Nomad wrote:My point in posting today is to relate a very interesting development that I heard about from a former member of my local ward who now lives in the vicinity of Hartford, CT. He had occasion recently to attend a meeting where Elder Marlin K. Jensen spoke. Elder Jensen took questions from the audience afterwards. One of the questions concerned the Book of Abraham controversy. In response, Elder Jensen referred to what he termed "soon-to-be-published studies" showing that the amount of papyri we have now is only a small fraction of what Joseph Smith had originally. Then he recommended that the questioner view the online video of William Schryver’s KEP presentation from the FAIR conference in order to understand the relationship of the KEP to the production of the Book of Abraham. My friend had never even known there was a controversy about the the Book of Abraham, but knew that I was interested in that kind of stuff, so he e-mailed me and asked if I had heard about any of this. Well, that turned into a rather long conversation. He had no idea that I know Schryver through the occasional overlap of our professional work.
Anyway, I thought it was significant that the Schryver’s KEP theories have evidently managed to persuade the church historian enough to recommend his FAIR presentation to a questioner.
Elder Jensen also recommended (in response to a different questioner) Greg Smith’s polygamy paper from the 2009 FAIR conference. Sounds like FAIR still in the “good graces” of at least some of the general authorities.
Nomad,
Thanks for sharing this new information. As will be no surprise, I have a few questions.
1-Did Elder Jensen say where on Facsimile No. 3 are the Egyptian characters for the name "Shulem"?
2-Did Elder Jensen explain why the only hieratic appearing on the restored Facsimile No. 2 are those characters drawn from the Sensen papyri put by Joseph Smith in those portions that were damaged and missing, and have been restored, while all the original Egyptian characters that survived as part of Facsimile No. 2 are hieroglyphic characters? Related question, did he venture an opinion on whether Joseph Smith even knew the difference between hieratic and hieroglyphic characters?
3-Did Elder Jensen explain why no part of the Explanation to Facsimile No. 2 includes attempts at what the Egyptian characters translate to read in English, just interpretations of the pictograph portions?
4-Did Elder Jensen explain how it was that the System of astronomy only unfolded to Joseph Smith and his scribes on October 1, 1835 if as Will posits, the BoAbr, including Chapter 3 (the astronomy) was completed before the end of July 1835 when the 'subsequent' EA&G was begun?
5-Did Elder Jensen tell those in attendance that once you peer through all the shrubbery that Will filled his 50 minutes at FAIR with, Will's claims that the EA&G came after an already completed BoAbr text is that the BoAbr text has a more developed story line than the EA&G (and that Will has yet to counter the point that such is to be expected if the EA&G were developed first, along the lines of working papers leading the BoAbr)?
6-Did Elder Jensen say when the COJCOLDS would make all the KEP documents open for public inspection and photographing? Or, conversely, did he explain why the COJCOLDS does not make them public?
7-Did Elder Jensen join in Will's opinion that he (Elder Jensen) would not be surprised if the Facsimiles are someday removed from the canon scripture, despite Abr 1:12 inextricably linking them?
8-Did Elder Jensen explain why there is so much repetition of concepts in Abr 1:1-3 as compared to the rest of Abr, and how that was the only part penned by W W Phelps, and how that mimics the progressions found in the five degrees of the GAEL, but in the parts of penned by other scribes, there is no such correlation in the Abr text?
Inquiring minds want to know.