My Interview with Brian Hauglid is Up!

[_Philo Sofee]

Dr. Scratch
Anyways: pretty lousy that DCP, or Midgley, or whoever it was would try to get Hauglid in trouble like this. They're basically a bunch of stool pigeons.

Actually they are the pigeon's stools.

[_Shulem]

That was the BEST interview you have ever done! Brian Hauglid is a hero for his honesty. And you had better allow my comment I made, it says it is in moderation, so please accept it.

Ur comment is up.

I've listened to the podcast twice and may end up doing a third time before long.

I'm thinking there may end up being a part II. When the saw hits the wood the chips fly!

[_Kishkumen]

The Mopologetic commentary on this has gotten remarkably personal and nasty. I just can't see any good reason why Dr. Peterson felt it necessary to drag Hauglid's children into the discussion, but he did:

His loss of faith was fairly well known, I think -- I'm guessing that it must have been, because people I scarcely knew mentioned it to me over years; even his daughter (whom I've never met) was apparently telling people about it -- but the reactions that I saw were typically sad rather than angry.

Wow: what a toxic sink-hold of gossip-mongering.

I really hate the whole loss of faith fixation. Obviously it is convenient for apologists to use against those who disagree with their apologetics. "Yeah, but he is not a faithful Mormon anymore, so you really don't have to pay attention to what he says."

[_Philo Sofee]

Its proof of the lack of logical thinking in apologetics however Kish......

[_Shulem]

J Smith's FACSIMILE NO. 1 Boner

You can't put a white man's head on a black man's body!



Isn't that right, professor Gee? Care to discuss that here on Mormon Discussions? Come talk to Shulem. I'm the real expert! I'll set you straight (no pun intended). Bring your friends if you want. I'll take all of you on all by MYSELF!

Come to Shulem, so I can rip you a new one. Your academic qualifications and certifications do not scare me one bit. I'll kick your mother f c k ing ass and teach u a lesson you'll never forget.





Shulem gonna kick Gee's ass!

[_Symmachus]

Put yourself in the shoes of the scribes. You have the finished text of Abraham. And then you have a collections of scrolls. If I recall correctly, Nibley called the "Joseph Smith papyri" a "scrap", and said that a much longer scroll existed with colorful inks. John Gee says the other scroll is 41 feet long?? Again, supposing you are Joseph Smith's scribe, and you're trying to get back to where Joseph Smith started, why would you pick symbols concentrated on the "scrap" of papyri to get back to, with this beautiful mega-scroll available that's so much more impressive? You'd only do that if you had very good reason to believe the "scrap" was what Joseph Smith was using in the first place! In other words, in a blind selection test, you'd probably pick the cool, impressive looking scroll, not the lame duck scrap. If you picked the lame-duck scrap, it probably wasn't a blind guess.

The only possibility I can think of (in an apologetic narrative) is that the impressive scroll was lost much earlier, and so the scribes didn't have access to it or even know about it. But the apologetic narrative suggests the existence of the much larger scroll is based on all kinds of credible eye-witness reports, so we're saying all these other people knew about the longer scroll but the scribes didn't?

An excellent point, Dean Robbers. I don't recall even Hauglid making it (perhaps I missed it), but it certainly strips away whatever cloak of plausibility the lost scroll theory has. So, the question becomes: assuming there was a lost scroll, why did the scribes find the papyri that eventually made into the front of the Peal of Great Price to be so compelling? Even if you believe there was a missing scroll, it is a question worth addressing. And the reason I say that is because Hugh Nibley spent thirty years writing a whole book about one of these scraps, the hypocephalus. If he really believed the lost scroll explained away all the Egyptological problems of the Book of Abraham, why waste time on a papyrus that has nothing to do with Book of Abraham?

That gets me to the bigger question: why does the Church have these papyrus scraps enshrined as scriptural canon if they have nothing to do with the Book of Abraham? I feel like there is a chance to solve some of their troubles here: just remove these papyrus scraps, because they're just the irrelevant obsessions of Joseph's scribes. No more papyri in scripture = no more questions about Joseph Smith's Egyptological ignorance. Blame it on Warren Parrish, or whoever. At least that way, the Book of Abraham can stay in the canon, and it won't be any worse off than the Book of Mormon is.

[_Shulem]

That gets me to the bigger question: why does the Church have these papyrus scraps enshrined as scriptural canon if they have nothing to do with the Book of Abraham? I feel like there is a chance to solve some of their troubles here: just remove these papyrus scraps, because they're just the irrelevant obsessions of Joseph's scribes. No more papyri in scripture = no more questions about Joseph Smith's Egyptological ignorance. Blame it on Warren Parrish, or whoever. At least that way, the Book of Abraham can stay in the canon, and it won't be any worse off than the Book of Mormon is.

Yes, there is the case of the missing hieroglyphs on Abraham's Facsimile No. 2. Smith filled in the gaps (lacuna) -- BUT did he do that with characters from John Gee's imaginary missing roll? Heavens no! He took them from the very papyrus roll in which John Gee knows are funerary spells or literature of the Book of the Dead. Isn't that right, professor Gee? Care to read the writing Smith inserted down under the so-called Dove (Holy Ghost) and the seated Hebrew God of Israel of Fig. 7. That is the God of Israel, is it not, professor Gee? Does he really have a boner? Dr. Shades is itching to know! What about Abraham on the lion couch in Facsimile No. 1, is it not him? How do we know? Because JOSEPH SMITH said so.

I'm afraid for John Gee there is no missing roll that can save his faith. Professor Gee will have to come to terms and figure out what to do with his dying faith in the Book of Abraham translation. Isn't that right, Gee? Perhaps you can write a book on how to save faith. That should sustain you for a while at least.

Joseph Smith Hypocephalus - Wikipedia

[_Philo Sofee]

Shulem
Professor Gee will have to come to terms and figure out what to do with his dying faith in the Book of Abraham translation. Isn't that right, Gee? Perhaps you can write a book on how to save faith. That should sustain you for a while at least.

Writing a book with actual and verifiable facts would be vastly superior........ :biggrin: Gee tried to write about how faith verified a longer roll using mathematics and Chris Smith and his co-author destroyed him with accurate mathematics, not faith mathematical facts. Mathematical facts that Gee's faith cannot refute.

[_Shulem]

Shulem
Professor Gee will have to come to terms and figure out what to do with his dying faith in the Book of Abraham translation. Isn't that right, Gee? Perhaps you can write a book on how to save faith. That should sustain you for a while at least.

Writing a book with actual and verifiable facts would be vastly superior........ :biggrin: Gee tried to write about how faith verified a longer roll using mathematics and Chris Smith and his co-author destroyed him with accurate mathematics, not faith mathematical facts. Mathematical facts that Gee's faith cannot refute.

You make a good point. Faith in itself is not a bad thing but is an important part of our existence and our life's experience. But faith directed in things that are proven MATHEMATICALLY incorrect is misdirected faith and should therefore be adjusted and realigned to agree with the known facts. Something like that.

Faith is based on imagination and creative thought. Parallelomania is used by apologists in an attempt to legitimize the Book of Abraham. A parallel here and a parallel there. See here and see there. But never mind the MATH! For apologists, faith in parallels and creative thinking Trump's the math.

The Book of Abraham is proven false or untrue by the NUMBERS. You can't defy the math. Not even faith can make bad math true.

[_Gadianton]

Yes, there is the case of the missing hieroglyphs on Abraham's Facsimile No. 2. Smith filled in the gaps (lacuna) -- BUT did he do that with characters from John Gee's imaginary missing roll? Heavens no! He took them from the very papyrus roll in which John Gee knows are funerary spells or literature of the Book of the Dead.

That's fascinating, Shulem. Are you aware of any legitimate Egyptian symbols used by Joseph Smith in any context that don't have an obvious source?

Also, one of the tenets of every Chapel Mormon's faith is that Egyptian is so compact, that one glyph can generate pages of English text, which the Joseph Smith-Egyptian papers confirm, but which in the world we know as "reality" simply is not true.

It's interesting that the proposed scroll length is 41 feet. There wasn't a subconscious target length was there? How much Egyptian scroll does it take to produce the amount of text in the Book of Abraham?