intra-mo catalyst/literal Book of Abraham fight on the other board

[_Darth J]

To be fair, everything that mfb said is accurate.

That would be a silly thing to do since it was "translated" by inspiration.

Since he put "translated" in scare quotes, I can't really fault this statement.

It wasn't on the scroll in a literal way. Nibley showed that- everyone knows that.

True. Everyone knows that the substance of the Book of Abraham canonized by the LDS Church was not on the Egyptian scrolls possessed by Joseph Smith. And among other issues with the self-serving "missing scroll" theory, I have yet to see anyone explain why we would expect to find, in the middle of a pagan Egyptian funerary scroll, an account of Abraham teaching Mormonism to an Egyptian king who was trying to imitate Mormonism, but could not have the priesthood because he was a Negro.

Well not everyone I guess.

He's right. Not everyone knows that.

“I commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics, and much to our joy found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham.” (History of the Church, 2:236).

[_Darth J]

Someday, Odin will send the Valkyries to bring Yahoo Bot to Valhalla as a reward for his faithfulness in battle.

I will go out swinging with my name and face known to my opponents. Most here cannot do that.

Most here will not do self-portraits with their camera phone in the bathroom mirror and post them on MySpace, either.

[_Sethbag]

Bob, do you believe that the Book of Abraham was represented literally, in ink, on papyrus that Joseph Smith had in his possession? Or do you believe that the Egyptian funerary documents that we have reason to believe were in Joseph's possession merely served as a catalyst for Joseph to receive the Book of Abraham through straight-up revelation?

I'm curious which side of that argument you stand on. The question is perfectly apropos, given the OP.

[Guest]

The Pearl of Great Price Student Manual (2000)

The Prophet Joseph Smith indicated that he would publish more of the book of Abraham later, but he was martyred before he was able to do so. Concerning the potential length of the completed translation, Oliver Cowdery once said that “volumes” would be necessary to contain it (see Messenger and Advocate, Dec. 1835, 236).

If the magic feather theory (a.k.a. "catalyst theory") is correct and the Prophet is not really translating the papyrus at all, why doesn't President Monson finish "translating" the volumes of information about the Gospel that are missing from what we have as the Book of Abraham? He certainly doesn't need to get the scrolls back to do it.

And Schryver seems to be implying that he believes in both the missing scroll theory and the magic feather theory. I guess this suggests that the alleged missing part of the scroll inspired Joseph Smith to think about Egyptian stuff, which led him to mistakenly believe that the revelation he was receiving was a translation of what was written on the missing part of the scroll.

[_Sethbag]

My understanding is that when the LDS church came into possession, in the 60s, of the papyrus fragments that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had had in their collection, the LDS leadership tapped Hugh Nibley to arrange for them to be translated. The idea was that this would vindicate Joseph Smith's claim by showing that the Book of Abraham did in fact come from the documents Joseph Smith had in his possession.

Hugh Nibley went off and, with the help of some Mormon whose name eludes me, did in fact come up with a preliminary translation which showed that the papyrus contained just run-of-the-mill Egyptian funerary content.

Well, this made the church looked bad, and thus began Hugh Nibley's apologetic excuse-making, trying to explain away the fact that the papyrus didn't contain the Book of Abraham.

So Darth was right. MFB got it right by claiming that Hugh Nibley demonstrated that the Book of Abraham was not contained in the papyrus. That is strictly true. MFB then implies, however, that most Mormons now believe that the Book of Abraham story is still really true, just that it was never actually represented literally on the papyrus - Joseph received it instead through revelation. So, basically, the "Catalyst Theory" defense.

I believe this notion is farcical. The church certainly has never backtracked on any of its claims, and the intro to the Book of Abraham still has the whole Abraham "by his own hand upon papyrus" thing.

[_Yahoo Bot]

Bob, do you believe that the Book of Abraham was represented literally, in ink, on papyrus that Joseph Smith had in his possession? Or do you believe that the Egyptian funerary documents that we have reason to believe were in Joseph's possession merely served as a catalyst for Joseph to receive the Book of Abraham through straight-up revelation?

I'm curious which side of that argument you stand on. The question is perfectly apropos, given the OP.

I discuss facts and scripture on this forum; not my personal testimony.

[Guest]

I discuss facts and scripture on this forum; not my personal testimony.

Perhaps. But most of the ink you spill here seems to be in railing against anonymous posters. It has become an expression of your own self-righteousness.

[_Darth J]

I discuss facts and scripture on this forum; not my personal testimony.

Props to Yahoo Bot for distinguishing between facts and scripture.

[_Tarski]

I'm only barely anonymous at all, really. And I'm so anonymous that I actually have met at least two faithful members from the board in person, one of whom was Dan Peterson. I've contributed to the Mormon Expression podcast and introduced myself by my real name, and mentioned these podcasts on this board. In fact it would take any competent investigator maybe 15 minutes to figure out who I am.

Not that any of that matters, by the way. I could be 100% iron-clad, totally under-the-radar anonymous and it wouldn't change the truth or falsehood of anything I say here.

I appreciate your introspection about some of the shortcomings of mopologetics. I am confused by your reply to that, which is essentially to say "yes we have our shortcomings, but you are an anonymous lamer who abandoned your faith and descended to the depths of the pit and cannot understand anymore why we faithful Mormons believe what we believe". What kind of response is that?

No one in my extended family, cousins, uncles, parents, grandparents, nephews etc knows it. They are all super active in the church (Bishops, stake presidents etc).
This apologetic shell game is nonsense and also dishonest.

What Joseph Smith claimed, turns out to not be true. Period.

[_Yahoo Bot]

No one in my extended family, cousins, uncles, parents, grandparents, nephews etc knows it. They are all super active in the church (Bishops, stake presidents etc).
This apologetic shell game is nonsense and also dishonest.

What Joseph Smith claimed, turns out to not be true. Period.

With a couple of exceptions, I don't have such hotshot church leaders in my family, so I'm not in the same league as your exceptional anonymous self.

But the reality is that your super active church heroes are probably not avid readers of apologetic nonsense other than what might rise to the occasion in the Ensign.

But, as to what Joseph Smith "claimed as true" with respect to the Book of Abraham, I doubt even you can say exactly how he translated it. You and your anonymous friends make a lot of assumptions.