I commend Mr. Shades for his excellent report. I had hoped to attend Gee’s presentation, but was not able to make it.
[liz3564] Have any of you guys heard of this theory about the "large scroll" and it being burned in a Chicago fire? This is the first I have heard about it, but I haven't really studied this subject at any depth.
It does seem odd that all of these manuscripts which were so important to the Church, would have been separated like that. And the one document which contains the actual content burning does seem rather convenient.
The *Church* never owned the Egyptian mummies or papyri. After Joseph Smith’s death, they remained the possessions of Lucy Mack Smith and/or Emma Smith. After the death of Lucy, all of the Egyptian material became the property of Emma __ the mummies, the papyri, etc. Despite attempts by the church to acquire the Egyptian material, they were unsucessful.
Now, as I understand it, there were fragile fragments that were carefully removed from the original scrolls. If I remember correctly, this happened in Kirtland. This material was the stuff from the outermost layers of the rolled up scrolls. It was falling apart, and so they removed the more fragile material and placed it in some glass frames. The rest of the material remained in scroll form. There were at least two long rolls, in addition to the few fragments that were placed in the glass frames. After Emma’s death, her stepson (Charles Bidamon) divided the material and sold it to interested parties. The scrolls and the fragments were separated. The scrolls ended up in Chicago and were destroyed by fire. The framed fragments ended up in New York City, and were ultimately donated to the church in 1967.
As to the length of the scrolls, Gee is apparently relying on several eyewitness accounts from the Nauvoo era, and also a calculation that is based on the surviving fragments.
[dartagnan] But why won't they just publish the documents? WHy the special protection of the KEP?
Because they don't want people thinking for themselves and doing their own analysis. This is why Hauglid presented only a fraction of the KEP in his presentation. He is only interested in showing portions that he thinks support his argument. The rest cannot be shown because the assumption is that you're too stupid to understand what they really mean. You need people like Gee and Hauglid to tell you what they mean.
I don’t understand your reasoning here. From what I have gathered __ based on the statements of Hauglid and Shryver on the MAD board __ the “critical edition” of the KEP is going to include high quality images of the entire collection of documents. Even if they seemed to keep this stuff under lock and key in the past, it would seem those days are about to end. I think that should be a good thing for everyone interested in this topic. I wonder why Metcalf has never published his photos before now? Has anyone ever said why he has been so secretive about this stuff? I’ve never understood that. But perhaps there is something I don’t know that explains it.
[Sethbag] This whole lecture by Gee is a very good example of something that humans as a species do very well - problem solving. There's a problem, and there are intelligent people willing to put in the time and effort to find a solution for it, and things like this lecture are the result. It's just enough plausible-sounding handwaving exercises, innuendo, and well-poisoning to give believing Mormons something they can point to when confronting the unpleasant facts surrounding the Book of Abraham, and wave it all off as some anti-Mormon biased conspiracy to defeat God's truth.
In that respect, this lecture represents a bullseye. Mission Accomplished.
I didn’t get that at all from what I could gather from the notes posted here by Mr. Shades.
[California Kid] The testimony of Gustavus Seyffarth, who in 1856 viewed the now-destroyed "long roll" in the St. Louis Museum (from which it was soon conveyed to Chicago), indicates that it was in fact the remainder of the Hor Book of Breathings (including Facsimile 3). The part of the Book of Breathings now in the church's possession is the frayed outer fragments of the roll, which were preserved under glass. The remainder of the roll (which Charlotte Haven described as "long") would have been, by my calculations, about 4 or 5 feet in length. Not long by Gee's standards, but long enough to seem "long" to a nineteenth century woman who's used to flipping the pages of bound books.
What is this *testimony* of Seyffarth that you’re talking about? I haven’t heard about that.
Also, what about the other scroll? I thought Gee was suggesting that it was the other scroll that would have contained the Abraham text. And what calculations do you use to come up with *4 or 5 feet in length* ? I thought the descriptions from people in Nauvoo talk about scrolls stretching from one room into another. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just wonder where you come up with your figures. Also, how do you account for the other descriptions given by people in Nauvoo that seem to suggest something much longer than 4 or 5 feet?
[Sethbag]I wanted to add one more comment, related to what I read earlier.
Joseph Smith had possession of all of the scrolls we are talking about, both the ones the church has now, as well as any other scrolls that might once have existed, such as the mythical "longer scroll" which is claimed to have burned up in the fire.
The authors of the KEP had all of the scrolls available. The woodcutter who engraved the masters for the facsimiles had the originals to look at and base their cuts on, etc. All of these people had direct, physical access to the collection of papyrus as it was delivered to Joseph Smith from Michael Chandler.
The $64 question is then this. If Joseph Smith and the others had direct, physical possession of all of the scrolls, why choose the "wrong" scroll, ie: the one we have possession of right now, to base all of the written and drawn material on? Why attach symbols from the Breathing Permit of Hor to verses from the Book of Abraham, when the actual Book of Abraham scroll was sitting right there on their desk? Why engrave the vignette from the Breathing Permit of Hor for inclusion in the Book of Abraham when the "real" Book of Abraham scroll, with the image "at the commencement of this record" was sitting right there? Why engrave the hypocephalus image and claim it to be part of the Book of Abraham, when the "real" Book of Abraham scroll was physicall in their hands, on their desk, etc.?
I agree that this is probably the key question. As I understand it, the apologetic response is that 1) Joseph Smith wasn't really involved in the production of the papers that contain the Abraham text and the characters from the Breathings text. 2) Joseph Smith's scribes __ and perhaps even Joseph Smith himself __ did not know the source for the *translation* he had received by revelation.
I'm not sure how persuasive this argument is, but that is how I understand what they have said about it.