H.
BrianH wrote:But nothing in the texts or imagery of the original document has been shown to relate to the content of the Book of Abraham, to the satisfaction of anyone who is not a Mormon accepting this claim on faith in Joseph Smith.
First of all I do not doubt or discount the reality of supernatural gifts.
I have my reasons - none of which are gemain to the topic of this debate. Suffice it to say that I do not discount the reality of supernatural gifts. What I DO discount is the LDS claim that Joseph Smith used any such gift to translate the LDS "scriptures".
But I see no evidence that there was any supernatural gift at work in Smith's translation of a copy of the Book of Breathings into the "Book of [Abraham]".
True. I do believe that there have been many instances of the bestowal of supernatural gifts. It does not follow that because there have been such bestowals that Smith was a recipient of such a blessing, any more than a similar belief requires you to conclude that Sun Myung Moon is a "prophet". The simple fact is no one has provided me with any reason to think that the alleged translation of a copy of the well-known "Book of Breathings" into a totally different book is the product of such a gift and there is abundant evidence that his alleged "translation" is a total fraud.LDSToronto wrote:Is it a fair conclusion that your belief in the existence of supernatural gifts is based solely on observable evidence? Can you give an example of an event that led you to believe that the event was caused by the exercising of supernatural gifts, and can you please describe the evidence that led you to conclude that the best explanation for that event was the exercising of a supernatural gift by a human being?
I can, but I will not. This is not my first time at the races, H-man. I am all to aware of how Mormons create tangents to avoid the main question. I will not let you repeat that error. The question here is my challenge to you to show me some reason to conclude that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham correctly and as a case in point, that he properly identified the canopic idol deities. If he did correctly identify these easily recognized Egyptian deities, then it should not be difficult to show me some reasons to think that he did. After all, we are only talking about a translation here. "Translation" of normal human languages does not require a divine revelation. People do it every day countless millions of times.
And you are wrong. The result of this alleged gift was nothing more complicated and was nothing that required an intervention by God. We are talking here about the simple matter of a translation - something that is performed by men and women every day you have ever lived several million times a day without the need for supernatural gifts. Even ancient Egyptian has been "decoded" into a coherent language for nearly 200 years and scholars all over the world are able to comprehend it. Sadly for the LDS church, not once has anyone confirmed Joseph Smith's alleged supernatural translation of the Book of Abraham, and its proper translation as a portion of the commonly known Book of Breathings is well-established.
The word translated as "faith" in Hebrews 11 (and throughout the New Testament) is the Greek word πίστις - "pistis". It means "trust" or "conviction of truth" and is usually translated as "faith", "assurance" and "belief" in English Bibles. Such "faith" is EARNED, H-man. This is not my first time at the races. The simple fact is, I have no reason to trust that Joseph Smith was telling the truth, and every sufficient and necessary reason to conclude that he was a fraud.LDSToronto wrote:In what do you have faith, and how has that faith been earned? Are you talking about "the evidence of things not seen"? What unseen things do you have faith in and what evidence was given?
Faith is earned in different ways. A man claiming to be a prophet earns my faith (trust) by telling the truth. A man who claims to have translated a document from a language he cannot even read earns my trust by getting his translation CORRECT. Unless you can finally get around to simply answering the original challenge of this thread -the challenge to show that Smith translated the Book of Abraham CORRECTLY, and as a case in point that he translated the names and identities of the four canopic jar idols in Fac. #1 of his "translation", any faith in his claims will remain unearned.LDSToronto wrote:I acknowledge that one can attain information of Christ's supposed divinity by reading scripture and other books about Christ. Such is not the same as acquiring a sure knowledge of Christ's actual divinity. How, besides faith, have you come to gain knowledge of Christ's actual divinity?
Christ's divinity is not at issue here. Nor will I let you create the usual diversions and rabbit trails for which LDS have earned a justified but awful reputation. The issue here in this debate is the LDS claim that their "prophet" translated the Book of Abraham correctly by the gift and power of God. If that is true, then you should be able to show me that Smith did indeed CORRECTLY identify and translate this document and properly and correctly identify the subjects here: the four canpic jar deities appearing in your Book of Abraham.LDSToronto wrote:You have, throughout this thread said things like:
...
In each of these, as well as the numerous other times when I've spoken of the possibility that Joseph had the gift of seership, you have rejected claims and asked for pure evidence-based defenses.
You are joking right? You should be ashamed to have had to stoop to such desperate measures. Do you read English? Do I have to define the words I used for you? NOWHERE do any of your citations in any way state or even imply that I deny anyone the right to exercise their faith! Secondly, your conclusion here is a non-sequitur and a huge one at that. My rejecting your claims does not in any way even come close to denying you your right to believe anything you want. If you think it does, you clearly are totally divorced from reality or suffering a delusional persecution complex.
You are a Mormon and we both know that you just say things sometimes when you yourself know you cannot support them. And you need to make lame accusations like that to try to continue hiding your inability to answer the challenge that has you so flumoxed that you can even post dozens of responses without even ONCE at least TRYING to answer it.
