Historical Predynastic Egypt vs. Book of Abraham False Narrative

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Alphus and Omegus
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Re: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1823

Post by Alphus and Omegus »

Shulem wrote:
Sun Jan 01, 2023 6:33 pm
It seems clear enough that the very idea that Egypt was founded by Ham after the flood was something Smith picked up from contemporary sources and he used that information to write his own fictional story while pretending to translate Egyptian papyrus.

This really is the final nail in the Book of Abraham coffin. Everything hangs on this fatal error!
If I remember correctly, didn't Gee or one one of the mopologists say at one point that he believed critics of the Book of Abraham don't look at its contents? I think he was right that generally this wasn't done much, although that's because it was such obvious nonsense.
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Re: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1823

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Alphus and Omegus wrote:
Sun Jan 01, 2023 7:00 pm
If I remember correctly, didn't Gee or one one of the mopologists say at one point that he believed critics of the Book of Abraham don't look at its contents? I think he was right that generally this wasn't done much, although that's because it was such obvious nonsense.

Right, they want the critics to focus less on the Facsimiles and read into the actual text of the Book of Abraham and consider the historical context written in the chapters. Well, I’ve read the text of the Book of Abraham very carefully and have determined that the text is fatally flawed -- impossible.

No amount Mormon apologetics will convince anyone that Egypt was founded by the Hamites in 2300 BC.

:!:
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So Many Questions!

Post by Shulem »

  • How can apologists substantiate the narrative of the text which demonstrates that Egypt was first founded by Hamites in 2300 BC?
  • Who built the Great Pyramids between 2550 to 2490 BC?
  • Who build king Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara about 4,700 years ago?

Gee wrote:
We don’t know.


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Re: So Many Questions!

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Shulem wrote:
Sun Jan 01, 2023 8:15 pm
  • How can apologists substantiate the narrative of the text which demonstrates that Egypt was first founded by Hamites in 2300 BC?
  • Who built the Great Pyramids between 2550 to 2490 BC?
  • Who build king Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara about 4,700 years ago?

Gee wrote:
We don’t know.


Image

Well, then what do you know, Mr. Gee?

Please, tell me (tell everyone) how you and your apologetic partners co-mingle the key dates of 2300 BC and 3000 BC to represent the same party in time?

Your professional colleagues would be very interested in what you have to say. And so will I.

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Re: Historical Predynastic Egypt vs. Book of Abraham False Narrative

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Everything hangs on this fatal error? What, the fact that he was playing in the same sandbox as others who worked with ancient Hebrew myth? I mean, yes, it is true that the fundamentalist reading of LDS scripture—that is, the dominant set of assumptions regarding scripture—is a dead end, but is that surprising? If such a strategy for reading and interpreting the Bible is a dead end, why would it be any different for LDS scripture?
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Historical Predynastic Egypt vs. Book of Abraham False Narrative

Post by Alphus and Omegus »

Kishkumen wrote:
Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:40 am
Everything hangs on this fatal error? What, the fact that he was playing in the same sandbox as others who worked with ancient Hebrew myth? I mean, yes, it is true that the fundamentalist reading of LDS scripture—that is, the dominant set of assumptions regarding scripture—is a dead end, but is that surprising? If such a strategy for reading and interpreting the Bible is a dead end, why would it be any different for LDS scripture?
It matters more here because this is indisputable evidence that Smith got basic facts wrong. All the smokescreens about missing scrolls or witnessed plates don't work here. The canonized text itself is irredeemably and obviously incorrect in ways that are essential to its story and to Smith's claims about himself as a translator.
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Re: Historical Predynastic Egypt vs. Book of Abraham False Narrative

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Alphus and Omegus wrote:
Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:48 am
Kishkumen wrote:
Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:40 am
Everything hangs on this fatal error? What, the fact that he was playing in the same sandbox as others who worked with ancient Hebrew myth? I mean, yes, it is true that the fundamentalist reading of LDS scripture—that is, the dominant set of assumptions regarding scripture—is a dead end, but is that surprising? If such a strategy for reading and interpreting the Bible is a dead end, why would it be any different for LDS scripture?
It matters more here because this is indisputable evidence that Smith got basic facts wrong. All the smokescreens about missing scrolls or witnessed plates don't work here. The canonized text itself is irredeemably and obviously incorrect in ways that are essential to its story and to Smith's claims about himself as a translator.

Smith was very much interested in finding ways to marry modern understanding of ancient Egyptian history with the Bible and Book of Abraham. But with that, there were problems unbeknown to Smith due to his literal acceptance of biblical chronology. It’s a pity that Smith did not live long enough to come to the realization that Egyptian history preceded Noah and the Hebrew records!

Here is an interesting clip published in the Times and Seasons. It was published by the Church in order to enhance the understanding of ancient Egypt through scholarly means for the purpose of supporting Smith’s revelations and biblical chronology. It offers an inside scoop showing how the church embraced secular knowledge in an effort to coincide with how the church embraced revealed chronology of ancient history.

Times and Seasons.
"Truth will prevail."
Vol., V. No. 5] CITY OF NAUVOO, ILL. MARCH 1, 1844 [Whole No. 89
HISTORY OF Joseph Smith.


Times and Seasons: From the Southern Reformer. wrote:ANCIENT EGYPT.

The last of the course of Mr. Gliddon's lectures on Ancient Egypt was delivered before the Lowell institute of Boston on Friday evening. It was (says the Transcript) on the "The cubit," and existence of a perfect system of authentic measures in Egypt in the times before the pyramids, and, as he thought, even prior to the days of mathematical Science-coeval with the hand of our first father Adam!

"The primitive sources of all ancient or modern metrical systems were application of different members of the human body; the hand and the foot, in whole or in part, gave origin to all our ideas of length. Mr. Gliddon said that the adoption of the hands and feet as measures had probably been taught by Mizraim to his Egyptian children, more than 1,000 years before Cadmus, or 2,000 years before Romulus, with reference to Greece and Rome. In fact, like the art of writing, (which in his public characters, the lecturer shows to have existed before Noah) he carries the cubit also back into antediluvian periods quoting the command in the 5th verse of the 6th chapter of Genesis, with reference to the ark of "Gophir wood." And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of; length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, the breadth of it 50 cubits, and the height of it 30 cubits.

"Gliddon proceeded to show the cubit in the hieroglyphical writings, and its phonetic sign with regard to the cubit, or human arm from elbow to end of middle finger; and also its existence in the modern Coptic and Hebrew language, as derived from Egyptian pictorial symbol. The Egyptians had two cubits-the royal and the common. An arm, or common cubit, is exactly two spans of the hand, of six handsbreadth or palms, or twenty-four digits; and thus we have the cubits. The royal cubit is an arm and one palm.

The lecturer presented a "facsimile" of an ancient Egyptian mason's rule, the original of which was found among the ruins of the Propylea of Karnac. One of the pylons (or gateways) had been erected by Pharoah Hor, of the 18th dynasty, B. C. 1661; and during the process of some workmen who (after the outer-casing, by the Pasha's orders, had been blown off with gunpowder, in 1839) were employed to remove some of the interior blocks, a seeming stick was picked up by an Arab laborer. This had fallen between the stones on the first building of the structure, and being covered up with masonry, had remained where it first fell 3,500 years before.

"A French gentleman Mons. Prisse, an eminent hierologist and professional architect, then residing at Thebes, was present, and found it to be a mason's rule, marked off into divisions and subdivisions. He purchased the useful relic, and, having shown it to many a scientific gentleman, he ceded it to A. C. Harris, esq. of Alexandria, in whose collection it now is. Mr. Gliddon exhibited a precise copy of this measnre, its exactly length being three feet five inches and three-tenths, divided into fourteen compartments, with subdivisions. With this rule he illustrated the application of the human hand in measuring, suiting the action of his statements, and introducing many calculations and ad-measurements, impossible for us to attempt here to transcribe, and rendered more interesting by oral applications than they could be in a dry printed detail. Mr. Gliddon observed that the Egyptian cubit corresponds to the dimensions of the Tabernical of Moses. He showed that it was the cubit of Solomon, on the first construction of the Temple, B. C. 1012; and he quoted Ezekiel xl. 5, and xliii. 13, to establish the identity of the Egyptian cubits of 1661, or rather prior to B. C. 2500, from the pyramids (with which these cubits correspond!) with Ezekiel's two cubits B. C. 535, on the second erection of the Temple. He showed that bishop Cumberland is wrong in his estimates of Hebrew cubits, as he confounds the cubit of seven palms with the cubit of six palms. He also showed the perfect analogy between the Arab cubit or arm, 4300 years ago; exemplifying his subject with the modern Italian, Greek, and Turkish correspondences. He referred besides to other ancient cubits in Europe and Egypt.

"Having proved the propriety of the Egyptians and the Hebrews with regard to the cubit, the lecturer fully showed what he termed 'the plagiarisms of Greece and Rome,' and how the hand applied to their measures, as in everything else, the Greeks and Romans are 'the mere children of the venerable and profound Egyptians, and that we are their grand-children.'
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Re: Historical Predynastic Egypt vs. Book of Abraham False Narrative

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Kishkumen wrote:
Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:40 am
Everything hangs on this fatal error? What, the fact that he was playing in the same sandbox as others who worked with ancient Hebrew myth? I mean, yes, it is true that the fundamentalist reading of LDS scripture—that is, the dominant set of assumptions regarding scripture—is a dead end, but is that surprising? If such a strategy for reading and interpreting the Bible is a dead end, why would it be any different for LDS scripture?

The Book of Abraham story is about Abram in Egypt and the whole story is based on the premise that Egypt was founded by a woman named “Egyptus” many years after the ark settled a thousand miles away in the mountains of Ararat. Either those things happened or they did not. And if they did not then that means the entire origin story of how Egypt came to be according to Joseph Smith is manmade BS. Everything hangs on whether Smith got that right or not. But if that link does not exist then the rest of the story has no origin in which to be based. The whole thing collapses on itself -- or falls.
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Re: Historical Predynastic Egypt vs. Book of Abraham False Narrative

Post by Kishkumen »

Alphus and Omegus wrote:
Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:48 am
It matters more here because this is indisputable evidence that Smith got basic facts wrong. All the smokescreens about missing scrolls or witnessed plates don't work here. The canonized text itself is irredeemably and obviously incorrect in ways that are essential to its story and to Smith's claims about himself as a translator.
I guess it is “devastating” inasmuch as he fails to write ancient history in a manner that is almost identical to the failures of other mythographers. The problem here is the view that one should expect LDS scripture to be different from other Judeo-Christian mythologies. It is primarily a problem because people buy into the overhyped claims of the authors and teachers of such material.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Historical Predynastic Egypt vs. Book of Abraham False Narrative

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The Book of Abraham story is about Abram in Egypt and the whole story is based on the premise that Egypt was founded by a woman named “Egyptus” many years after the ark settled a thousand miles away in the mountains of Ararat. Either those things happened or they did not. And if they did not then that means the entire origin story of how Egypt came to be according to Joseph Smith is manmade BS. Everything hangs on whether Smith got that right or not. But if that link does not exist then the rest of the story has no origin in which to be based. The whole thing collapses on itself -- or falls.
Abram did not exist. Immediately you are in the real of myth. And, oops!, myth isn’t history.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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