Book of Abraham defense by Dan Peterson

[_karl61]

I thought the new standard for commenting on this text was a graduate degree studying
ancient Egypt.

[_Drifting]

 1 And I, Abraham, had the aUrim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees;

 2 And I saw the astars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it;

 3 And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is aKolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.

 4 And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its atimes and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a bday unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand cyears according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s dtime, according to the reckoning of Kolob.

 5 And the Lord said unto me: The planet which is the lesser light, lesser than that which is to rule the day, even the night, is above or agreater than that upon which thou standest in point of reckoning, for it moveth in order more slow; this is in order because it standeth above the earth upon which thou standest, therefore the reckoning of its time is not so many as to its number of days, and of months, and of years.

 6 And the Lord said unto me: Now, Abraham, these atwo facts exist, behold thine eyes see it; it is given unto thee to know the times of reckoning, and the set time, yea, the set time of the earth upon which thou standest, and the set time of the greater light which is set to rule the day, and the set time of the lesser light which is set to rule the night.

 7 Now the set time of the lesser light is a longer time as to its reckoning than the reckoning of the time of the earth upon which thou standest.

 8 And where these two facts exist, there shall be another fact above them, that is, there shall be another planet whose reckoning of time shall be longer still;

 9 And thus there shall be the reckoning of the time of one aplanet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord’s time; which Kolob is set nigh unto the throne of God, to govern all those planets which belong to the same border as that upon which thou standest.

 10 And it is given unto thee to know the set time of all the stars that are set to give light, until thou come near unto the throne of God.

 11 Thus I, Abraham, atalked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another; and he told me of the works which his hands had made;

 12 And he said unto me: My son, my son (and his hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these. And he put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof.

 13 And he said unto me: This is Shinehah, which is the sun. And he said unto me: Kokob, which is star. And he said unto me: Olea, which is the moon. And he said unto me: Kokaubeam, which signifies stars, or all the great lights, which were in the firmament of heaven.

 14 And it was in the night time when the Lord spake these words unto me: I will amultiply thee, and thy bseed after thee, like unto these; and if thou canst count the cnumber of sands, so shall be the number of thy seeds.

 15 And the Lord said unto me: Abraham, I ashow these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt, that ye may declare all these words.

 16 If atwo things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them; therefore bKolob is the greatest of all the Kokaubeam that thou hast seen, because it is nearest unto me.

 17 Now, if there be two things, one above the other, and the moon be above the earth, then it may be that a planet or a star may exist above it; and there is nothing that the Lord thy God shall take in his heart to do but what he will ado it.

 18 Howbeit that he made the greater star; as, also, if there be two aspirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are bgnolaum, or eternal.

 19 And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am amore intelligent than they all.

So if it's true how exactly does the sun get its light from Kolob and where IS Kolob?
Also, if God has time reckoning on Kolob etc, what happened to eternity?

[_Drifting]

Of all the things DCP could have written about he chose one of the most controversial that, for the most part, had disappeared into the background.

Why bring it up and stir up a predictable hornets nest?

It's almost like DCP is trying to show the leadership how much trouble he is capable of causing in the guise of faith promotion...

[_DarkHelmet]

Go DH Go!!!

This is priceless.

The papyri only disproves the Book of Abraham to anti-mormons with an agenda. LDS scholars who have actually studied the papyri and compared it to the Book of Abraham have discovered it is a perfect match. We don't need evidence to have faith. But it is nice to know that the evidence the church has in its possession verifies that our faith is correct.

I assumed it would be too over the top for them to publish. That is 2 straight over the top TBM posts in a row that they published after rejecting my original post which was critical of the Book of Abraham. I will do one more that should be so over the top ever the DN will see through it as an obvious joke. If they publish it, I will stop. I don't want to be too much of a troll.

[_Madison54]

Of all the things DCP could have written about he chose one of the most controversial that, for the most part, had disappeared into the background.

Why bring it up and stir up a predictable hornets nest?

It's almost like DCP is trying to show the leadership how much trouble he is capable of causing in the guise of faith promotion...

Wow....so true.

I know many TBMs who have issues with the Book of Abraham and who are fully aware of all the problems surrounding it. Even the church seems to have distanced itself from using it much any more.

I have a good friend who is a Gospel Doctrine teacher and he told me that it's rare to find any quotes / scriptural references, etc. within the lesson material now from the Book of Abraham.

[_Stormy Waters]

But I wonder whether he has got it wrong again? Haven't the Brethren indicated by their lack of references to this topic that they would simply prefer it not to be mentioned?

Hey maybe next week he can defend polyandry!

In seriousness though, I think the brethren are playing it the only way they can. Mentioning the origins of the Book of Abraham is suicide. Maybe they'll try to quietly phase it out of the scriptures.

[_karl61]

I could understand being uncomfortable about Smith's comments on kolob but the thought about God's work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and enternal life of man
is a really beautiful one.

[_Chap]

I could understand being uncomfortable about Smith's comments on kolob but the thought about God's work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and enternal life of man
is a really beautiful one.

Well, William Wordsworth's poem The Prelude is full of beautiful thoughts too.

But that doesn't mean it was not made up by a human being.

And I do have to say (from my own experience, which may not be universal) that if one reads the Book of Abraham for the first time as an outsider to Mormonism it does not seem to be a very inspiring or exciting piece of work. Maybe it feels different if you are brought up to regard it as scripture?

[_Darth J]

How likely would general population Egyptian wife stealing make it into scripts preserved from antiquity? A pharaoh doing it might. If the present pharaoh was a good man not given to wife stealing he may well have been the exception of pharaohs. But the Egyptian culture was perhaps awash with stealing wives by murdering husbands. Once any pharaoh was known to do it the die was cast for a cultural phenomena. Sort of like what happened with kids in America after Clinton and Monica was believed. Lipstick rainbow parties abounding.

DarthJ you are straining at a gnat here.

Yes, well, the thing is that the Book of Abraham does say the present Pharaoh (that apparently being his given name) was a good man, and a generic reference to "Egyptians" being keen on stealing Abraham's wife did make it into a script purporting to be from antiquity.

So no, straining at gnat would be referring to things that the Book of Abraham does not say for the purpose of inventing a parallel to a real ancient Egyptian document.

[_Darth J]

Oh, look! Josh has added his thoughts to the discussion:

jskains
Orem, UT
The humor is critics are selective. There are references to the scrolls being extremely long, covering multiple floors, but since it doesn't fit the goals of the anti-LDS, they immediately discount it. IMHO, the KEP was a Joseph Smith project to reverse engineer what he already had translated and got the location wrong. And also IMHO, the facimilies were reused.

9:27 a.m. July 26, 2012