Book of Abraham Scroll Length

[_ludwigm]

We all know a lot of formula below:

X = k * {a lot of greek letter, integral and exponent}
- where k is an empirical constant, freely chosen from 0,002 to 953

[_Shulem]

Without more information, I'm not sure how to respond to this critique. The ideal response would be for us to apply our method to the scroll Gee used, and see if our results differ from the results he obtained. But that would be a very time- and energy-intensive project, and I'm not sure it's worth going to all that trouble.

The main tactic of Mormon apologetics is diversion and Gee is a master of this method. His mentor, Hugh Nibley was also a master of diversion, he did not want to tackle difficult questions or provide real analysis.

From your description of Gee's paper, I am glad you are not going to waste your time with Gee on his measurements. Your comments in this thread have been excellent and informative. The FARMS/MI guys diversion tactics are developed to waste peoples time. Yours and Andrew's article will stand on its own as Gee's papers and apologetics falls by the way side.

You have produced wonderful papers that have honest Book of Abraham scholarship and present the evidence accurately. This cannot be said for Gee's work.

Those many years ago that I decided I was going to tackle the Book of Abraham issue I read everything I could get my hands on. I was completely confused and found the information from FARMS no more helpful than watching static on television. Stephen Thompson's article was then published in Dialogue. It was like the heavens opening up for me and at that point I realized that the FARMS people were trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Thompson's article place the round peg smoothly in the hole and all the questions I had developed were answered. Amazing what happens when a scholar presents the information honestly.

With that, I totally agree. FARMS is dishonest in their dealings with the Book of Abraham. Those men are not to be trusted and are shady and twisted in apologetic scholarship. Mormons really are starting to get a reputation for being dishonest in the things they don't like to discuss openly and with full transparency. Those guys are like crooked auto mechanics that wear suits and ties and pride themselves in their fancy diplomas. And DCP is like a used car salesman with a nasty disposition.

FARMS can talk about missing papyrus until the cows jump over the moon but they cannot say that the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3 are missing their counter parts. It's the nail in the coffin for John Gee and he knows it. I think that of all the problems accociated with the errors of Joseph Smith's translation the one about Anubis being a slave bothers Gee the most. I assume that because it insults true Egyptology more than anything else Joseph Smith ever did. That has to bother John Gee to some degree. He is an Egyptologist and as an Egyptologist he is duty bound to protect Egyptology. He can't do that and defend Joseph Smith's false translations at the same time. That has to hurt his career more than anything. It won't help his memory either after he is long gone.

Paul O

[_Chap]

...

FARMS can talk about missing papyrus until the cows jump over the moon but they cannot say that the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3 are missing their counter parts. It's the nail in the coffin for John Gee and he knows it ...

Paul O

Indeed. Here is a facsimile of part of the papyrus that Joseph Smith told people he translated, originally published in a journal he founded and edited (Times and Seasons), with his explanation, and now part of canonized scripture:



And here is the extract from canonized scripture in which Joseph Smith purports to identify the figures, in all but one case based on what he claims are readings of the captions over the figures:

Explanation

1. Abraham sitting upon Pharaoh’s throne, by the politeness of the king, with a crown upon his head, representing the Priesthood, as emblematical of the grand Presidency in Heaven; with the scepter of justice and judgment in his hand.
2. King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head.
3. Signifies Abraham in Egypt as given also in Figure 10 of Facsimile No. 1.
4. Prince of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, as written above the hand.
5. Shulem, one of the king’s principal waiters, as represented by the characters above his hand.
6. Olimlah, a slave belonging to the prince.

All these identifications are nonsensically wrong, and have been known to be wrong ever since hieroglyphs were first accurately deciphered - in fact 'Abraham' is labelled in Egyptian hieroglyphs as Osiris, 'King Pharaoh' is labelled as his wife Isis, object 3 is a ritual stand, figure number 4 is labelled as the goddess Ma'at, number 5 is the deceased Hor, owner of the scroll, and number 6 is the great god Anubis.

It bears repeating that this is a clear demonstration that where we can identify the Egyptian text said to be the source of the Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith's translations were just plain wrong. What is more, they are not wrong in the way they might be if Smith was really receiving a quite unrelated text from God, and mistakenly thinking he was translating some unrelated Egyptian text. He was quite clearly trying to translate the text in front of us, and getting it wrong.

This bears repeating from time to time.

[_Shulem]

It bears repeating that this is a clear demonstration that where we can identify the Egyptian text said to be the source of the Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith's translations were just plain wrong. What is more, they are not wrong in the way they might be if Smith was really receiving a quite unrelated text from God, and mistakenly thinking he was translating some unrelated Egyptian text. He was quite clearly trying to translate the text in front of us, and getting it wrong.

This bears repeating from time to time.

This nail needs to be hammered often because it is the one that is the most damaging to the Book of Abraham revelations. It is a direct affront to Egyptology and insults the Egyptian religion without apology. Mormon scholars fear this aspect of Book of Abraham apologetics more than any other. The other problems associated with the Book of Abraham such as the KEP are mere sideshows and props in showing how rediculous Joseph Smith was in pretending to translate. But the Facsimile No. 3 goes to the heart of the whole problem and is simply indefensable. Hugh Nibley tripped and fell all over the place while trying to explain it away.

I like using the Facismile No. 3 as a base in which to counter the apologists because it throws them off guard right away. What can they do? Their silly abstract excuses just don't work againt concrete facts.

Drive the nail in with pleasure! Make them suffer!!

Paul O