Three things

[_Chap]

Please don't give me the "I am not a mathematician" stuff. Those who can't follow the simple repeated subtraction I am using here are not just "not mathematicians", but are so innumerate as not to be trusted to reconcile their own checking account.

Hey! I resemble that remark.

I don't balance my checking account. I just hope there's enough there every time I swipe that debit card.

As far as this complex calculus stuff is concerned ( ), I don't really have a response.

I know John is aware of the criticisms. To date, he appears impervious to them. He acts supremely confident of his claims. If he is as mistaken on this question as you make him out to be, then -- as I've already said -- I think he has made a huge tactical error in advocating for this 1200cm scroll length. For one, I think it is unnecessary as an apologetic angle. But, most importantly, I don't see that any possible benefit from this argument could outweigh the inevitable negative impact on his reputation and the cause he claims to champion.

So, without accepting your claims, because I really don't understand it all, I remain open-minded and yet still disinclined to believe that Gee is as wrong as you make him out to be.

I do intend to quiz him further on this subject ...

Thank you for this reasonable response, which deserves a respectful acknowledgment.

I trust that in the end CK, who does not value his anonymity as I do, will get around to sending a research note on this topic of scroll length (and papyrus thickness) of the Smith papyri to an Egyptological journal; if it is short and to the point it would probably be published.

Then we shall have an end to the present rather mysterious fashion of wondering what John Gee's answer to CK's (and my) points might be.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Thanks, Chap, for that great summary. Incidentally, one work on the Dead Sea Scrolls I looked at suggested that papyri of the Ptolemaic period tend to be thicker than those of other eras because the Greek reed pens that were in use during that time punctured thinner media. That work estimated most papyrus thicknesses of the period at between .5 and .8 mm. My measurements suggest a thickness for the Hor papyrus of more like .25, if I recall correctly, which is only half the thickness the work in question leads us to expect, but still TEN TIMES thicker than Gee's vanishingly-thin razor-papyrus.

You might be interested to know there was another recent thread on this over at MADB, wherein the poster known as "Mortal Man" independently did some measurements and math and reached the same conclusions you and I did over here.

Incidentally, since you used the scroll of Noufianoub as a point of comparison, I should point out that I believe the final winding of that scroll was (at the most) more like 5 cm than the 7.8 cm-length Gee proposes. That would leave a maximum only about 37 cm of papyrus after the vignette. The winding lengths of the Ta-shere-min & Noufianoub fragments, however, are much more difficult to measure than the Hor lengths for the reason that Joseph Smith and/or his scribes cut off some of the contours of the damage on the top and bottom of the fragments when they mounted them on paper.

Dee Jay Nelson argued on the basis of similarities of drawing style-- which was his particular area of expertise-- that the Noufianoub fragment was originally part of the Ta-shere-min roll. He felt that the name "Noufianoub" had been copied into the judgment vignette by accident from a master copy. I admit I don't see the similarities in drawing as clearly as Nelson did. At the very least, the final vignette appears more 3-D than the much smaller earlier vignettes. But I am inclined, for different reasons, to accept Nelson at his word. Both Oliver Cowdery and W. W. Phelps say that Joseph Smith had only two rolls and only a few other small fragments. At the "inner end" of the "Book of Joseph" roll, which we can tell from Cowdery's description was the Ta-shere-min document, Cowdery places a vignette that sounds exactly like the Noufianoub judgment scene. I've not seen any evidence to suggest that Joseph Smith had another such scene in his collection, which leads me to believe the Noufianoub vignette was at the "inner end" of the Ta-shere-min roll. The fragment is the right height to have been a part of that roll, and if I'm not mistaken follows logically from the text of Book of the Dead 125 with which the extant Ta-shere-min fragments conclude. The clincher, I suppose, is that our calculations are consistent with it having been at the "inner end" of whatever roll it was on.

Anyway, best,

-Chris

[_William Schryver]

CS:

My measurements suggest a thickness for the Hor papyrus of more like .25, if I recall correctly, which is only half the thickness the work in question leads us to expect, but still TEN TIMES thicker than Gee's vanishingly-thin razor-papyrus.

How do you conclude that Gee's papyrus must be .025 mm?

Chap argues that the papyrus can only be ~1200 cm if its thickness is .05 mm.

The average thickness of common copier/printer paper is about .08 mm. Normal "onion skin" paper is about half that -- .05 mm.

Are you claiming that papyrus is 10 - 15 times thicker than modern paper?

[Guest]

How do you conclude that Gee's papyrus must be .025 mm?

I goofed. That should have read "five times", not ten. Apparently I'm no mathematician either!

Are you claiming that papyrus is 10 - 15 times thicker than modern paper?

Yes. In the Ptolemaic period, typically about ten times thicker.

[_JohnStuartMill]

This says that New Kingdom papyrus (I'm not sure if that's the period we're talking about here) could be .10 - .15 mm thick:

http://books.google.com/books?id=-sFpPT ... kGMwQApeMM

[_William Schryver]

This says that New Kingdom papyrus (I'm not sure if that's the period we're talking about here) could be .10 - .15 mm thick:

http://books.google.com/books?id=-sFpPT ... kGMwQApeMM

There's a big difference between .10 mm and .50 - .80 mm.

Are you claiming, Chris, that Ptolemaic-era papyrus was 5x to 8x thicker than the papyrus made hundreds of years earlier?

[_JohnStuartMill]

There's a big difference between .10 mm and .50 - .80 mm.

Indeed.

Are you claiming, Chris, that Ptolemaic-era papyrus was 5x to 8x thicker than the papyrus made hundreds of years earlier?

Why not? This is apologetics, after all. Might as well level the playing field by letting critics say whatever they want, right?

[_William Schryver]

All I know is that I'm seeing real problems all over the place for the arguments Chris and Chap have set forth.

Chap admits that a thickness of .05 mm will permit a ~1200 cm scroll. OK, so maybe the papyrus was really .10 mm thick (and until I see Chris prove that Ptolemaic-era papyrus was always 5x to 8x thicker than New Kingdom papyrus, I will remain unconvinced.) A thickness of .10 mm, by Chap's own admission, will permit a scroll of ~600 cm. That's about 20ft.!

And I don't think John ever claimed that the scroll was actually 41 ft. long, only that the formula returned that value. A scroll of ~20 ft. long is still a whole lot more than the fragments that are extant. A whole lot!

[_Dwight Frye]

This is thinner than any modern-day paper you are ever likely to meet, and is certainly much thicker than ancient papyrus (or modern papyrus for that matter) could ever be.

Trying to wrap my brain around all this -- you meant to write thinner above, right? If not, I'm more lost than I thought I was.

Great stuff, ol Chap. You're doing the Lord's work here.

[_William Schryver]

This is thinner than any modern-day paper you are ever likely to meet, and is certainly much thicker than ancient papyrus (or modern papyrus for that matter) could ever be.

Trying to wrap my brain around all this -- you meant to write thinner above, right? If not, I'm more lost than I thought I was.

Great stuff, ol Chap. You're doing the Lord's work here.

Except that, the more I research this issue, the less impressive are Chap's claims. In fact, they're not impressive at all! The fact is that Greek-era papyrus could very well be .10 mm thick, and perhaps even thinner. I'm waiting to hear back from Gee on the actual thickness of the JSP, assuming he has that data at present.

At the very least, we are now looking at a situation where, using Chap's calculations, the scroll of Horos was very likely at least ~600 cm in length! That is about 20 ft.! And, my friends, that is a hell of a lot more scroll material than is currently extant.

And, remember, Gee never argued that the scroll was actually 41ft. long, only that Hoffman's formula returns that value when you enter the measurement data. I'm quite confident that John would be as willing as I am to accept a scroll length of 20 feet, based on known papyrus thickness from the era.