Facsimile 3

[_Molok]

I think the reason Paul likes facsimile 3 so much is because "king pharaoh" is obvious proof Joseph Smith didn't know beans about Egypt.

[_Ludd]

The repeated references to this facsimile on this board made me curious to figure out what the big deal is. The seminal work on this topic is Hugh Nibley's 32-page essay entitled "All the Court's a Stage: Facsimile No. 3, A Royal Mumming," which is published in his book Abraham in Egypt.

Perhaps blogger Val Sederholm, PhD describes this analysis of facsimile 3 best:

In a tightly knit yet beautifully written and generously flowing chapter, Nibley moves logically from puzzle to puzzle: King as Isis, Prince as Maat, and King Abraham. Never abandoning ordered argument, Nibley remains the master of every situation, the unraveler of every difficulty, the able counsel for the defence, who marches the scholars to the stand, witness after witness, to argue the case. In the end, the case made with measure and care, and overwhelming evidence, all the credit goes to the Prophet Joseph Smith for his "impressive performance."

How could have Joseph Smith scored such an impressive hit on Facsimile 3 if he weren't a true prophet? I'm thinking about returning to the church over this...

I used to love to sit in church and ponder Facsimilie #2. I figured if I pondered it with enough faith and humility, the meaning of #11 would finally come to me.

Still waiting on that one ...

[_Tobin]

[I used to love to sit in church and ponder Facsimilie #2. I figured if I pondered it with enough faith and humility, the meaning of #11 would finally come to me.

Still waiting on that one ...

I guess I never had that much patience. Joseph Smith couldn't read Egyptian Hieroglyphics. The annotations on the Facsimiles are wrong. The Book of Abraham, if true, has to be a purely inspired and a revealed text by God. It has nothing to do with the Egyptian papyri. And Joseph Smith's statements and annotations should be viewed as completely idiotic and wrong.

[_Bob Loblaw]

The Book of Abraham, if true, has to be a purely inspired and revealed text by God.

I would agree with you but the Book of Abraham is a mish-mash of different 19th-century sources and the King James Bible. It's not inspired but plagiarized.

Joseph Smith's statements and annotations should be viewed as completely idiotic and wrong.

... on most subjects.

[_Themis]

Thanks for the summary zeezrom. But is there more to it than that? Is there something unique, pivotal, or illustrative about this? The translator didn't do any better on the other fascilimies, did he? So what's the big deal about this one?

He didn't just misinterpret the pictures. He mistranslated the labels that accompany the pictures. And since the labels are published in the Facsimile 3 wood cut, there's no "missing papyrus" argument to be made here. It's 100% clear which text he's supposed to be translating.

Wouldn't that be true of Facsimile 2 as well?

[_Themis]

Now, it is still plausible that Joseph Smith revealed the Book of Abraham from the original writings of Abraham and those writings no longer exist. However, you would have to be willing to discount many of the claims of Joseph Smith as being completely wrong. For whatever reason, Mormon Apologists do not like to do that and so they get saddled with preposterous positions.

Perhaps they realize that to do so you have to make Joseph and God into dumb and dumber. Joseph being dumb enough to make it up and never think to ask God when he is claiming to do so on so many other issues. I wonder if he was not also claiming it here as well. You have God being dumber giving Joseph Abraham's story knowing he will attach it to the papyri and he will also have to give him explanations that are tailor made for the Egyptian facsimiles. Perhaps they think it is just to implausible.

[_Tobin]

I would agree with you but the Book of Abraham is a mish-mash of different 19th-century sources and the King James Bible. It's not inspired but plagiarized.

As is the Book of Mormon.

But, I've never found that argument particularly compelling since Joseph Smith didn't possess the skills or knowledge to translate languages. It was supposedly done by the gift and power of God and through Joseph Smith, so if that is true - I don't find is completely implausible the "translations" he did wouldn't appear exactly as we find them. Now, if he had said, God handed him the translations - then that would be a completely different matter.

As I've said, that isn't the real test for Joseph Smith anyway. Joseph Smith made some rather stark claims in the Book of Mormon, if he wrote it. It states God will let us know in some rather convincing way that this isn't a hoax. Mormonism should be viewed exactly that way. Without that (and I'm not talking about feelings of indigestion), it is a hoax and not worth spending time on.

[_Analytics]

Thanks for the summary zeezrom. But is there more to it than that? Is there something unique, pivotal, or illustrative about this? The translator didn't do any better on the other fascilimies, did he? So what's the big deal about this one?

He didn't just misinterpret the pictures. He mistranslated the labels that accompany the pictures. And since the labels are published in the Facsimile 3 wood cut, there's no "missing papyrus" argument to be made here. It's 100% clear which text he's supposed to be translating.

There isn't a missing papyrus argument for Joseph's translations of any of the fascilimies, is there?

Just to make sure I understand what you are saying, this picture is different than the others because the pictures are labeled in Egyptian? So the implication is that, for example, we see a picture that looks like Osiris, and just in case anybody had any doubt about that, the Egyptians wrote "Osiris" next to him. The depiction and the label both faithfully made it into the wood carvings, which verifies that these elements were copied correctly. Then Smith called it a picture of Abraham.

Do I have that right?

[_Bob Loblaw]

There isn't a missing papyrus argument for Joseph's translations of any of the fascilimies, is there?

Just to make sure I understand what you are saying, this picture is different than the others because the pictures are labeled in Egyptian? So the implication is that, for example, we see a picture that looks like Osiris, and just in case anybody had any doubt about that, the Egyptians wrote "Osiris" next to him. The depiction and the label both faithfully made it into the wood carvings, which verifies that these elements were copied correctly. Then Smith called it a picture of Abraham.

Do I have that right?

there are missing pieces (lacunae) of Facsimiles 1 and 2. I believe 3 is the only one completely in tact, but I could be wrong.

[_Tobin]

Perhaps they realize that to do so you have to make Joseph and God into dumb and dumber. Joseph being dumb enough to make it up and never think to ask God when he is claiming to do so on so many other issues. I wonder if he was not also claiming it here as well. You have God being dumber giving Joseph Abraham's story knowing he will attach it to the papyri and he will also have to give him explanations that are tailor made for the Egyptian facsimiles. Perhaps they think it is just to implausible.

Themis, you'll always have that misconception about God. God permitted the LDS Church to teach a false doctrine banning blacks from the priesthood for over a century. Don't you think he would have clued in one of the LDS prophets - over all the time - that it was a false doctrine and not waited till 1978 to do it?!?