Vogel's new book on Abraham

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Shulem
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QUESTION for Dan

Post by Shulem »

Page 3 of your book, Figure 1.2:

Book of Abraham Manuscript-A in the handwriting of W.W Phelps. The first two characters were taken from Joseph Smith Papyrus X1, now damaged. The third character was taken from column 2 of Joseph Smith Papyrus 1.

The manuscript in question in your photo should be entitled Book of Abraham Manuscript-C, not Manuscript-A.

Right?
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Re: Vogel's new book on Abraham

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Fence Sitter wrote:
Thu Mar 18, 2021 12:48 am

https://mormanity.blogspot.com/2021/03/ ... -book.html

Evidently Lindsay expects that Smith and Co. were up to date on Champollion work and rejects Vogel's assertions that they were not.
Lindsay wrote:At the core of many modern attacks on the Book of Abraham is the notion that a handful of Egyptian characters in the margins of some Book of Abraham manuscripts written by Joseph's scribes represent the translation work of Joseph Smith. If so, then Joseph apparently thought that a single character could represent complex story details that require as many as 200+ English words to translate. This would seem to require Joseph to have been ignorant of Champollion's famous translation of the Rosetta Stone, where Egyptian symbols (hieroglyphs and demotic script) were not mysteriously linked to large blocks of Greek text, but were found to have a much more reasonable relationship.
This is exactly what Smith and his scribes thought and it is so clear in the GAEL that is what they were doing, not to mentions contemporary statements about how many volumes the translation would fill once it was done.
Wait, I thought it was important to Book of Abraham apologetics that Joseph was not up to speed on Champillion’s work. Is that not (or no longer) the case?
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Re: Vogel's new book on Abraham

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Lindsay wrote:At the core of many modern attacks on the Book of Abraham is the notion that a handful of Egyptian characters in the margins of some Book of Abraham manuscripts written by Joseph's scribes represent the translation work of Joseph Smith. If so, then . . . .

The apologist is like a snake in the grass, weaving about lying and deceiving, vainly attempting to soften the blow by making it seem like critics don't have a solid case in nailing Smith down and holding him accountable for his own actions and words. The apologists love to use words that deflect and seem to lesson the argument against them.

I'd like to see Jeff attempt to use "NOTION" and "IF" in excusing Smith for the following:

Smith wrote:Fig. 2. King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head.

Fig. 4. Prince of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, as written above the hand.

So, Smith said royal names were written in the very hieroglyphs in the registers that represent the persons below. There is no doubt about what Smith said. There is no "IF" about it. It's not just a "NOTION" or in inclination that critics happen to have a conception or impression that Smith expressed something in which everyone may not agree.

The fact is there is no King's name written therein. That is a fact. It's not a mere notion made by critics that remains debatable to this day. It's fact and has been absolutely settled.

Jeff Lindsay is a lying snake in the grass weaving about and lying to himself and everyone else.
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Re: Vogel's new book on Abraham

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Dr Moore wrote:
Fri Mar 19, 2021 11:36 am
Wait, I thought it was important to Book of Abraham apologetics that Joseph was not up to speed on Champollion’s work. Is that not (or no longer) the case?
First I think it is important to note that not all apologist view the production process of the Book of Abraham the same. The question here, I think, is, do some apologist argue that Joseph Smith was not up to speed with Champollion's work? Vogel lists Samuel Brown, Givens, Hauglid and Jensen among others who argue that Champollion's work would not have impacted Smith's Egyptological views in 1835. Let's back up a bit to 1828 when Harris visited Anthon with a list of "Reformed Egyptian Charators". The LDS side of that story implies that Anthon was able to at least judge whether or not they were true characters and offer an opinion of the accuracy of the proffered translation. We know that Anthon had a copy of Précis in his personal collection so he was at least familiar with Champollion, though how he would have been able to offer an opinion on "Reformed Egyptian" is a mystery.

As far as I know the only ones for whom it is important that Smith may have had some rudimentary understanding of Champollion's work would be those who are trying to define the GAEL & translation manuscripts as a post Book of Abraham translation production undertaken by anyone other than Smith and that would be certain BYU Egyptologist and those who agree with them. If Smith understood Champollion's work at all, then he would not have been part of the GAEL or placing the glyphs on the translation manuscripts. This argument is so bad. Smith's handwriting is in the GAEL. We know that the scribes sat right next to Smith as he translated so they could easily see which scroll (the Hor) Smith was using. Smith thought enough of the GAEL to consider publishing it and also thought it was useful as a translation source when he attempted the translate the bogus Kinderhook plates. Contemporary accounts show Smith working on the Alphabet in Oct 1835 then resuming translating the Book of Abraham in Nov 1835 and so on.

The evidence that Smith and those around him thought that Egyptian glyphs contained enormous amounts of information is also overwhelming.
One has to look no further than the Book of Mormon itself to see that.
32 And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the are formed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.

33 And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.
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Re: Vogel's new book on Abraham

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Interesting stuff in chapter two.

Turns out Smith named two of the mummies when he obtained the artifacts. The male mummy he named King Onitas and one of the female mummies he named Princess Katumin daughter of King Onitas. These are the mummies on which were found the two scrolls Chandler sold to Smith. The male mummy held the Hor scroll that smith identified as the record of Abraham and the female mummy held the Ta-sherit-Min scroll which Smith said was the record of Joseph. In the Alphabet and Grammar he develops the name Katumin (Kah-Tou-Man) so that in its fullest meaning (five degrees) it means a female of royal Egyptian lineage extending back to the daughter of Ham (Egyptus) who is entrusted with the records of the fathers according to the tradition of their elders and also the tradition of the art of embalming.

In essence Smith is explaining through the GAEL why these two mummies were found with these two scrolls, because they were descendants of Abraham through Ham and his daughter and they were responsible for handing down the very records they were holding.
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Re: Vogel's new book on Abraham

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Fence Sitter wrote:
Fri Mar 19, 2021 3:21 pm
The evidence that Smith and those around him thought that Egyptian glyphs contained enormous amounts of information is also overwhelming.
One has to look no further than the Book of Mormon itself to see that.
32 And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the are formed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.

33 And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.

Vogel's new book cites Nibley criticizing the disproportion of the text between the Egyptian characters and the English text, referencing the voluminous difference between the two, Nibley calls it a "ridiculous disproportion" (p.1) and then on p.5, Vogel refers to Nibley's original citation as an "absurd disproportion", which means pretty much the same thing. Nibley and modern day apologists are embarrassed and at a loss to explain the difference. Vogel then cites the Book of Mormon which states that the gold plates didn't have enough room to contain Hebrew and also quotes an amazing statement made by Book of Mormon witness, David Whitmer referencing the translation of Reformed Egyptian: "frequently one character would make two lines of manuscript, while others made but a word or two words". (p6)


Thus the comprehensive difference between Reformed Egyptian and Hebrew is made abundantly clear:
Book of Mormon wrote:And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew

Which is the same as saying:

Our plates were too small so we had to write in Reformed Egyptian instead of Hebrew because you can say a lot more with Egyptian characters than you ever could using Hebrew!


PS. I'm really enjoying Vogel's book and have actually learned new things or perhaps refreshed what I've forgotten. Hard to say.
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Re: Vogel's new book on Abraham

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Fence Sitter wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 3:27 am
Interesting stuff in chapter two.

Turns out Smith named two of the mummies when he obtained the artifacts. The male mummy he named King Onitas and one of the female mummies he named Princess Katumin daughter of King Onitas. These are the mummies on which were found the two scrolls Chandler sold to Smith. The male mummy held the Hor scroll that smith identified as the record of Abraham and the female mummy held the Ta-sherit-Min scroll which Smith said was the record of Joseph. In the Alphabet and Grammar he develops the name Katumin (Kah-Tou-Man) so that in its fullest meaning (five degrees) it means a female of royal Egyptian lineage extending back to the daughter of Ham (Egyptus) who is entrusted with the records of the fathers according to the tradition of their elders and also the tradition of the art of embalming.

In essence Smith is explaining through the GAEL why these two mummies were found with these two scrolls, because they were descendants of Abraham through Ham and his daughter and they were responsible for handing down the very records they were holding.
unreal. Joseph Smith's beliefs were straightforward and make total sense to Chapel Mormons.
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Re: Vogel's new book on Abraham

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I learned something new in Vogel's book, p. 14!

Woohoo!!

Vogel brings up the point that the papyrus was torn and damaged -- thus lacuna and missing hieratic. Well, that's no problem for translator Joe, because according to his own mother, he can read the writing even when it doesn't exist! I'm not making this up. Mother Smith said so:

Mother Lucy Smith (Friends' Weekly Intelligencer, 3 Oct. 1846) wrote:When Joseph was reading the papyrus, he closed his eyes, and held a hat over his face, and that the revelation came to him; and that where the papyrus was torn, he could read the parts that were destroyed equally as well as those that were there.

Folks, that changes everything. The Catalyst Theory was thus first presented by Mother Smith in 1846! Smith didn't even need writing to read the writing! Go figure. He just put his head in the hat and the missing writing in the lacuna was magically translated in Smith's brain. This is more ammo for RFM.

:lol:

Hey, John Gee: What's the King's name in Facsimile No. 3? No lacuna there! No missing writing. Hahahahaha!!!!
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Re: Vogel's new book on Abraham

Post by Fence Sitter »

Shulem wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 3:57 pm
I learned something new in Vogel's book, p. 14!

Woohoo!!

Vogel brings up the point that the papyrus was torn and damaged -- thus lacuna and missing hieratic. Well, that's no problem for translator Joe, because according to his own mother, he can read the writing even when it doesn't exist! I'm not making this up. Mother Smith said so:

Mother Lucy Smith (Friends' Weekly Intelligencer, 3 Oct. 1846) wrote:When Joseph was reading the papyrus, he closed his eyes, and held a hat over his face, and that the revelation came to him; and that where the papyrus was torn, he could read the parts that were destroyed equally as well as those that were there.

Folks, that changes everything. The Catalyst Theory was thus first presented by Mother Smith in 1846! Smith didn't even need writing to read the writing! Go figure. He just put his head in the hat and the missing writing in the lacuna was magically translated in Smith's brain. This is more ammo for RFM.

:lol:

Hey, John Gee: What's the King's name in Facsimile No. 3? No lacuna there! No missing writing. Hahahahaha!!!!


It gets a lot more interesting when you look at what meaning Smith gave the Egyptian characters he made up to fill in the lacuna. The glyphs Smith made up can be found in the left margins of the translation manuscripts next to verses Abr 1:23-28. This is where Smith establishes that Egypt was founded by the daughter of Ham from whom "sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land. (vs 24) and the "Pharaoh being of that lineage by which he could not have the right of the Priesthood..." (v 27).

Smith canonized the priesthood ban.
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Re: Vogel's new book on Abraham

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Fence Sitter wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 4:22 pm
The glyphs Smith made up can be found in the left margins of the translation manuscripts next to verses

Vogel does a fine job refuting Nibley's original claim that the characters in the margin were added later by uninspired scribes to decorate the texts. Several examples are given and he includes photo clips to support those examples. Of course, all that has already been done on these message boards and websites by the likes of Kevin Graham, myself, and others; but it goes to show that it's easy to refute Nibley and Gee on this issue. Then, Vogel gives a one-two punch in stating that Smith's Grammar contains more information than the presently constituted Book of Abraham (so where did that information come from??) and that Smith's own journal entries mention translating after July 1835 when Nibley and Gee postulate that Smith had already translated the Book of Abraham to completion. But the Grammar has so much more! Who made that crap up that's not in the Book of Abraham? And why was Smith still translating in November of 1835 and in March of 1842 if the Book of Abraham was already fully translated on a manuscript now lost? It makes for the so-called Missing manuscript theory! It doesn't add up. These are definite factors that really stuck in the craw of Brian Hauglid in which he switched sides and endorsed Vogel's scholarship.

So many problems for the apologists, add them all up and it just doesn't work. Why can't Gee see that? Oh, it's because the Church is paying him to be an apologist, NOT an Egyptologist, so he has to earn his check somehow.
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