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The oldest item that has been added to the exhibit is a fragment of papyrus scrolls, which date from the second century B.C. The scrolls were acquired by the Church in 1835 after having been discovered in Egypt.

Shortly thereafter, Joseph Smith began translating the book of Abraham.

The scrolls were sold to multiple parties in 1856 and most may have been destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Later, 10 fragments were discovered to be held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where Kirtland-era paper was attached to the back side as reinforcement. The fragments were transferred to the Church in 1967.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8656 ... hibit.html

No. It's not "Shortly thereafter, Joseph Smith began translating the book of Abraham."
It's "Shortly thereafter, Joseph Smith began translating the papyrus into the book of Abraham."

Nice, but devious attempt at distancing the book of Abraham from the papyrus (that they just displayed and which they know full well don't translate into the book of Abraham).

For the record, here's the Church speaking out of the other side of its mouth:

A Translation of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr?lang=eng

I have a question wrote:
"Shortly thereafter, Joseph Smith began translating the book of Abraham."

As demonstrated by the translations tendered in Facsimile No. 3, wherein translator Joseph Smith attempts to decipher hieroglyphs and images in the vignette. Joseph Smith failed at the most important and basic part of all Egyptian translations whereby he incorrectly identified writing as an Egyptian king's name and mistook females for men. But the worse part of his translation is when he identified a prominent Egyptian god as a slave and translated a fictitious name in behalf of him -- thus Joseph Smith slandered the entire Egyptian state and their religion.

Shameful, utterly shameful. Mormons insult others without apology. Mormons are liars and love living in lies.

What is also misleading is the statement about most of the scrolls having been destroyed in the Chicago fire.

Most of the scroll Joseph Smith used to produce the Book of Abraham, The Hor scroll, didn't get destroyed in the fire and, in fact, the church is in possession of the exact part of the scroll in almost the exact same condition from which Joseph Smith wrote down in his own writing what he thought characters on that scroll meant.

Also, there are no contemporary descriptions of what is on the scrolls which does not match the extant scrolls themselves, so this argument of "most of the scrolls" being destroyed in the fire rests, once again, on dreaming up missing parts for which there is no evidence they ever existed.

I am currently reading Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?: The Spalding Enigma and I am struck by the fact that there is much more evidence for a missing Spalding manuscript (which is called "Manuscript Found" for some odd reason) than there is for the missing scroll theory. If members are willing to accept the flimsy evidence that the parts of the Hor scroll that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Abraham is missing, they should also be overwhelming convinced that the Book of Mormon was a rip off of a missing Spalding manuscript. After all there are the written testimonies, never denied, of eight witnesses from Conneaut who testified that the Book of Mormon has the same character names and story line of the Manuscript Found.

Fence Sitter wrote: I am struck by the fact that there is much more evidence for a missing Spalding manuscript (which is called "Manuscript Foud" for some odd reason) than there is for the missing scroll theory. If members are willing to accept the flimsy evidence that the parts of the Hor scroll that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Abraham is missing, they should also be overwhelming convinced that the Book of Mormon was a rip off of a missing Spalding manuscript. After all there are the written testimonies, never denied, of eight witnesses from Conneaut who testified that the Book of Mormon has the same character names and story line of the Manuscript Found.

An excellent point Fence Sitter. Have to remember that one.

Bill

Mormon Think wrote:

Fence Sitter wrote: I am struck by the fact that there is much more evidence for a missing Spalding manuscript (which is called "Manuscript Foud" for some odd reason) than there is for the missing scroll theory. If members are willing to accept the flimsy evidence that the parts of the Hor scroll that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Abraham is missing, they should also be overwhelming convinced that the Book of Mormon was a rip off of a missing Spalding manuscript. After all there are the written testimonies, never denied, of eight witnesses from Conneaut who testified that the Book of Mormon has the same character names and story line of the Manuscript Found.

An excellent point Fence Sitter. Have to remember that one.

Bill

Did any of those witnesses report report reading with their "spiritual" eyes?

The double standard employed by the Church and Mopologists is truly pathetic. Though I'm not on board with a missing Spaulding Manuscript, it is interesting that they have the same kind of "proof" that Jo employed for the plates.

This is interesting... every argument they use has been used against the Book of Mormon witnesses... http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon ... ite_note-4

I love the evidence compiled by uncle dale on the manuscript found- i believe joseph had a cheat sheet/ manuscript to follow and he diverted to put in his own renderings as needed. in my theory he destroyed the cheat sheet as he dictated page by page to whomever, so when he got to Book of Mormon page 116 and let harris take them he really was out on a limb because he only had the remainder of the cheat sheets and when harris lost them, joseph had to begin at mosiah where his cheat sheet had him in the story. then once he finished the book he went back and started 1 nephi again.

if he had been caught with a cheat sheet it would have been "bombs away" and his scam revealed.

this theory is corroborated by the witnesses mentioned above concerning the script spaulding had.
and also uncle dale i think has cited the time,years joseph had to work the script , before he actually had to dictate it and rigdon's role in it. cowdery probably saw the cheat sheet/manuscript but did not just copy it ,although he did copy the kjv chapters on isaiah for the most part.

i think someday the true story will come out that church archives has some of the spaulding papers or they will surface somewhere.

just theorizin

k

I have a question wrote:
Nice, but devious attempt at distancing the book of Abraham from the papyrus (that they just displayed and which they know full well don't translate into the book of Abraham).

One thing the church cannot do is distance the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3 from the pictorial images and writing of the vignette. It is simply impossible to distance or separate them from each other. The false Explanations tendered by Joseph Smith can never be separated from the vignette -- we have the very snapshot of exactly what he was doing and Joseph Smith was caught red handed with his pants down.

The church is stuck with these steamy turds but the apologists would just as well separate the Facsimile from the Book of Abraham. But they can't do that. Joseph Smith presented it with the story when he printed it and attempted to impress the world with his pretended ability to translate.

Joseph Smith was a dirty liar. Mormons today are liars. Period. End of translation.

kairos wrote:i think someday the true story will come out that church archives has some of the spaulding papers or they will surface somewhere.

just theorizin

k

I suspect if they used a spaulding manuscript that it was destroyed long ago.

I'm bugged that there is apparently no way to email comments on the article. I'ts always interesting and sometimes humorous to read responses to Dan Peterson.