Human head vs. bird head -- big difference!
Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2020 6:18 pm
Ba of Osiris originally had a human head
Another perversion of Egyptian funerary art made by Smith has to do with the Egyptian Ba which is an aspect of a person's soul represented in bird form but always having a human head. The body of the bird is representative of the ability to move about freely while the soul of the person is contained in the image of the human head.
Joseph Smith likened Fig.1 in Facsimile No. 1 as the "Angel of the Lord". He drew a bird head wherein the human face was missing due to the damaged papyrus. Smith was wrong to do that. The face drawn by the Egyptian artist on the original papyrus was human in form and represented the soul of Osiris rising on the lion bed.
No amount of apologetic obfuscating can justify Smith's restoration of the Ba by adding a bird head and denying what was original to the scene. Smith's bogus restoration was false and the apologists today become liars in defending it because they know better thanks to modern Egyptology and the myriad of images of Bas depicted on authentic ancient Egyptian walls and papyri.
I think it's safe to say that Smith was simply trying to introduce a Christian effect wherein the "Sign of the Dove" (see Facsimile No. 2 Fig. 7) would make his followers believe the papyrus really was from Abraham who foreshadowed the coming of Christ and the dove at his baptism.