Jim Bennett and the Book of Abraham

[hauslern]

Mormon stories has recently interviewed this guy is a son of the later Senator Bennett from Utah.
https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org ... -questions
His thoughts on the Book of Abraham for Shulem to check out.

[Bought Yahoo]

The work is idiocy. It looks like he is quoting Tom Cruise?

Does he say that Joseph Smith could translate Egyptian?

[Craig Paxton]

I really enjoyed Dehlin's interview series with Jim Bennett. While I could never manage to hold belief in the same manner as Bennett, I do respect his ability to do so. He maintains a very realistic yet nuanced faith in the Church which is grounded in his core belief that the Book of Mormon is authentic while recognizing the problems in the traditional historical narrative as well.

For someone who wants to maintain a belief in Mormonism after being exposed to it's many problems, Bennett provides a viable example of what is necessary to do so.

[Dr Exiled]

I really enjoyed Dehlin's interview series with Jim Bennett. While I could never manage to hold belief in the same manner as Bennett, I do respect his ability to do so. He maintains a very realistic yet nuanced faith in the Church which is grounded in his core belief that the Book of Mormon is authentic while recognizing the problems in the traditional historical narrative as well.

For someone who wants to maintain a belief in Mormonism after being exposed to it's many problems, Bennett provides a viable example of what is necessary to do so.

I found Bennett to be someone in turmoil and conflicted, but a really nice and genuine person. His Book of Mormon testimony is basically "I believe despite the evidence." It was tough to watch at times as I could see the conflict going on in his mind. I think he conflates the niceness of the members and their willingness to pitch in when his daughter went through her skiing accident with the truthfulness of the church. The two are separate. Good people can believe incorrect myth.

[dastardly stem]

Sounds pretty bad from the outset:

CES Letter:

1. Originally, Joseph claimed that this record was written by Abraham “ by his own hand,
upon papyrus ” – a claim still prominent in the heading of the Book of Abraham. This claim
could not be evaluated for decades as many thought the papyri were lost in a fire.

Jim Bennett's response:

Why not? As the official
essay
you selectively quote from says, “The phrase can be
understood to mean that Abraham is the author and not the literal copyist.” The claim is that
Abraham originally wrote this by his own hand, not that he wrote every copy by his own
hand. When I first read
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
by J.K. Rowling,
I did not
assume that the good Ms. Rowling had personally typed my copy herself.

I'm like, what the hell? He's getting after the CES Letter author for pointing out the obvious all because he can imagine the Book of Abraham to be something like Harry Potter with it's distribution? This sounds like more of a joke then a response. If Abraham wrote anything, we have no record of it. The claim is a silly one and it should be noted if ever one talks about the Book of Abraham. The papyrus we're talking about dates to perhaps 2,000-1,500 years after Abraham might have lived. To think any story he "wrote" could have survived in the environment of ancient Egypt is beyond stupid.

Skimming along it seems like Jim's response is nothing but garbage like the above. He's taking issue with things that should be nothing but commonly understood problems with the Book of Abraham claims.

[Physics Guy]

Technically, yes, this sentence you’re reading now might have been written by me in ketchup with a finger upon a napkin before being typed into the web forum window by one of my scribes.

And if it were, then that fact might have been unusual enough to bear recording. People don’t write much in ketchup. Plus, if I were a prophet perhaps the particular circumstances in which my revelations were recorded would themselves be worth recording as a way of distinguishing my various utterances and attesting to their authenticity, as the origins of Mohammed’s hadiths are recorded.

If Abraham had originally written that text himself, even though it was later many times copied, then it might be worth mentioning that. It would record the patriarch’s unusual accomplishment of being able to write and it would clarify that Abraham’s own words had not been corrupted in dictation. Galatians 6:11 asserts that Paul himself is personally writing it in “big letters”, presumably because he was a clumsy writer who could only write like a child but he was willing to betray that fact to add a personal touch.

Emphasizing that Abraham wrote on papyrus, however, makes no sense except to assert that the actual papyrus on which the translated text lay was the one Abraham used. Otherwise it would be like informing the readers of Harry Potter that Rowling wrote her first drafts in longhand on foolscap. Unless you’re trying to sell them one of those autograph drafts on the original foolscap, nobody could care, and it’s a basic expectation of communication that you don’t tell people things about which they couldn’t possibly care.

So this is one of those apologetic arguments that gives apologetics its bad name. It may sound plausible up to a point but past the point it just falls apart, and the only way not to see that it falls apart is not to think past the first point because you’re clutching at any straw you can reach—or any strand of papyrus.

[hauslern]

An interesting paper on just when the Hebrew language came into use.
https://www.academia.edu/13459417/The_C ... pp_218_281

[Moksha]

Technically, yes, this sentence you’re reading now might have been written by me in ketchup with a finger upon a napkin before being typed into the web forum window by one of my scribes.

You've got ketchup?!!!

When I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling, I did not
assume that the good Ms. Rowling had personally typed my copy herself.

Were there multiple copies of the Abraham papyri? Is the theory being circulated in apologetic circles that Abraham had the Ward Clerk make an extra copy?

[Dr Moore]

Jim is affable and brave for sitting with critical podcasters to articulate his beliefs and his CES Letter reply.

It doesn't take a cynical ear to figure out that Jim holds it all together with a combination duct tape, inappropriate analogies and poor logical equivalencies.

Why does he do it?

Because, simply, he has no choice. Jim is descended Mormon royalty. He can't leave. He wants to leave and he wants many things to change, but he can't so he won't. He's trying his best to be a humble activist from within.

[huckelberry]

I have been under the understanding that the problem was the Papyri say one thing and Joseph said something entirely different. Whether Joseph had a copy or original seems perhaps a distraction.Have I been holding a misunderstanding?