What if there was no Book of Abraham?

[_DarkHelmet]

It does make you wonder if Joseph Smith had not been around to translate the papyri, would someone else have translated it correctly, or would the Book of Abraham remain sealed? The LDS church would not have a knowledge of Kolob. Perhaps another religious person would have come across the scrolls and translated them.

[_Runtu]

I'm confused by this. Is it convoluted to say the extant papyri does not contain the Egyptian Book of Abraham? Or that there is some portion missing? Or is the convoluted in the notion that what is missing is large enough to contain the Book of Abraham? Or is the convoluted part in the idea that we do not know the translation process so defending it is a little difficult? I guess with that I'm not sure I'm aware of the critique of the translation process.

Think of it this way:

1. Alone among all similar funerary texts, this one has Anubis with a round, batboy head and a whole host of other anomalies.

2. It is also the only known such scroll that has any purported connection to Abraham.

3. If there are 41 feet of missing scroll, it is by far the longest such scroll ever discovered.

4. It's also the only known scroll that speaks of Ur of the Chaldeans before such a place existed.

5. It is also the only Egyptian funerary scroll known to be used to record Hebrew scriptures (along with Hebrew transliterations).

6. It is the only known scroll whose anomalous emendations line up exactly with the missing portions.

And this is just the start. At what point is it unreasonable to say, "You know, this just doesn't work"?

it can rest on faith.

I have no problem with that, as faith is a personal matter. I can respect people's faith, but not bad or convoluted or dishonest evidence.

[_Chap]

1. Alone among all similar funerary texts, this one has Anubis with a round, batboy head and a whole host of other anomalies.

It bears repeating (though it has already been pointed out on this board) that the lion couch 'sacrifice of Abraham by evil priest' scene is simply a mis-restored version of a fairly well-known Egyptian resurrection-of-deceased-assisted-by-Anubis scene, of which this is a good example, from the Hathor temple at Dendera:



In a gem of Schryveriana, that gentleman replied by assuring us that, well, the figure in the Book of Abraham picture was really a live guy, since it had both arms up in the air. Or something. Anyway, it was obvious that ancient pictures of the genre illustrated here had nothing to do with the Book of Abraham scene.

Once again, the critics were humiliated.

[_DarkHelmet]

I don't know what I would do if I didn't have the Book of Abraham in my life. I would probably be dead or in jail.

[_Chap]

I don't know what I would do if I didn't have the Book of Abraham in my life. I would probably be dead or in jail.

Me too.

[_Runtu]

In a gem of Schryveriana, that gentleman replied by assuring us that, well, the figure in the Book of Abraham picture was really a live guy, since it had both arms up in the air. Or something. Anyway, it was obvious that ancient pictures of the genre illustrated here had nothing to do with the Book of Abraham scene.

Once again, the critics were humiliated.

It really is miraculous that the only known Abrahamic scroll buried with mummies managed to find its way into Joseph Smith's hands. The only thing that could be more miraculous is Joseph Smith discovering Adam's original altar.

Oh, wait ...

[_Darth J]

Good point. If we didn't have a Book of Abraham we wouldn't see people feeling the need to critique Mormonism on that point. If Joseph Smith was never visited by God the Father and Jesus, or never claimed to be visited by them, then perhaps there would be no Mormonism and we'd find some other crap to quibble about.

If Charles Ponzi had not told people that they could get spectacular returns on investment via his undisclosed method of arbitrage in international postal reply coupons, then perhaps there would never have been a Securities Exchange Company and all those people in Boston would have found some other crap to quibble about.

[_DarkHelmet]

In a gem of Schryveriana, that gentleman replied by assuring us that, well, the figure in the Book of Abraham picture was really a live guy, since it had both arms up in the air. Or something. Anyway, it was obvious that ancient pictures of the genre illustrated here had nothing to do with the Book of Abraham scene.

Once again, the critics were humiliated.

It really is miraculous that the only known Abrahamic scroll buried with mummies managed to find its way into Joseph Smith's hands. The only thing that could be more miraculous is Joseph Smith discovering Adam's original altar.

Oh, wait ...

LOL. Yeah, Joseph was getting more and more outlandish in his claims, but at least he didn't live long enough to start speculating on whether or not men lived on the moon. Can you imagine what kind of crazy theory he might have come up with?

[_stemelbow]

Think of it this way:

1. Alone among all similar funerary texts, this one has Anubis with a round, batboy head and a whole host of other anomalies.

I don't know what you want me to say here, Runtu. Anyway. I think there is tons to figure out in regards to this. For instance, we can take the Kevin Barney approach, and others, who say "It is only by viewing the facsimiles through a Semitic lens that we can clearly see how the explanations relate to the figures."

In other words the fact that there isn't, if true, any other funerary texts in Egyptian that depict a round headed figure is irrelevant, if the facsimile was a redaction from other sources by an Egyptian Jew. I don't know if that's convoluted so much as trying to understand what we have. All Joseph knew, apparent, if he knew anything, was that he was "inspired" to create the Book of Abraham. Whether the Egyptian pics were representative of something common among Egyptians or not is irrelevant. If we are to take it seriously, then why question whether a pic can have variances from others?

2. It is also the only known such scroll that has any purported connection to Abraham.

Again, so? I'm not sure why that's convoluted. There are other sources which help support notions of Abraham's visit to Egypt too. The Book of Abraham itself is not just some account of Abraham in Egypt. Again if a jewish person was the handler and redacter, then I don't see how this matters.

3. If there are 41 feet of missing scroll, it is by far the longest such scroll ever discovered.

I don't know if 41 feet is the only theory out there. 41 feet was, I believe, the maximum number estimabted by Gee.

4. It's also the only known scroll that speaks of Ur of the Chaldeans before such a place existed.

Huh?

5. It is also the only Egyptian funerary scroll known to be used to record Hebrew scriptures (along with Hebrew transliterations).

So? I don’t see why that means the defenses are all convoluted.

6. It is the only known scroll whose anomalous emendations line up exactly with the missing portions.

I don’t know what you mean.

And this is just the start. At what point is it unreasonable to say, "You know, this just doesn't work"?

I think a reasonable point would include reading all the pertinent information and if the analyses are still coming out wait until they all come out. If they never do then they never do.

I have no problem with that, as faith is a personal matter. I can respect people's faith, but not bad or convoluted or dishonest evidence.

k

[_Runtu]

I don't know what you want me to say here, Runtu. Anyway. I think there is tons to figure out in regards to this. For instance, we can take the Kevin Barney approach, and others, who say "It is only by viewing the facsimiles through a Semitic lens that we can clearly see how the explanations relate to the figures."

I really do like Kevin Barney, but this is just one more way of using parallelisms ad infinitum. All he's doing is drawing lines between what's in the text and assorted Semitic sources. This conveniently ignores just how anomalous the use of an Egyptian funerary scroll for Hebrew scripture is.

In other words the fact that there isn't, if true, any other funerary texts in Egyptian that depict a round headed figure is irrelevant, if the facsimile was a redaction from other sources by an Egyptian Jew. I don't know if that's convoluted so much as trying to understand what we have. All Joseph knew, apparent, if he knew anything, was that he was "inspired" to create the Book of Abraham. Whether the Egyptian pics were representative of something common among Egyptians or not is irrelevant. If we are to take it seriously, then why question whether a pic can have variances from others?

The problem isn't "variances." If we accept your argument here, this one scroll was unique among all known Egyptian funerary scrolls. The only reason to believe this, of course, is to salvage Joseph's translation. And if you can't see how convoluted this is, I don't know what to say.

Again, so? I'm not sure why that's convoluted. There are other sources which help support notions of Abraham's visit to Egypt too. The Book of Abraham itself is not just some account of Abraham in Egypt.

You do realize that at the time Joseph Smith was studying materials that had Abraham visiting Egypt, don't you?

Again if a jewish person was the handler and redacter, then I don't see how this matters.

There is only one reason to assign a Jewish redactor. As I said, if Joseph Smith hadn't claimed to translate the papyri, no one would be making that argument.

I don't know if 41 feet is the only theory out there. 41 feet was, I believe, the maximum number estimabted by Gee.

That no one but Mormon apologists with a vested interest in having a "long scroll" has come up with such a missing portion ought to tell us something.

Huh?

It's called an anachronism.

So? I don’t see why that means the defenses are all convoluted.

It's pretty simple. Either the scroll is what every reputable Egyptologist says it is, or it is a scroll unique among all the scrolls written over thousands of years.

I don’t know what you mean.

For some reason, the problematic areas where the text and illustrations don't match the known just happen to be the areas where Joseph Smith added stuff. There were missing portions, and Joseph filled in the blanks--quite wrongly.

I think a reasonable point would include reading all the pertinent information and if the analyses are still coming out wait until they all come out. If they never do then they never do.

What I see is people refusing to acknowledge the consensus of the analysis that has already been done and instead clinging to the hope that some white knight will eventually prove everyone else wrong. I'm open to being wrong about the Book of Abraham, but at this point, there is enough conclusive information to make pretty solid conclusions.