BoAbr: "You're Down to Your Ride, Pal"

[Guest]

The BoAbr is LDS canonized scripture. It is not the mere musings of some apostle or even a prophet subsequent to JSJr's death, that can be dismissed now that the author is dead in the way that BRM's Mormon Doctrine is.

The BoAbr is LDS canonized scripture. It is at the heart of whether members or investigators can believe what the LDS leadership claims is god's word--or not.

Until the 1960s, the BoAbr was touted as another great imparting of knowledge from god to his latter-day, restoration prophet, JSJr. Then the s*** hit the fan. The source Egyptian papyrus, the Sensen Papyrus, was found and returned to the LDS church. And more damning, the KEP's existence had leaked out, and it ties this very piece of papyrus to the BoAbr manuscript.

For 45 years now, this has been a major thorn in the side of the truth claims of the LDS Church.

It has been the undoing of many apologists' testimony in the LDS truth claims. The closer they have looked at the BoAbr issues, the more problematic such have become. Eventually, the cognitive dissonance has become too much for the human psyche. Then, there is a break with those LDS truth claims.

Witness the metamorphosis of Will Schryver, currently in progress. He's been as ardent of a BoAbr apologist as they come. He's twisted reason every which way to try to come up with an explanation, a rationale, of how to explain away JSJr's quintessential 'revelatory' blunder. In 2010, there was his spectacular crash and burn of the reverse cipher theory, presented at FAIR. (Too bad he could not have trusted some objectivity from the FAIR/FARMS folks that previewed it to tell him it was bunk. They let Will trot right out in public, where any credibility he aspired to fell flat on his chin.)

Now, as I've previously reported here, Will seeks to disconnect the BoAbr text entirely from any remaining physical fragments from history of 1830s and 1840s JSJr and his scribes. Will's stripe of the catalyst theory he calls the 'transmitter' theory. Of course, this requires throwing JSJr under the bus. The catalyst theory supposes that god was duping JSJr into thinking he was a 'translator'--part of the religious title JSJr ascribed to himself and has been assumed or attributed to no other in these latter days. The historical record is replete with references as to JSJr thinking he was actually performing translations. This theory assumes that god could not trust JSJr to know that he was really just a 'transmitter' in the process of writing down what god dictated. JSJr had received in the first vision direct instruction from elohim and jehovah, no props, no needing to make JSJr think that he was 'translating' records of god's dealings with ancient prophets and peoples. But god must have realized later, in 1829 (Book of Mormon 'translation') and 1835 and 1842 (BoAbr 'translation') that JSJr could no longer be trusted to relay to the world the word of god, as he had been so entrusted in 1820 (first vision).

Unbeknownst to JSJr in Ohio and Illinois, Champollion in Paris was cracking the code of ancient Egyptian writings with the use of the Rosetta Stone. With that assistance, Egyptologists have since been able to provide translations into English that bear a consistent relationship to the Egyptian characters and their usage in various different ancient documents. Yet those clinging to their LDS testimonies tell us god has a different translation of those same characters. But there is a problem with that, and like so many things Mormon, it is a problem of consistency.

The Egyptologists can take the translation keys developed from the Rosetta Stone, apply it to the same Egyptian characters found in different ancient Egyptian writings and come up with narratives in English that each makes sense. Each time the Egyptologists do this, it further validates and buttresses the accuracy of those translation keys. If those translation keys were pure bupkis, then applied to other, newly found ancient Egyptian writings containing those same hieroglyphic and hieratic symbols would simply result in English gibberish. Unintelligible. But they don't. And so those translation keys are validated.

This point is simply an application of the same logic used by LDS to sell the Book of Mormon as a second witness of Christ, one that validates the Bible's account--not a validation of the translation, but a validation by a second iteration of the Jesus' teachings that are otherwise found in the New Testament (and which, of course, JSJr had read all of his life).

God's "correct" translation that differs from the translation keys used by Egyptologists would, when eventually applied to other ancient Egyptian writings, have to render those other writings to be nonsensical, gibberish. Even Schryver, the master of secret, reverse ciphers, is now untethering the BoAbr text from the pretensions of JSJr that he was 'translating' not just being a 'revelator' for god, untethering the BoAbr text from any historical remnants that we have, such as the Sensen papyrus and the KEP.

Nevermind that it implies that god had to dupe JSJr into thinking he was more important to the process than he was, including god having to use props like Egyptian papyrus and gold plates. Schryver's breaking the connection between the papyrus/KEP and the BoAbr text might be a temporary fix for his cognitive dissonance. It might alleviate it for a time. But then the inconsistencies implied therefrom for JSJr and what JSJr himself and the LDS proclaim JSJr to have been will be the next corrosive element againt cognitive consonance for Schryver--and others that have looked very closely at the BoAbr--to deal with.

[_bcspace]

The BoAbr is LDS canonized scripture. It is not the mere musings of some apostle or even a prophet subsequent to JSJr's death, that can be dismissed now that the author is dead in the way that BRM's Mormon Doctrine is.

BRM's Mormon Doctrine was never a doctrinal work, even when he was alive.

[_sock puppet]

The BoAbr is LDS canonized scripture. It is not the mere musings of some apostle or even a prophet subsequent to JSJr's death, that can be dismissed now that the author is dead in the way that BRM's Mormon Doctrine is.

BRM's Mormon Doctrine was never a doctrinal work, even when he was alive.

Exactly my point, bcspace. You cannot dismisss the problematic, scriptural BoAbr as easily as you do BRM's Mormon Doctrine.

Thank you for posting, illustrating my point on all fours.

[_bcspace]

BRM's Mormon Doctrine was never a doctrinal work, even when he was alive.

Exactly my point, bcspace. You cannot dismisss the problematic BoAbr as easily as you do BRM's Mormon Doctrine.

Thank you for posting, illustrating my point on all fours.

Your words implied that his works were doctrine until after he died. I corrected that for you. yw.

[_schreech]

Your words implied that his works were doctrine until after he died. I corrected that for you. yw.

Yea sp, you should ignore anything said or written by any of the LDS prophets, seers and revelators....they are all just speaking out of their arse and, of course, they are no more enlightened than any other random person that publishes a book through the LDS church's publishing house...so what if the church endorsed and even recommended the book to anyone with doubts (including everyone in my mission) Its NOT doctrine!!! even though its called and still published with the title "Mormon DOCTRINE"...

[_Equality]

BRM's Mormon Doctrine was never a doctrinal work, even when he was alive.

This probably would have been news to Bruce R. I wonder why he would have called his book "Mormon Doctrine" if it was not a doctrinal work. Was he trying to deceive people? Was he himself mistaken about what his book contained? Seems strange to call a book "Mormon Doctrine" if it is not a doctrinal work. That would be like someone writing a book with cupcake recipes and calling it "Do-it-Yourself Auto Repair."

[_sock puppet]

Your words implied that his works were doctrine until after he died. I corrected that for you. yw.

Yea sp, you should ignore anything said or written by any of the LDS prophets, seers and revelators....they are all just speaking out of their arse and, of course, they are no more enlightened than any other random person that publishes a book through the LDS church's publishing house...so what if the church endorsed and even recommended the book to anyone with doubts (including everyone in my mission) Its NOT doctrine!!! even though its called and still published with the title "Mormon DOCTRINE"...

Apostle BRM was not nearly as enlightened as bcspace about what is and what is not LDS doctrine. Poor, deluded Bruce.

[_sock puppet]

I've started a separate thread for discusssion of whether BRM's Mormon Doctrine was/was not Mormon doctrine.

Let's let this thread get back to the OP. (Nice try, bcspace, to derail it so as to divert potential discussion of the OP.)

[_Equality]

sp,

You raise an excellent point with your observation that among the LDS church's foundational truth claims is the idea that God spoke directly to Joseph Smith, giving him revelations without the need for any seerstones or papyri or plates or anything physical at all long before he allegedly received the gold plates or the Egyptian papyri. He also received revelations directly from God that were canonized in the Book of Commandments (later the D&C) and he received revelation to fix the errors in the Bible, using only the KJV English text as his "catalyst." This begs the question of why Smith didn't just give the BoAbr translation without pretending to translate papyri. It seems there is no answer for this from a faithful perspective, which is why they generally just ignore the question entirely. The idea that Smith needed a "training" period with physical props completely contradicts the foundational truth claims that he received revelation in 1820 without any physical props, and had multiple angelic visitations before receiving the gold plates. Of course, the "training period" theory might make some sense if the apologists want to throw out the First Vision as the later invention the evidence suggests it was.

[_Shulem]

The Book of Abraham
Facsimile 3
2. King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head.



........................................

Sorry, Joseph Smith, but you are dead wrong and you are making it all up. The person you refer to in Explanation 2, is a goddess and there is no king's name above her head. Stop lying Joseph Smith! This translation/explanation is false! Mormon scripture is corrupt.

Has the LDS church no shame? President Monson, you are a coward for not addressing this matter before your people. I have no respect for you, Monson. You cover the lies of your founding prophet in your own sins while your people pay you, feed you, clothe you, and take care of you like a king in a foreign country. You, President Monson are in the height of priestcraft as is the pope.

Paul O