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I recently had a discussion with a couple LDS scholars for whom I have a lot of respect. We briefly spoke about the Book of Abraham and during the discussion one individual mentioned that there's a lot of evidence contemporary to the time that the papyri were very long, on the order of 60 feet or so.

I challenged that claim, but admitted that I don't think I'm familiar with all of the evidence on the matter. However, I didn't recall there being a lot of evidence contemporary to the time that the papyri were very long. When I got home I did some searching but couldn't find much, and the 60 feet idea seems to have come from a recollection many, many decades after the fact by somebody who would have been pretty young at the time.

Will somebody with more expertise on this topic help me out? I'd really like to see in one place all the statements made about the scrolls and their length. Are there a lot of them? Do many of them indicate that the scrolls were long (approaching 60 feet)?

I believe that the 60' scroll length references are to blank scroll rolls.

You need to read the paper by Chris Smith on this. I think you will find that pretty definitive.

Does anybody have a link?

Chap wrote:You need to read the paper by Chris Smith on this. I think you will find that pretty definitive.

Does anybody have a link?

Oh please, it is FAR from definitive. He makes a lot of assumptions that just are not required, demanding that things fit in a box so he can discredit the possibility.

JMS

Chap wrote:You need to read the paper by Chris Smith on this. I think you will find that pretty definitive.

Does anybody have a link?

I've skimmed through Chris' paper. I'd like to read through Gee's as well. But these papers deal with using some modern methodology to make estimates about the scroll length. What I'm after are statements contemporary to the time of translation (or thereabouts) that suggest that any of the scrolls in Joseph's possession approached 60 feet, or even more than, say, 20 feet.

jskains wrote:

Chap wrote:You need to read the paper by Chris Smith on this. I think you will find that pretty definitive.

Does anybody have a link?

Oh please, it is FAR from definitive. He makes a lot of assumptions that just are not required, demanding that things fit in a box so he can discredit the possibility.

JMS

You're an idiot. His paper isn't based on "assumptions" and if you read it you'd know this. Can't you at east try to come up with something besides the same apologetic boilerplate?

brade wrote:

Chap wrote:You need to read the paper by Chris Smith on this. I think you will find that pretty definitive.

Does anybody have a link?

I've skimmed through Chris' paper. I'd like to read through Gee's as well. But these papers deal with using some modern methodology to make estimates about the scroll length. What I'm after are statements contemporary to the time of translation (or thereabouts) that suggest that any of the scrolls in Joseph's possession approached 60 feet, or even more than, say, 20 feet.

See for instance here:

http://pacumenispages.yuku.com/forum/vi ... 7J8vb8WW7c

Note the bolded portion.

As President Joseph F. Smith stood in the front doorway of the Nauvoo House with some of the brethren in 1906, the tears streamed down his face as he told how he remembered "as if it were yesterday" his "Uncle Joseph" down on his knees on the floor with Egyptian manuscripts spread out all around him, peering at the strange writings and jotting things down in a little green notebook with the stub of a pencil. When one considers that the eleven fragments now in our possession can be easily spread out on the top of a small desk, without straining the knees, back, and dignity, it would seem that what is missing is much more than what we have [H. Nibley, "Judging and Prejudging the Book of Abraham"].

Joseph F.'s reminiscence most closely resembles what Nibley describes in Dialogue. If I'm correct, then we can conclude that in Dialogue Hugh misidentified the Nauvoo House as the "Mansion House" and mistakenly depicted the papyri running through two rooms rather than scattered on the floor of one room. If I'm not correct, then I have no idea what Nibley is referring to in his undocumented remark.

In the Improvement Era, Hugh informs readers that Preston Nibley had supplied the Joseph F. Smith account. Preston published his 1906 encounter with Joseph F. in the early 1940's (if memory serves), but omitted the recollection about the BoAbr papyri. According to Preston, in 1906 Joseph F. was recalling an event that occurred over six decades earlier when Smith was 5 years old, or younger. Four years later, in 1910, Hugh was born. Before Preston died (in the mid 1960's?) he related Joseph F.'s recollection to Hugh. Finally, Hugh published the reminiscence in the mid/late 1960's. Given this transmission history, scholars would be reckless to uncritically appeal to Joseph F.'s story as an unblemished depiction of the BoAbr papyri.

brade wrote:

Chap wrote:You need to read the paper by Chris Smith on this. I think you will find that pretty definitive.

Does anybody have a link?

I've skimmed through Chris' paper. I'd like to read through Gee's as well. But these papers deal with using some modern methodology to make estimates about the scroll length. What I'm after are statements contemporary to the time of translation (or thereabouts) that suggest that any of the scrolls in Joseph's possession approached 60 feet, or even more than, say, 20 feet.

Here is a link to Gee's article. He quotes Charlotte Haven about the scrolls. (The same Charlotte Haven whose reliability is dismissed when it comes to the Kinderhook Plates)

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publications/review/?vol=20&num=1&id=699

Here's the Sunstone article discussing the length:

https://dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/ ... of-Hor.pdf

The Original Length of the Scroll of Hôr
Andrew W. Cook and Christopher C. Smith
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
Winter, 2010

The missing scrolls are at least 60 feet long. They might even be 100 feet long, or 200. Since they're "missing" they can be whatever apologists want them to be.