Gee does have evidence that such a length is not unjustifed. Consider that one of the main objections of Gee is that it is not uncommon for multiple texts to be appended to Egyptian scrolls and thus to be larger in length. [...] Some ancient copies of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, for example, have been found to contain a variety of other non-funerary texts including stories similar to the sacrifice of Abraham (involving different personalities), temple rituals, and more.
Between my math and Seyffarth's testimony, I think we can pretty much exclude the possibility of there having been another text on the Hor roll. But just to humor you, here's a little something I wrote a while back in response to Gee.
Gee wrote,
The Joseph Smith Papyri are generally termed typical funerary documents. Some people assume that if the documents are funerary they cannot contain anything else. Some Book of the Dead papyri, however, do contain other texts. For example, a fragmentary Eighteenth-Dynasty Book of the Dead in Cairo (JE 95575) contains account texts on the front side (recto). Papyrus Vandier also has a Book of the Dead on the verso (back side), but the recto contains the story of Meryre, who was sacrificed on an altar (an intriguing similarity to the Book of Abraham). The Book of the Dead of Psenmines (Louvre 3129) and Pawerem (BM 10252) both contain temple rituals. Both papyrus Harkness and BM 10507 (demotic funerary papyri) contain several different texts. Just because the preserved sections of the Joseph Smith Papyri are funerary in nature does not mean they cannot have had other texts, either on the verso or on the missing sections of the rolls. Arguing from silence is usually considered a fallacy.
In evaluating these arguments it will prove helpful to cite Ewert, David, A General Introduction to the Bible: From Ancient Tablets to Modern Translations (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1983), p. 20:
On the front (recto) side [of a papyrus] the fibers ran horizontally, on the back (verso) side vertically. Since the front side was smoother than the back, one normally wrote only on that side. Only rarely was the back side, where the fibers ran vertically, used for writing. If it was, then the scroll was called an opisthograph. The roll that John saw in the hands of the One who sat upon the throne, had "writing on both sides" (Rev. 5:1) to indicate the fullness of God's plans and purposes.
In some cases, unwanted works of literature were recycled by later authors who were too cheap to purchase new papyrus. They would take obsolete accounting texts, for example, and write a funerary text on the verso. (Writing on the verso of a papyrus is much harder than writing on the recto, which is why it wasn't done all that often.) Since papyrus-recycling of this sort was usually done later and/or by a different author-- after the text on the recto had served its purpose and become obsolete-- texts on opposite sides of a papyrus are often totally unrelated.
The Book of Breathings, however, is written on the recto, or front side, of the papyrus. It was then interned with a mummy and not rediscovered until modern times. There was little or no opportunity for someone to reuse this papyrus by writing on the back side. Notice that John Gee's examples (JE 95575 and Papyrus Vandier) are both funerary texts written on the verso of a papyrus with another text on the recto. This makes perfect sense; a Book of the Dead was written on the back side of an unwanted piece of literature and then interned with a dead body. It makes much less sense for a funerary text to be written on the recto of a papyrus with an unrelated work of literature on the verso. You write on the recto first, and the verso later. With most funerary texts there is no "later", because the text is interned in some guy's tomb.
Note also that Joseph Smith mounted the BoB text on paper. If the text of the Book of Abraham was on the back side, then he glued it to the paper. Something tells me he wouldn't do that.
Additionally, Gee says that the "Book of the Dead of Psenmines (Louvre 3129) and Pawerem (BM 10252) both contain temple rituals." But these "temple rituals" were not unrelated to the funerary material they accompanied. According to Janet E. Jay of the University of Chicago, "Although both the anti-Seth and the anti-Apophis ritual were originally composed for temple use, the extant copies appear to have been produced to serve a mortuary/funerary function and were placed in the tomb of a private individual (Quack 2002b, pp. 59–60)." The same can be said of Papyrus Harkness and BM 10507. They are collections of texts, but are nevertheless all funerary in nature. Gee therefore provides no compelling example of a funerary and non-funerary text appearing together on the same side of a papyrus.
It is true that the extant portion of the papyri are narrower than most Book of Breathing Documents (like the Denon Book of Breathings). However, I would like to see Chris' evidence that " there is no reason it should not also be shorter." The Denon Book of Breathings is almost 2 feet longer than the Joseph Smith Book of Breathings, for example.
I don't really understand what exactly you're trying to argue here. The Hor Book of Breathings is shorter than the Denon Book of Breathings, therefore there must have been a Book of Abraham appended to it? How does that follow?
1. Gee is both an Egyptologist and speaks German.
2. Gee does have the original papyri to work from.
3. Gee does have the original works cited at the 2007 FAIR Conference.
4. Gee did provide the formula at the 2007 FAIR Conference which I saw with my own eyes. Chris is working with an audio recording.
5. Gee has told me that he is going into print on this subject, so we can look forward to seeing the real numbers presented and then refuted by Chris (if he can).
So, for now it looks like the circumstances are in favor of Dr. Gee.
As Gadianton pointed out in my missing papyrus equation thread, Gee's measurements are physically impossible. Egyptologist or no, that's a problem. Moreover, one does not need to have the originals in order to see that Gee is off by several orders of magnitude. I wonder what Gee's credentials as a mathematician are?
I do, indeed, look forward to Gee going to print with this. I just hope he corrects his figures before he does so, so that we can all benefit from accurate results.
I am not sure if Chris is proposing if Rhodes is talking about the entire scroll or the Book of Breathings text. However, for anyone interested, Rhodes is talking about the Book of Breathing text alone and not the entire scroll. He gives 60 cm for two more columns of hieratic and the final vignette.
I was referring to the text. However, I also think the evidence points fairly clearly to the Book of Breathings having been the only text on the roll.
And here is where both Chris and Dr. Ritner miss the boat. What is unique is not that we have ressurection/judgment scenes but how these scenes are depicted. No known other example of a lion couch scene similar to the one found in the JSP has been found in any other Book of Breathings document, as has been demonstrated by Baer.
Not all things that are unique are significant. The iconography and texts of this period are fairly fluid. That no other extant Book of Breathings uses a vignette that is exactly like this one does not imply that the illustration and the text do not go together. The illustration has the meaning we would expect of an illustration in this context.
Although Cowdery describes "this record" as "beautifully written," William I. Appleby made it clear in 1841 that "there is a perceptible difference between the writings [of Abraham and Joseph]. Joseph appears to have been the best scribe." Appleby's statement perfectly describes the contrast between the Ta-shert-min and Hor rolls, the latter of which Nibley described as a "badly written, poorly preserved little text."
This requires some amazing mind reading on Chris' part. How does he know that what Appleby meant was the physical nature of the papyri?
Really, Rommelator? Really?
Can we seriously believe that Haven would have described a scroll of no more than 2 feet long (60cm) as "a long roll of manuscript"? I personally doubt it, considering that it would therefore have been even shorter than the rest of the Book of Breathings which would have measured about 96 cm (3 feet).
The rest of the Book of Breathings was in pieces. This was, in fact, probably the only intact papyrus roll in the room. "Long" is whatever Charlotte thinks is long. If she's never seen a papyrus before, she has no basis against which to judge the length of this roll.
A rather bold pronouncement. I wish I had as much confidence in the KEP debate as Chris did. There you have it folks! The debate has been settled and there is nothing more to do. It looks like Brent and Brian can stop their publication plans, since Chris has settled it for us.
I have confidence in my own conclusions. I do not think that all of the particular points at issue between Brian and Brent have been settled. But neither do they need to be for us to draw some pretty obvious conclusions about the KEP and their implications for the relationship between the Hor Book of Breathings and the Book of Abraham.
Best,
-Chris
