The best Smoot and Boylan can do to defend the Book of Abraham

[drumdude]

A couple videos came across my feed recently:

From PhD candidate in Egyptian language Steven “Bukkake” Smoot:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mormon/comment ... swers_but/

And from the preeminent Mormon intellectual living in his parents’ attic, Bobby Boylan:

https://youtu.be/RVdVKSPsc9s

Here’s how to defend the book of Abraham in a few easy steps.

Step 1)
Distract the audience away from the big picture. Completely ignore church history and focus on the text alone. The history of the translation and Joseph Smith’s own claims about the translation process clearly show the fraud. Keep focus on the cherry picked “ancient” parallels in the text.

Step 2)
Shift the burden of proof from Joseph Smith to the skeptic. The skeptic must explain why there are some ancient connections to the Book of Mormon text. Assert that there is no naturalistic explanation for these parallels and the book must be divine. Forget that nearly every Bible scholar believes Abraham was a fictional person, and a historical Abraham is as ridiculous as a 6,000 year old earth.

Step 3)
Blame the critic, the skeptic, and the questioning Mormon for having doubts about the book of Abraham.

With these few simple steps, you too can become a shill for the richest religious corporation on Earth. You might even make a few dollars begging for money on YouTube.

[Physics Guy]

I don't think a historical Abraham is nearly as ridiculous as a 6000-year-old Earth. We have tons of clear evidence that the Earth is far more than 6000 years old. All we can say about Abraham is that his appearance as a character in a few ancient books is only weak evidence for him ever having existed, since it's easy to see how a fictional character could have been popularised in ancient legends, and hard to see what fact-checking constraints would have kept those ancient books close to history. Having only weak evidence in favour of something is not at all the same as having strong evidence against it.

In fact I'd bet that the scholarly consensus that "Abraham is a fictional person" only really means that few if any scholars believe that all the Biblical stories about Abraham really happened to anyone exactly like that. I'd be surprised if any serious historians were really firmly convinced that the Biblical Abraham character cannot possibly have been based at all upon any historical figure or figures. I mean, how could anyone know that?

[Kishkumen]

I don't think a historical Abraham is nearly as ridiculous as a 6000-year-old Earth. We have tons of clear evidence that the Earth is far more than 6000 years old. All we can say about Abraham is that his appearance as a character in a few ancient books is only weak evidence for him ever having existed, since it's easy to see how a fictional character could have been popularised in ancient legends, and hard to see what fact-checking constraints would have kept those ancient books close to history. Having only weak evidence in favour of something is not at all the same as having strong evidence against it.

In fact I'd bet that the scholarly consensus that "Abraham is a fictional person" only really means that few if any scholars believe that all the Biblical stories about Abraham really happened to anyone exactly like that. I'd be surprised if any serious historians were really firmly convinced that the Biblical Abraham character cannot possibly have been based at all upon any historical figure or figures. I mean, how could anyone know that?

Agreed.

[Philo Sofee]

I don't think a historical Abraham is nearly as ridiculous as a 6000-year-old Earth. We have tons of clear evidence that the Earth is far more than 6000 years old. All we can say about Abraham is that his appearance as a character in a few ancient books is only weak evidence for him ever having existed, since it's easy to see how a fictional character could have been popularised in ancient legends, and hard to see what fact-checking constraints would have kept those ancient books close to history. Having only weak evidence in favour of something is not at all the same as having strong evidence against it.

In fact I'd bet that the scholarly consensus that "Abraham is a fictional person" only really means that few if any scholars believe that all the Biblical stories about Abraham really happened to anyone exactly like that. I'd be surprised if any serious historians were really firmly convinced that the Biblical Abraham character cannot possibly have been based at all upon any historical figure or figures. I mean, how could anyone know that?

Well said.

[drumdude]

I don't think a historical Abraham is nearly as ridiculous as a 6000-year-old Earth. We have tons of clear evidence that the Earth is far more than 6000 years old. All we can say about Abraham is that his appearance as a character in a few ancient books is only weak evidence for him ever having existed, since it's easy to see how a fictional character could have been popularised in ancient legends, and hard to see what fact-checking constraints would have kept those ancient books close to history. Having only weak evidence in favour of something is not at all the same as having strong evidence against it.

In fact I'd bet that the scholarly consensus that "Abraham is a fictional person" only really means that few if any scholars believe that all the Biblical stories about Abraham really happened to anyone exactly like that. I'd be surprised if any serious historians were really firmly convinced that the Biblical Abraham character cannot possibly have been based at all upon any historical figure or figures. I mean, how could anyone know that?

I think the evidence goes beyond that, actually. Abraham is said to have existed in the 18th-20th century BCE. And lived to be 175 years old.

Per a discussion on the academic Bible subreddit:

No evidence of the Israelites before the 12th century (600-800 years after Abraham), and little to no evidence of Judah until later than that.

No evidence of monotheism until much later on.

If the Abrahamic patriarchy existed, it should show up in Y-haplogroup concentration among the early Israelites. But Israel doesn’t want the tests performed (likely because they know it would provide evidence against historicity)

The emergence of early Israel was an outcome of the collapse of the Canaanite culture, not its cause. And most of the Israelites did not come from outside Canaan—they emerged from within it. There was no mass Exodus from Egypt. There was no violent conquest of Canaan. Most of the people who formed early Israel were local people—the same people whom we see in the highlands throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. The early Israelites were—irony of ironies—themselves originally Canaanites.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblic ... k_abraham/

Even the idea of Abraham being an amalgamation of various leaders and stories with attributes similar to Abraham is very unlikely because that world didn’t even exist yet. If they were based upon someone with those attributes 1,000 years later then it doesn’t fit the LDS theological position (or most believing Christian theological positions) at all.

It would be like placing the historical Jesus in the middle of the Crusades.

[Physics Guy]

Abraham not really making it to 175 of our current years, or missing the right century to fit a genealogy, is not the same as being fictional. Otherwise, I don't get the point about his whole "world" being anachronistic. In the Bible, Abraham is pre-Exodus. He's pre-Israel, literally: Jacob called Israel is his grandson. He's supposed to have come from Ur and settled in Canaan, but otherwise there's not much detail in the Bible about his circumstances. He had flocks and followers, and he fought with other local leaders; I doubt these details are going to be too out of place in any pre-modern era. So I don't see how any anachronism in the Bible's depiction of later Judean culture, from the Exodus on, can be evidence for Abraham being fictional.

I'm sure that there are differing scholarly views, and Abraham was probably heavily mythologized and may well have been entirely fictional, but the current article on Abraham on Brittanica.com seems to take Abraham seriously enough to discuss his migratory itinerary. It is credited to André Parrot, who died in 1980, but if his views were badly outdated, I would have expected Britannica to have revised the article. Parrot was Director of the Louvre and a Commander of the Legion of Honor, so a pretty distinguished Middle East archaeologist in his time.

[drumdude]

That does indeed seem to be incredibly out of date.

https://books.google.com/books?id=6-VxwC5rQtwC

What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?

For centuries the Hebrew Bible has been the fountainhead of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Today, however, the entire biblical tradition, including its historical veracity, is being challenged. Leading this assault is a group of scholars described as the "minimalist" or "revisionist" school of biblical studies, which charges that the Hebrew Bible is largely pious fiction, that its writers and editors invented "ancient Israel" as a piece of late Jewish propaganda in the Hellenistic era.

In this fascinating book noted Syro-Palestinian archaeologist William G. Dever attacks the minimalist position head-on, showing how modern archaeology brilliantly illuminates both life in ancient Palestine and the sacred scriptures as we have them today. Assembling a wealth of archaeological evidence, Dever builds the clearest, most complete picture yet of the real Israel that existed during the Iron Age of ancient Palestine (1200 600 B.C.).

Dever's exceptional reconstruction of this key period points up the minimalists' abuse of archaeology and reveals the weakness of their revisionist histories. Dever shows that ancient Israel, far from being an "invention," is a reality to be discovered. Equally important, his recovery of a reliable core history of ancient Israel provides a firm foundation from which to appreciate the aesthetic value and lofty moral aspirations of the Hebrew Bible.

He is criticized by those who think the Bible is completely historical, and those who think the Bible is complete fiction. Which makes me think he is probably closer to the truth.

He puts the Book of Judges as the dividing line between fiction and history.

[huckelberry]

That does indeed seem to be incredibly out of date.

https://books.google.com/books?id=6-VxwC5rQtwC

What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?

For centuries the Hebrew Bible has been the fountainhead of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Today, however, the entire biblical tradition, including its historical veracity, is being challenged. Leading this assault is a group of scholars described as the "minimalist" or "revisionist" school of biblical studies, which charges that the Hebrew Bible is largely pious fiction, that its writers and editors invented "ancient Israel" as a piece of late Jewish propaganda in the Hellenistic era.

In this fascinating book noted Syro-Palestinian archaeologist William G. Dever attacks the minimalist position head-on, showing how modern archaeology brilliantly illuminates both life in ancient Palestine and the sacred scriptures as we have them today. Assembling a wealth of archaeological evidence, Dever builds the clearest, most complete picture yet of the real Israel that existed during the Iron Age of ancient Palestine (1200 600 B.C.).

Dever's exceptional reconstruction of this key period points up the minimalists' abuse of archaeology and reveals the weakness of their revisionist histories. Dever shows that ancient Israel, far from being an "invention," is a reality to be discovered. Equally important, his recovery of a reliable core history of ancient Israel provides a firm foundation from which to appreciate the aesthetic value and lofty moral aspirations of the Hebrew Bible.

He is criticized by those who think the Bible is completely historical, and those who think the Bible is complete fiction. Which makes me think he is probably closer to the truth.

He puts the Book of Judges as the dividing line between fiction and history.

Drumdude, I have been impressed by what Dever has written. His archeological specifics are important. I think his general picture fits with other observations. (the Old Testament itself has lots of details pointing to a never stated, no conquest) Dever has stated he thinks it is possible there was a Moses and group from Egypt but they would have had to have been much smaller than what is pictured in Exodus. I can understand saying Judges is where more historical things start but the dividing line fiction and history is not black and white. There could be legends of Abraham going back to some memory of some real somebody. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the legends do not actually go back that far.( ?)

[drumdude]

That does indeed seem to be incredibly out of date.

https://books.google.com/books?id=6-VxwC5rQtwC

What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?



He is criticized by those who think the Bible is completely historical, and those who think the Bible is complete fiction. Which makes me think he is probably closer to the truth.

He puts the Book of Judges as the dividing line between fiction and history.

Drumdude, I have been impressed by what Dever has written. His archeological specifics are important. I think his general picture fits with other observations. (the Old Testament itself has lots of details pointing to a never stated, no conquest) Dever has stated he thinks it is possible there was a Moses and group from Egypt but they would have had to have been much smaller than what is pictured in Exodus. I can understand saying Judges is where more historical things start but the dividing line fiction and history is not black and white. There could be legends of Abraham going back to some memory of some real somebody. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the legends do not actually go back that far.( ?)

I would be very surprised if any archeological evidence points to anything like a historical Abraham. But yes I really appreciate that archeologists like him are able to remain impartial and go wherever the evidence leads them.

It’s disappointing that Israel is supposedly blocking genetic research into this, if that’s true.

[Physics Guy]

I'm not going to have time to read Dever, but if he thinks that Moses could have been historical then it doesn't sound as though he's saying that Abraham was definitely a fictional character. So I'm not sure there really is any scholarly consensus. There are probably still a few people on Parrot's end of the spectrum; Dever seems to be somewhat more skeptical; and evidently there are enough minimalists, taking everything before Judges as fantasy, for Dever to attack them.

There's unlikely to be anything archaeological actually pointing to an Abraham. Mythicism is not the default, though. Characters in old books are not all fictional until proven otherwise. If we don't know, we don't know. In ancient history I don't think the jury often comes in with a definitive verdict.

Of course it's still implausible that Abraham wrote the Book Mormons name after him. It's just overstating the case to say that Abraham's existence is as absurd as the Earth being young. The only chances of the Earth being young are brain-in-jar-like scenarios in which all evidence is meaningless, but there are is at least some chance that there was a historical Abraham of some kind.