malkie wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:46 pm
MG 2.0 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:32 pm
Did you ever read Nibley’s “Abraham in Egypt”?
I have not.
A commenter here:
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/ ... m_in_Egypt
said: “ Nibley draws on his knowledge of Egyptology to draw parallels between what is presented in the Book of Abraham and what is known of ancient Egyptian mythology and religion, primarily with the purpose of supporting and enriching a reading of the former text. For me, much more interestingly, Nibley also draws parallels between the "Abraham Literature" (works including the so-called "Genesis Apocryphon," a fragment of the Qumran scrolls, and the "Apocalypse of Abraham," all searchable and readable via wikipedia): pseudoepigraphical and apocryphal texts that could not have been available to Joseph Smith in 1840.”
So for the sake of conversation let’s say that there was a historical Abram/Abraham and that he did make it to Egypt.
I think what I hear you saying is that there are no known evidences in the chronological outline in the Old Testament that allows for Abraham to have ever been in Egypt? So the Old Testament conflicts with what we have in the Book of Abraham?
What is that evidence which would demonstrate that the Abraham of the Old Testament could not have spent time in Egypt? Hard evidence.
Your knowledge on this subject is quite possibly superior to mine. I haven’t spent much time with the parallels…or not…between Old Testament Abraham and Book of Abraham Abraham.
So help me out.
Regards,
MG
I have not read anything of Nibley since the early 1970, and could not, from memory, even tell you what I did or did not read then. So my knowledge on this subject is effectively zero.
But what you quoted does not, to my mind, supply evidence. Someone draws parallels - great, if you believe it.
Here is the best help I can give you on this:
Nobody - including me - needs to present hard evidence which would demonstrate that the Abraham of the Old Testament could not have spent time in Egypt unless they are making such an assertion.
My position is that anyone asserting that there
was an Abraham who satisfied the 3 bullet points I provided is on the hook to provide the "hard evidence" you seek to support that assertion.
So we’re either back to ground zero or don’t really have a solid incontrovertible baseline to even start from. Right?
Flip sides of the coin always seem to come into play.
Dang. Everything always comes back to faith…and cumulative experiences (including spiritual) and little ‘ah hah!’ evidences along the way.
It’s the cumulative experience(s) in my life that permit me to put Abraham on the map of real possibilities along with other Old Testament prophets. That then comes into play with covenantal relationships that can be made with God, etc.
But to each his own, I guess.
1970’s huh? I graduated from high school in 1975.
Side note: I guess I should read more Nibley…but I probably will not get around to it. I never did catch the ‘Nibley bug’. Probably should have. Spent too much time reading Sunstone/Dialogue. I wonder how many folks around here were at one time Nibleyites. I doubt the younger generation has in many cases even heard his name unless it was in connection with the big brouhaha that his daughter put out there years ago.
Regards,
MG