Coggins7 wrote:No he's not. Endless hypothetical hairsplitting by the likes of Graham are not going to solve the mystery. This has been going on since the Sixties and its going to go on for a long time to come. We know with certainly, from clear historical accounts, that there was a large quantity of textual material in the possession of the Church that has disappeared This material was fairly copious. Graham has added nothing to the debate but more mud. This isn't to say that,from a purely naturalistic standpoint, his claims are necessarily implausible. Counter claims, however, are plausible too. The presuppositions one brings to the argument here are of prime importance when so much crucial data is not extent.
Given the dearth of evidence, both critics and supporters can make plausible claims. But the problem for critics isn't the origin of the text itself, but the ideas and concepts contained in the Book of Abraham, concepts unknown to Joseph Smith or any Biblical scholar at the time but which have become well attested in a substantial religious texts that have come to light only long after Joseph's death.
That's wear the rubber begins to hit the road.
Hi There Coggins7,
The Following is from what Egyptologist Dr. Robert Ritner wrote:
There is no justification for Gee's unsubstantiated attempt to more than double this figure to '320 cm (about 10 feet)' in Gee, A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri, pp. 10 and 12–13. Gee presumably wishes to allow space for a supposedly 'lost hieratic text' of The Book of Abraham; his figure derives from the average length of a manufactured (blank) Ptolemaic papyrus roll—not comparable, individual documents cut from such a roll.
[ R. Ritner, "Among the Joseph Smith Papyri," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 62.3 (July 2003): 166 n33 ]
Here is the Link to this Article:
http://www.utlm.org/other/robertritnerpapyriarticle.pdf