd degree: “Descent from her by whom Egypt was discovered while it was under water.”
4th degree: “A lineage, a daughter of Ham.”
5th degree: “A lineage with whom a record of the fathers was entrusted by tradition of Ham, and according to the tradition of the elders, by whom also the tradition of the art of embalming was kept.”

Similarly, for the word “Ho oop hah,” here are the five degrees:
First Degree: “Crown of a princess, or unmarried queen.”
Second Degree: “Crown of a married queen.”
Third Degree: “Crown of a widowed queen.”
Fourth Degree: “Queen who has been married the second time.”
Fifth Degree: “Queen Kah tou mun: a distinction of Royal female lineage or descent, from her whom Egypt was discovered while it was under water, who was the daughter of Ham.— a lineage with whom a record of the fathers was entrusted by the tradition of Ham and accord ding to the tradition of their elders; by whom also the tradition of the art of embalming in was kept.”

It is interesting that some of the degrees here seem to go along with the life-stages of a certain queen along the path of her life, as if the degrees sometimes correspond to time in some way.

Even though this hieroglyph for the Cobra is used to spell other things, the general word in Egyptian for Cobra is Iaret, pronounced “Yaret.” Usually, another hieroglyph for the Cobra, Gardiner’s sign list I12, is used to represent Iaret:

Image

The Greek word for this is Uraeus. What are some of the other readings of Iaret/Cobra? As Professor Scott B. Noegel, Chair, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Washington tells us:

Image

("On Puns and Divination: Egyptian Dream Exegesis from a Comparative Perspective," http://faculty.washington.edu/snoegel/P ... 202006.pdf)
As Professor Noegel transliterates it here, Uraeus/ Iaret/Cobra can also be read as KT or KTY, which are the first two consonants of the name KaTumin! As for the other consonants, as observed by Vincent Coon, the hieroglyphic after this actually spell an M sound in the word mdw, (or the Hebrew mateh/rod, as Vincent points out, acrophonically representing an M), and then following that are the Egyptian uniliteral letters I (the reed symbol) and N (the water symbol), going from right to left here:

Image

In other words, in the very hieroglyphics pointed out by Joseph Smith, spells out the very name of Princess Katumin.

It is predictable that there would be some pushback from ex- and anti-Mormons about the idea of the mdw pillar/pole hieroglyph standing for the M sound as a uniliteral, when it is typically a trilateral. Nevertheless, as certain authors have put it:

"A major change in hieroglyphs took place under the Ptolemaic Dynasty (305-30 BC), when Egypt was ruled by a Greek dynasty. During this time the Egyptians created many new glyphs. Priests were especially interested in writing religious texts in more mysterious and complex manners. The priests often used new glyphs to form specialized codes and puns understood only by a group of religious initiates. After the Romans conquered Egypt in 30 BC, the use of hieroglyphs declined, and eventually their use died out. The last firmly datable hieroglyphic inscription was written in AD 394." (http://history-world.org/hieroglyphics.htm)
Is your statement concerning Joseph’s treatment of Katumin as cut and dried as you think it is?

Now, I’m no expert. But I am smart enough to know that there are competing theories on lots of things. And some pretty smart people, yes with their own agendas, holding on to one over the other.

Regards,
MG
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Re: Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

Post by Shulem »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 10:23 pm
Is your statement concerning Joseph’s treatment of Katumin as cut and dried as you think it is?

Now, I’m no expert. But I am smart enough to know that there are competing theories on lots of things. And some pretty smart people, yes with their own agendas, holding on to one over the other.

I’ve spent many an hour pondering the Katumin name controversy in the KEP and researched the matter using conventional Egyptology based on accepted standards set by scholars who understand the language. The dissection of hieroglyphs in the Kirtland Papers is anything but conventional. The fact remains that those hieroglyphs used to decipher this name do not represent “Katumin” nor bear the pronunciation required to produce the name. Conventional Egyptology does not recognize this nor does it lend support to pseudo-Egyptology invented by Mormon apologists attempting to throw smart spaghetti against the wall in order to make something stick, anything and everything. I understand how apologists attempt to find a backdoor using symbolism in which to bend and twist to make something appear. I used to do just that! But the name Katumin is not pronounced in those hieroglyphs any more than a king’s name is not found or pronounced in the hieroglyphs of Facsimile No. 3 that lacks a royal Cartouche -- a symbol absolutely required to designate a king’s name. No exceptions!

The name Katumin along with the human hieroglyphic determinative to designate a proper name is as follows:

Image
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Re: Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

Post by Lem »

Shulem wrote:
Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:58 am

I’ve spent many an hour pondering the Katumin name controversy in the KEP and researched the matter using conventional Egyptology based on accepted standards set by scholars who understand the language. The dissection of hieroglyphs in the Kirtland Papers is anything but conventional. The fact remains that those hieroglyphs used to decipher this name do not represent “Katumin” nor bear the pronunciation required to produce the name. Conventional Egyptology does not recognize this nor does it lend support to pseudo-Egyptology invented by Mormon apologists attempting to throw smart spaghetti against the wall in order to make something stick, anything and everything. I understand how apologists attempt to find a backdoor using symbolism in which to bend and twist to make something appear. I used to do just that! But the name Katumin is not pronounced in those hieroglyphs any more than a king’s name is not found or pronounced in the hieroglyphs of Facsimile No. 3 that lacks a royal Cartouche -- a symbol absolutely required to designate a king’s name. No exceptions!

The name Katumin along with the human hieroglyphic determinative to designate a proper name is as follows:

Image
Shulem, am I correct that the blog entry from “egyptianalphabetandgrammar”
that was quoted earlier
was written by Ed Goble?
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Re: Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

Post by Shulem »

Lem wrote:
Mon Sep 27, 2021 3:50 am
Shulem, am I correct that the blog entry from “egyptianalphabetandgrammar”
that was quoted earlier
was written by Ed Goble?

I believe so, Lem.

The link that MG provided to the pseudo-Egyptian article was “Posted by Kokobim”; here is a recent post on another board that certainly supports the assertion that this person is Ed Goble:

by EdGoble1 » April 25th, 2020, 12:07 pm . . . Hi. This is Ed Goble. . . . Ed Goble kokobim@gmail.com

Ed has had a hard time getting fellow LDS apologists to accept his work and embrace his ideas and interpretations. We experienced his presence recently on this board and unfortunately the thread was ill-mannered having landed on the Terrestrial Forum where the temptation to commit all manner of offenses is so prevalent that it’s nearly impossible to maintain peace and civility. As you know, Ed recently stopped by the Celestial Forum as a drive by and dropped off this thread: Apologists Peddling False Narratives to point readers to his latest paper which has since been taken down. I have made several comments about that work in this thread. Ed Goble has run away and not come back.

BUT, you know as well as I do, Ed will eventually come back because the nature of his nature is to be consistent and he won’t be able to resist.

Hi Ed!

;)
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Re: Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

Post by Shulem »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 8:03 pm
And so, here we are living with the result of John Taylor’s decision to canonize the PofGP, including the Book of Abraham.

What kind of results or outlook regarding the Book of Abraham existed prior to Taylor’s canonization? You’ve mentioned several times that Brigham Young may have had less of an inclination to move forward with canonization but the fact is that the Book of Abraham was already accepted as scripture in the Church but simply had not been formally canonized.

Here is an example to demonstrate that the brethren of the Church under Brigham Young’s leadership in 1859 accepted the Book of Abraham as scripture as apostle Orson Pratt bears testimony of that belief:

A Sermon by Elder Orson Pratt, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, July 10, 1859

Orson Pratt wrote: I then became intimately acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith, and continued intimately acquainted with him until the day of his death. I had the great privilege, when I was in from my missions, of boarding the most of the time at his house, so that I not only knew him as a public teacher, but as a private citizen, as a husband and father. I witnessed his earnest and humble devotions both morning and evening in his family. I heard the words of eternal life flowing from his mouth, nourishing, soothing, and comforting his family, neighbors, and friends. I saw his countenance lighted up as the inspiration of the Holy Ghost rested upon him, dictating the great and most precious revelations now printed for our guide. I saw him translating, by inspiration, the Old and New Testaments, and the inspired book of Abraham from Egyptian papyrus.

PS. Philo, you gotta love the Pratt brothers!

;)
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Re: Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

Post by MG 2.0 »

Shulem wrote:
Mon Sep 27, 2021 3:34 pm
MG 2.0 wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 8:03 pm
And so, here we are living with the result of John Taylor’s decision to canonize the PofGP, including the Book of Abraham.

What kind of results or outlook regarding the Book of Abraham existed prior to Taylor’s canonization? You’ve mentioned several times that Brigham Young may have had less of an inclination to move forward with canonization but the fact is that the Book of Abraham was already accepted as scripture in the Church but simply had not been formally canonized.

Here is an example to demonstrate that the brethren of the Church under Brigham Young’s leadership in 1859 accepted the Book of Abraham as scripture as apostle Orson Pratt bears testimony of that belief:

A Sermon by Elder Orson Pratt, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, July 10, 1859

Orson Pratt wrote: I then became intimately acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith, and continued intimately acquainted with him until the day of his death. I had the great privilege, when I was in from my missions, of boarding the most of the time at his house, so that I not only knew him as a public teacher, but as a private citizen, as a husband and father. I witnessed his earnest and humble devotions both morning and evening in his family. I heard the words of eternal life flowing from his mouth, nourishing, soothing, and comforting his family, neighbors, and friends. I saw his countenance lighted up as the inspiration of the Holy Ghost rested upon him, dictating the great and most precious revelations now printed for our guide. I saw him translating, by inspiration, the Old and New Testaments, and the inspired book of Abraham from Egyptian papyrus.

PS. Philo, you gotta love the Pratt brothers!

;)
I suppose one could take Orson’s commentary in regards to Joseph’s countenance “lighted up” when receiving revelation at face value. Pun intended. The thing is, Orson wasn’t present at many if not most (?) of the times when Joseph was working on the Book of Abraham project. If I’m not mistaken, church history extracts from journals, etc., show Joseph spending some time here, and a little time there, from one day to the next…intermittently…working on the ‘translation’. Orson, of course, would not have been present during these times. Were these segmented periods of time where Joseph was working on the translation occasions when Joseph was engaged in midrashic composition of sorts? Exegesis on Old Testament writings combined with ‘interpreting’ what he saw on the papyri?

Or was it 100% pure revelation with his face “lighted up”? I rather doubt it. But I could be wrong.

Orson’s testimony may not give us the full picture of the Book of Abraham project that Joseph was engaged in. And Orson may not have been privy to that full picture.

Regards,
MG
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Re: Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

Post by Lem »

Shulem wrote:
Mon Sep 27, 2021 1:37 pm
Lem wrote:
Mon Sep 27, 2021 3:50 am
Shulem, am I correct that the blog entry from “egyptianalphabetandgrammar”
that was quoted earlier
was written by Ed Goble?

I believe so, Lem.

The link that MG provided to the pseudo-Egyptian article was “Posted by Kokobim”; here is a recent post on another board that certainly supports the assertion that this person is Ed Goble:

by EdGoble1 » April 25th, 2020, 12:07 pm . . . Hi. This is Ed Goble. . . . Ed Goble kokobim@gmail.com

Ed has had a hard time getting fellow LDS apologists to accept his work and embrace his ideas and interpretations….
I can imagine why. I recall a couple of threads discussing his ideas about how to read and interpret hieroglyphics and hieratic script, reading that excerpt from his blog brought back those conversations. The key take away that I recall was that in his urgency to maintain his starting conditions of belief, he searched for what looked to him like any possible (or even nowhere near a) match and stretched way beyond any accepted methodology to force connections that simply are not there.

Calling his work “a competing theor[y]” to the well established and accepted interpretations is highly inaccurate.
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Re: Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

Post by Shulem »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Mon Sep 27, 2021 4:33 pm
I suppose one could take Orson’s commentary in regards to Joseph’s countenance “lighted up” when receiving revelation at face value. Pun intended. The thing is, Orson wasn’t present at many if not most (?) of the times when Joseph was working on the Book of Abraham project. If I’m not mistaken, church history extracts from journals, etc., show Joseph spending some time here, and a little time there, from one day to the next…intermittently…working on the ‘translation’. Orson, of course, would not have been present during these times. Were these segmented periods of time where Joseph was working on the translation occasions when Joseph was engaged in midrashic composition of sorts? Exegesis on Old Testament writings combined with ‘interpreting’ what he saw on the papyri?

Or was it 100% pure revelation with his face “lighted up”? I rather doubt it. But I could be wrong.

Orson’s testimony may not give us the full picture of the Book of Abraham project that Joseph was engaged in. And Orson may not have been privy to that full picture.

We have the testimonials from all of the brethren who worked with Joseph Smith on the Book of Abraham translation from Oliver Cowdery to Warren Parrish (whom you recently discounted) and every single testimonial (including Warren Parrish his appointed scribe) bears testimony that the work was a divine revelation. That *IS* the full picture! The testimony of many bearing witness and are all agreed -- and every word is therefore established in meeting the law of witnesses. The Urim and Thummim is even mentioned in some of those testimonies as having taken part in the very translation.

The fact of the matter is, MG, elder Pratt bore testimony in the Tabernacle before his fellow brethren when he said, “I saw him translating, by inspiration, the Old and New Testaments, and the inspired book of Abraham from Egyptian papyrus”. To what extent or how often he was present during the course of all those translations is a moot point. 10% or 50% or more, it makes no difference. We have the testimony of an apostle of Jesus Christ standing up in the Tabernacle and bearing witness that he saw the prophet’s face light up while translating that record and it was done by the influence of the Holy Ghost through divine revelation. And when the Holy Ghost falls upon any prophet of God it is 100% revelation. To assume otherwise is to say that God doesn’t know how to effectively communicate with his prophets and that nothing is reliable and everything is questionable from a revelatory point of view.

Pratt’s testimony is unimpeachable. I accept what he said at face value. It stands firm and would also endure cross examination in a court of law. I am confident of that. Apparently President Taylor agreed and moved to finally canonize the Book that had been formerly published in multiple publications beginning with the Times & Seasons. Yes, it took some time, but time is only time and is not the determinative factor in deciding whether something was valid or not from their point of view.
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Re: Jeff Lindsay praises John Gee's book “Introduction to the Book of Abraham” as a tool to save his testimony

Post by Shulem »

Lem wrote:
Mon Sep 27, 2021 4:56 pm
The key take away that I recall was that in his urgency to maintain his starting conditions of belief, he searched for what looked to him like any possible (or even nowhere near a) match and stretched way beyond any accepted methodology to force connections that simply are not there.

Our friend Ed asked me to post a link to his new podcast in the Terrestrial Forum:

Ed Goble Book of Abraham Podcast

The part I remember the most about that thread is when I batted down his apologetic answer for the name of the king in Facsimile No. 3, beginning here:

Ed Goble reveals the name of the king in Facsimile No. 3

--------------------------------------------

I’m sorry, Ed, but there is no king’s name in Facsimile No. 3. The hieroglyphic writing above the figure Isis bears witness to that goddess and her glory. It has nothing to do with an earthly king of Egypt. Most notably, there is no Cartouche, the required emblem in which to encase the name. A king’s name must be enclosed in the royal Cartouche in order to legitimize the name. LDS Egyptologist John Gee will vouch for that.
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