Chaldeans Within The Book of Abraham.

[_Brackite]

Three years later, still no answers.

Oh wow! This Old Thread got popped up that I created about three years ago here.

[_Equality]

We are dealing with people (the mopologists and TBMs) who do not believe in science. They reject the Big Bang and evolution. What makes you think they will believe "so-called scholars" who put the time and place of the Chaldeans outside the time and place Joseph Smith claimed in the Book of Abraham? These people believe in fairy tales and reject the scientific method. Of course they don't have any answers.

[_Tobin]

I see a lot of sloppy thinking in this thread. Let's examine some of it and see how hilarious it gets.

1) There is the assertion that Abraham was just a myth.

This is a fine assertion and there is little to no evidence outside of the Bible that he existed; we don't have a complete, clear picture of what happened 4,000 years ago; and that should be the end of the discussion. However, when the critics then wander off of this position and begin to examine the Book of Abraham making absurd assertions, I begin to question the mental capacity of these critics. It is like a someone begins by stating that the Lord of the Rings is a book of fiction, but instead of stopping there they dispute the existence and deeds of Gandalf because Bilbo could not possibly know all the details. They then go to the extreme by stating that Bilbo made the whole thing up because he was a fat little hobbit, smoked too much pipeweed, and loved to make up tall tales. At this point, you really have to wonder about the critic.

2) Let's assume Abraham did exist, then we have two sources of information about him: The Bible and the Book of Abraham.

The critics, mind you most of whom don't believe Abraham existed, begin to attack these texts. There are a few problems with their criticism though:

a) We have a limited knowledge of the events, places, people, and activities 4,000 years ago. The exact knowledge these critics pretend to have of this era so long ago immediately should set off warning bells with any reasonable person listening to them. Just how do they exactly know what happened so long ago? I find people, who pretend to have such exacting knowledge, actually know little to nothing about what they are talking about.

b) They make a series of bad assumptions about the text without spending any time understanding their assumptions and why they might be completely wrong. Let's look at 3 of them:

Assertion 1) There was no human sacrifices practiced during this era, so the statements in the Book of Abraham of the Egyptian priest offering such sacrifices is unprecedented.

Ok, how do they know this? I'd love to understand this. And there is a serious problem with this assertion in the Bible text itself. God asks Abraham to perform a human sacrifice. Clearly, Abraham wasn't so shocked by this he immediately revolted and said no way to the Lord. In fact, the Bible indicates otherwise.

Assertion 2) The Jewish scholars, who compiled parts of the Old Testament in ~550BC, just got it wrong about the Chaldeans since we know the Chaldeans didn't exist before ~1000BC and Abraham lived ~2200-1500BC. There is a big problem with this. The Chaldeans, actually the Kassites, didn't appear out of thin air and not surprisingly weren't native to the lower Mesopotamia. They actually came from somewhere else, like many groups in the Middle East, and later established themselves there. Now why is this important?

The Book of Abraham and Bible identify that Abraham lived in Ur (Urim?) of Chaldees (kasddīm or Kassite). The Book of Abraham makes of number of clarifications too. The Egyptians had influence there. It also was suffering a famine as was Haran. They appear to be in the same ecological zone. This is a strong indicator that there is no reasonable way this could refer to a location in Mesopotamia. The Egyptians just didn't have influence there and agriculture was supported by irrigation, not rainfall. If you piece this together you see this was an earlier city and has nothing to do with the Chaldeans of the lower Mesopotamia.

Assertion 3) That Pharaoh is a greek word and was never used to refer to the Egyptian Kings. This assertion is completely idiotic and demonstrates the lengths the critics go to make false arguments. English speakers don't speak Egyptian so asserting the requirement that the king of Egypt be only referred in Egyptian is ridiculous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh The other assertion is there never was a person referred to by the two biliteral hieroglyphs that mean Pharaoh in Egypt. Really? And how do they know that?

[_Themis]

I see a lot of sloppy thinking in this thread. Let's examine some of it and see how hilarious it gets.

1) There is the assertion that Abraham was just a myth.

This is a fine assertion and there is little to no evidence outside of the Bible that he existed; we don't have a complete, clear picture of what happened 4,000 years ago; and that should be the end of the discussion. However, when the critics then wander off of this position and begin to examine the Book of Abraham making absurd assertions, I begin to question the mental capacity of these critics. It is like a someone begins by stating that the Lord of the Rings is a book of fiction, but instead of stopping there they dispute the existence and deeds of Gandalf because Bilbo could not possibly know all the details. They then go to the extreme by stating that Bilbo made the whole thing up because he was a fat little hobbit, smoked too much pipeweed, and loved to make up tall tales. At this point, you really have to wonder about the critic.

Many wonder about you. One does not have to believe Abraham existed in order to discuss the The biblical record or the Book of Abraham and whether it fits with what we know or whether it makes sense. It's also a really poor apologetic to say since we don't know everything that happened back then we should not discuss the things we do know.

2) Let's assume Abraham did exist, then we have two sources of information about him: The Bible and the Book of Abraham.

That's assuming different things to assume the biblical record and the Book of Abraham are accurate records of Abraham. They are independent of each other.

The critics, mind you most of whom don't believe Abraham existed, begin to attack these texts. There are a few problems with their criticism though:

a) We have a limited knowledge of the events, places, people, and activities 4,000 years ago. The exact knowledge these critics pretend to have of this era so long ago immediately should set off warning bells with any reasonable person listening to them. Just how do they exactly know what happened so long ago? I find people, who pretend to have such exacting knowledge, actually know little to nothing about what they are talking about.

Again poor apologetic to think we can't look at the evidences we do have.

Assertion 1) There was no human sacrifices practiced during this era, so the statements in the Book of Abraham of the Egyptian priest offering such sacrifices is unprecedented.

This assertion fits the evidence. This is why it is unprecedented. If you have evidence that the Egyptians at this time were do ritual human sacrifices outside of the claims of the Book of Abraham feel free to provide them.

Assertion 2) The Jewish scholars, who compiled parts of the Old Testament in ~550BC, just got it wrong about the Chaldeans since we know the Chaldeans didn't exist before ~1000BC and Abraham lived ~2200-1500BC. There is a big problem with this. The Chaldeans, actually the Kassites, didn't appear out of thin air and not surprisingly weren't native to the lower Mesopotamia. They actually came from somewhere else, like many groups in the Middle East, and later established themselves there. Now why is this important?

The Book of Abraham and Bible identify that Abraham lived in Ur (Urim?) of Chaldees (kasddīm or Kassite). The Book of Abraham makes of number of clarifications too. The Egyptians had influence there. It also was suffering a famine as was Haran. They appear to be in the same ecological zone. This is a strong indicator that there is no reasonable way this could refer to a location in Mesopotamia. The Egyptians just didn't have influence there and agriculture was supported by irrigation, not rainfall. If you piece this together you see this was an earlier city and has nothing to do with the Chaldeans of the lower Mesopotamia.

You are making assertions without evidence. I would suggest reading California kid quoted statement on the first page of this thread.

[_Drifting]

You are making assertions without evidence.

The true essence of current Mopologetics...