Of course DCP is spouting nonsense, as this Reddit post eloquently dissects:“DCP” wrote: Kom Ombo is located at a bend in the River Nile where, before the dams were erected, a crocodile-infested island existed. The island is no more, these days, and there are no crocodiles north of the Aswan High Dam.
This stop gave me an opportunity to talk to them very briefly about Figure 9 in Facsimile 1 of the Book of Abraham, also known as “the idolatrous god of Pharaoh.” It strikes me as genuinely remarkable that the unlettered rural yokel Joseph Smith got that one right; the identification doesn’t seem exactly obvious or intuitive. But Sobek is, indeed, the idolatrous god of pharaoh.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... 980/sobek/Actual Egyptologists identify the crocodile in the papyri with that which helped Isis regather the severed limbs of Osiris. Some versions of the myth do have Sobek be the crocodile that helps, while others make him the crocodile that ate Osiris' penis.
Anyway, the apologists will point to this and brag that Joseph Smith must have been at least partially inspired in order to name a random crocodile the "god of Pharaoh". I will now show what a low bar of evidence that is.
First of all, it was in the third dynasty that the Pharaoh was considered the living Sobek. Later dynasties considered the Pharaoh the living Horus, and later, "son of Ra". Many Egyptian gods were depicted with the heads of animals, and many were in some way connected with the Pharaoh at some point during the thousands of years of Egyptian history.
Had Joseph Smith called a falcon the idolatrous god of Pharaoh, the apologists would point and say "See? Joseph Smith must have been a prophet, because Ra and Horus were depicted with the heads of falcons, and they were closely associated with the Pharaoh!" Had he called an Ibis the idolatrous god of Pharaoh, they would say, "See? Thoth was an Ibis headed god of Egypt!" had he called a snake the idolatrous god of Pharaoh, "See? Wadjet was a snake headed goddess associated with the Pharaoh!" a cat, "Sekhmet was a cat headed goddess said to be the protector of the Pharaoh!" a cow, "Hathor was a cow headed goddess!" an Elephant, "There was a Pharaoh named Elephant!" a scorpion "there were two Pharaohs named Scorpion!" a fish, "There was a Pharaoh named Fish!" a snail, "There was a Pharaoh named Finger Snail!"
By now it should be evident that Joseph Smith could have called any animal "the idolatrous god of Pharaoh" and apologists would have found some god with that animal head once associated with the Pharaoh or at least patronized by some Pharaoh at some point.
If only Joseph had labelled the crocodile "Crocodile that helped Isis find the limbs of Osiris" his divine translation would have stood the test of time. But instead, his apologists must go to such extremes to find anything remotely true in what he said, that they lower the standard of proof to the point that anyone making random guesses could be just as much of a prophet.
I think DCP is on to something, though. Think of the money to be made giving people tours through exotic lands to tell them the fairy tales of their imagination are true?
I am thinking about a Handsel and Gretel hike to learn about the historical candy house.
A tour to the bottom of the sea to learn about the historical Atlantis.
I imagine a lot of rich people would love to have their particular delusions catered to by a sell-out PhD professor who will gladly tell them the earth is flat, the moon has never been visited, or the Holocaust never happened.
Or that Jews built a civilization in pre-Columbian America…
