Missing Papyrus

[_William Schryver]

This controversy will not end until a few other people are allowed to inspect and measure the actual scroll. Critics are fumbling around with pictures while apologists defend measurements that seem highly implausible (50 micron thick papyrus = the thickness of the paper used to make my quad).

I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle (I have no evidence to back this up).

Incidentally, where is the thread between Chap, Will, and Chris that discusses this.

Actually, Gee's measurements do very much give us at least a "ball park" idea of the papyrus thickness. It's on the extreme thin end of the known spectrum.

I'm becoming less and less certain that 50 microns is too thin for carefully produced papyrus. The Egyptians were masters of the process. They pressed it out with heavy rollers. And although 100 - 200 microns might have been "common" production, it is not out of the question that they manufactured a thinner variety for special uses. As you correctly noted, 50 microns is the thickness of the fine paper used in your scriptures. "Onion skin" paper is similar.

On the other hand, Chris wants to argue that the JSP are 500 microns thick! Well, go find some 20 pt. card stock (.50 mm, or 500 microns) and try to roll it up. The paper used to make this Kleenex box on my desk is probably about 10 pt. card stock (.25 mm, or 250 microns). It wouldn't even be that easy to roll up.

As far as I'm concerned, this "controversy" is over. I am virtually 100% convinced that there was a significant length of scroll of the uncut roll of Horos. I am convinced Hoffmann's formula returns valid results if the measurements are precise enough. And I am convinced that Gee's measurements are well within the "ball park" of the expected margin of error.

I sincerely hope that Chris and others of the critics will try to keep arguing against the stone cold reality of the mathematics we're dealing with here.

[_Dr. Shades]

I am virtually 100% convinced that there was a significant length of scroll of the uncut roll of Horos.

Even with twenty feet of extra papyrus, what are the odds that Abraham wrote his record in the middle of the scroll, careful to leave empty portions both before and after so that Egyptian morticians could, 2,000 years later, write a breathing permit for a deceased priest? And for that matter, what are the odds that Egyptian morticians would come across a 2,000 year old scroll with writing in the middle and, rather than using a new scroll, use only the front and back ends to write a breathing permit?

[_William Schryver]

I am virtually 100% convinced that there was a significant length of scroll of the uncut roll of Horos.

Even with twenty feet of extra papyrus, what are the odds that Abraham wrote his record in the middle of the scroll, careful to leave empty portions both before and after so that Egyptian morticians could, 2,000 years later, write a breathing permit for a deceased priest? And for that matter, what are the odds that Egyptian morticians would come across a 2,000 year old scroll with a writing in the middle and, rather than using a new scroll, use only the front and back ends to write a breathing permit?

If I didn't know you were being intentionally obtuse, I would really think you belong here.

But I'm convinced you're just here for the chicks. You know, like Neil Young said: "Welfare mothers make better lovers."

[_Dr. Shades]

If I didn't know you were being intentionally obtuse, I would really think you belong here.

But I'm convinced you're just here for the chicks. You know, like Neil Young said: "Welfare mothers make better lovers."

I was 99% sure you wouldn't be able to answer the meat of my post.

You didn't disappoint.

[_JohnStuartMill]

JSM:

Are there any other "clarifications" (i.e., admittedly non-ancient writings) in the Mormon canon?

Are you serious?

If so, the answer is: YES.

Well, what are they? Kevin's right that the JST is a totally different ballgame, and I'd add that latter-day pronouncements don't meet the criteria here, either. So what is it: did Joseph Smith "redact" I Nephi as an explanatory prologue? Did he "redact" the Lehites' voyage to America as an explanation for how they got there? If the Book of Abraham is open to this interpretation, why not everything else?

[_JohnStuartMill]

If I didn't know you were being intentionally obtuse, I would really think you belong here.

But I'm convinced you're just here for the chicks. You know, like Neil Young said: "Welfare mothers make better lovers."

How old are you?

[_Doctor Scratch]

I agree with dlbagent007 on this one. Others are going to need to verify Gee's measurements. After all, I'm sure we all remember his now-notorious "inks" theory. Further, one of his more recent FROB articles had a very worried, panicked tone about it---almost as if he was terrified that a critic might get the opportunity to measure the papyrus for him/herself, and thus perhaps come to a totally different conclusion, measurement-wise.

[_dblagent007]

I am virtually 100% convinced that there was a significant length of scroll of the uncut roll of Horos.

Even with twenty feet of extra papyrus, what are the odds that Abraham wrote his record in the middle of the scroll, careful to leave empty portions both before and after so that Egyptian morticians could, 2,000 years later, write a breathing permit for a deceased priest? And for that matter, what are the odds that Egyptian morticians would come across a 2,000 year old scroll with writing in the middle and, rather than using a new scroll, use only the front and back ends to write a breathing permit?

I don't think that represents the more prevalent apologetic arguments. I believe that one argument is that an old jew combined the Abrahamic writings (probably a copy, not the originals) with an Egyptian funerary scroll at around the time period of the funerary scroll. The FAIR wiki explains them in better detail than I could.

How have apologetics treated the translations of the facsimiles?

[_Yoda]

If I didn't know you were being intentionally obtuse, I would really think you belong here.

But I'm convinced you're just here for the chicks. You know, like Neil Young said: "Welfare mothers make better lovers."

If you believe that Shades is being intentionally obtuse, then you must think that his question is extremely easy to answer.

Why don't you enlighten the "obtuse"?

There are some of us who haven't studied this topic in the depth you have, Will. It doesn't mean we're stupid. It just means we haven't studied it.

And...the welfare mothers joke......not funny, Will. Bad form.

[_solomarineris]

I've heard from a friend who heard from reliable sources that missing papyri
exists and at that time it was rolled tightly and stuck up to a Mule's ass.
After this process Mule was mummified and interned in one of the Pyramids in
Egypt, awaiting for glorious second Coming.