Liahona Irreantum Rabbanah deseret

[_ludwigm]

Min with his phallus............. Is actually the ever virile Elohim?

Min with his phallus.............


. . . . . will be moved to telestial (or deleted traceless), and Your [***img***] feature will be banned forever - (c) Shades System #nipples and genitals

But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man's person:) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me

whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me

[_Robert F Smith]

I can only go by what you actually say, and you spoke only of a funerary Book of the Dead tradition which is a common error among those who don't know Egyptology.

I already stated that I used the word funerary in a general sense, and yes experts only see Egyptian funerary or religious documents in what we have. Again go by what I say.

Good to see that you have corrected your error and no longer limit everything to a "funerary" tradition.

Once again you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth: You appear to make a pseudo-source out to be the real source so that you can then conveniently shoot it down. The problem which you do not face is that in ancient Egypt, more than one literary work was often placed on the same papyrus. You assume that the Breathing Certificate contained only one document, never imagining that when the Book of Abraham refers to an illustration at the beginning it is referring to an illustration accompanying a different work (the Breathing Certificate).

Here we see you are guilty again of not reading what I say. I have already said I am aware of variations of Egyptian vintages or documents. I have no problem that Egyptians would create variations or have other material on the same or others rolls. I have argued that the roll we find the BoB on is the same role the Book of Abraham is claimed to be on, and I have shown evidence for which you have still avoided, not to mention the evidences regarding all three fac. We just don't see any evidence that there is an Abraham story anywhere on any of the fragments, and that Joseph got the fac wrong. Joseph wasn't even done with the Book of Abraham text, so given how much papyri you would need, it's a little more then surprising we would even get one scrap of it or about Joseph.

I thought we both already understood the notion of variations among vignettes (not vintages) and the documents which they accompany. What you still do not seem to get is that, although two of the Book of Abraham facsimiles are indeed from the Breathing Certificate of Hor, that does not mean that the Book of Abraham was not also on the same papyrus scroll. Among the currently available Joseph Smith Papyri we have only a few fragments of the original collection of papyri purchased by Joseph from Michael Chandler. As John Gee has pointed out, a complete audit of the fragmentary evidence indicates that within the JSP (indicated by the KEP) there were papyri belonging to at least five separate persons, and there may have been additional papyri.* There is no reason why we should see any fragments of the Book of Abraham papyrus. Especially if it is hidden in the backing of the Breathing Certificate.
* J. Gee, “Some Puzzles from the Joseph Smith Papyri,” FARMS Review, 20/1 (2008).

Repeatedly stating something is not evidence that it is so. Anyone can make a claim . Proving assertions is another matter, which you have not done.

We both know I did provide evidences for the source roll that the Book of Abraham is claimed to be on.

Bradley is a very smart young man (even though he has a grown son -- also very smart), and I have tremendous respect for his work. He takes these matters seriously. However, that is not the "many" you asserted.

I have already shown you to be wrong, and shown that you knew you were wrong.

These are non sequiturs since they are not at issue, and you have yet to provide an example of the "many" which you falsely claimed.

You mean where I say "I know of no reason to posit absurd hypotheticals in which the Book of Mormon plates would not translate into the Book of Mormon more or less as we know it. Nor that the Book of Abraham papyrus would not contain the Book of Abraham. "
Not sure what you are suggesting here. Meeting someone in person is very different from meeting him online. Perhaps you could be more specific. My sentence on the Book of Abraham is merely tautologous.

Your post admits that meeting someone can be done either in person or online. The differences are not really relevant. You used the word meet without any qualifications you now want to add. I am satisfied that I have proven my point that the theory was not an invention of critics, and that some believing members do believe in that theory.

Who is this "some"? Down from your specious claim of "many."
"Meeting" someone online who hides behind a pseudonym seems a poor basis for knowing them. When I speak of "meeting" someone, I mean that I have met and talked to them in person.

Chris and I suppose MM (even though I haven't met him) are quite serious also, and don't go in for cheap tricks. However, they are wrong on their calculations on the length, as should become apparent to all soon.

Time will tell.

True enough, but the misnamed "Book of the Dead" is from a very specific era, and does not (as once supposed) merely accompany the dead in the afterlife, but is a kind of "Book of Common Prayer" or liturgy for all Egyptians, who recited the various chapters or spells in this life. They hoped that, by identifying with resurrected god Osiris,they too might rise with the just to eternal life. Does that remind you of anything?

There are lots of resurrected Gods. It's a common story. Resurrection and reincarnation are common religious ideas in many religions ancient and modern.

C. S. Lewis said much the same thing when he was an atheist professor at Oxford UNiversity, but then realized that Jesus had actually been resurrected.

What you do not realize is that (to Egyptologists like Jan Assmann and the late Klaus Baer) much of Christian doctrine comes from ancient Egypt, e.g., the Christian Trinity and the notion of hypostasis was taken from ancient Egyptian religion. Baer said that Amon-Re-Ptah subsume all gods and that all gods are three, and three are one. According to him (and Harry Wolfson), the Christian Trinity was developed at Alexandria. However, Assmann argues for the expression of the Egyptian trinity or “triunity” at least as early as the Middle Kingdom (contemporary with Abraham).
There is nothing new in these assertions, and they are usually associated with one or more items from an entire constellation of common Christian and Egyptian religious terms and characteristics, including
(1) both Mary and Isis being called Mother of God (Theotokos “God-bearer”), Queen of Heaven (Regina caeli), and Heifer.
(2) both presented iconographically throughout the Mediterranean world as the Mother (Maria Lactans) suckling young Jesus/Horus.
(3) Gilles Quispel even argues that Revelation 12 is really a version of the Legend of Isis the Virgin fleeing with her son Horus from Seth (Typhon-Hydra);
(4) the festal birth of the child-god who comes “to bring salvation into the world” through his legitimate kingship,
(5) the very son of the Sun-god,
(6) whose traditional birth date, like that of Jesus, is conceptually the very birthday of Reʿ at Winter Solstice,
(7) and is associated with formal temple triads/the Holy Trinity;
(8) the newborn child is blessed, “circumcised, purified, and” formally “presented . . . as the new king.”
(9) New Year’s gifts are given for “the feasts of Choiak and Nb-kЗw as well as those of wp rnpt,” i.e., “the Opening of the Year.”
(10) There is a strong link between ancient Egyptian water lustrations and Christian baptism.
(11) The iconography of St. George and the Dragon has its origin as “Horus as a mounted Roman warrior spearing Seth [Apophis] in the form of a crocodile.”
(12) Hell or Amentit as a lake of fire and brimstone (sulfur) which purges or devours the evil ones.
I could go on for several pages, and with detailed footnotes. I may put it all online soon, even though it is merely part of a forthcoming book.

by the way still waiting for you to respond about why Egyptologists are wrong in their understandings of the fac, especially fac 3. Why is Hor even in this fac if it is supposed to be Abraham in Egypt teaching astronomy?

It is not the Egyptologists, but you that are wrong. Of course the Breathing Certificate of Horus has his name in the facsimile. Did you ignore my very pointed citation of Egyptologists advising you to read the figures as well as hieroglyphs? The facsimiles are merely used as late illustrations of events thousands of years earlier. They do double-duty, as it were, representing not only a Breathing Certficate and a Hypocephalus, but also simultaneously providing Book of Abraham illustrations. A remarkable thing.

[_Robert F Smith]

That is one of my contentions also. What Robert sees as definitive hits via parallels I see as almost universal commonalities in a variety of religions.

The bird as a spirit or HG in the facsimiles...... Meh, birds have been seen as potent, omens, or spirits in so many religions as to be meaningless. So for fac 1 ...meh...., and it probably wan't even present in fac 2.



vs



The resurrection themes, again common.

You have forced their reduction to commonalities by ignoring my comments on them at http://www.scribd.com/doc/118810727/A-Brief-Assessment-of-the-LDS-Book-of-Abraham, where I point out that facsimile 2:3 & 2:7 are in parallel such that the two wdЗt-eyes (Sun and Moon) in fac 2:3 are inversely paralleled by two other wdЗt-eyes opposite: One being presented to Min by a bird-serpent Nhb-kЗ, and the other in the head of the female standing behind the Cow-goddess, Hathor – the same female holds an ʻnkh-sign in her right hand, and this may correspond with the ʻnkh held in the right hand of Khopry-Reʻ in fac 2:3. The flagellum held above Min’s shoulder in fac 2:7, which is associated with “sovereignty and dominion” (though usually with the crook), is an “emblem of rule,” and may parallel the wЗs-scepter (“power & dominion”) in the left hand of Khopry-Reʻ in fac 2:3. In any case, the WdЗt-eye, “the full, healed and intact eye”of Horus or of Reʻ, is “the symbol of divine life which can overcome death,” i.e., certainly could be interpreted as a priesthood function.
Joseph’s explanations here each have God enthroned and “revealing” “grand Key-words of the Priesthood.” “Holy”appears in each explanation, though in separate contexts, and “Abraham” is also mentioned in each. Abraham is especially important in 2:7 where he is sitting on the throne of God receiving “the sign of the Holy Ghost . . . in the form of a dove.” This not only demonstrates Joseph’s understanding that such symbols have more than one meaning, but also that the Nhb-kЗw bird-serpent (dove) is correctly understood as the Holy Ghost, i.e., Miriam Lichtheim saw Nehebkau (NhbkЗw) as “a divinity in serpent form who is in the retinue of Re and serves as a guardian,” in her comments on Pyramid Utterance 263. However, in translating the term Nhb-kЗw.f, she rendered it as “(man) of standing; (lit.) one whose kas are harnessed” (from the First Interregnum Stela of Ity, 3). Whatever the meaning of combined terms like Nhbw-kЗw (cf. Pyramid Utterance 517; Coffin Texts, II, 49 [84], II, 51-54 [85-88], and VI, 133k,392h), it is a nʻw-serpent – a taker away of power and a bestower of powers, with authority from the Great Ennead of Atum, i.e., the Divine Council, or is seen as seven uraei exalted and identified with the Bull of the Tribunal-Ennead (see Faulkner on Coffin Texts 85-88 [II, 51-54]). Is this not a good analogy with the Holy Ghost? To clinch it, note that the -kЗ element of Nhb-kЗ in Fac. 2:7, has been translated variously as “ghost, phantom” (Edfu, IV, 266, 7; Shipwrecked Sailor, 114), “spirit, soul; essence; personality; fortune; fate; will (of king); kingship; goodwill; genius; guardian spirit; power; double” (Pyramid Text 587), “hyper-physical vital force.”

The 4 gods, well a partial hit (but common with other uses of 4 corners of the earth by Joseph Smith), but the names of the gods are all wrong.

Scarab beetles: http://www.insects.org/ced1/beetles_rel_sym.html

"wrong" from whose perspective? Abe cannot use his own Semitic designations? As non-Mormon scholar F. Andersen pointed out in his translation of Habakkuk for the Anchor Bible (300-301, diagram 2), “in Samʼal religion” one found the god “Hadad in association with El, Resheph, Rekib-el, and Shamash.” The four do not have to have only one set of names.
Joseph was right on target for fac 2:6, even though S. A. B. Mercer did not agree: As E. A. W. Budge said variously, these four gods “were supposed to preside over the four quarters of the world, and subsequently were acknowledged to be the gods of the cardinal points,” and he continued to say this: “Each god ruled over one quarter of the world,” “the gods of the four quarters of the earth,” “the four [quarters of the world],” or the gods of the four “quarters of heaven."

But the mis-identification (and quite often mis identification of gender which seems pretty obvious) of every single human, demigod, or other humanoid figure in the facsimiles seems pretty condemning. Min with his phallus............. Is actually the ever virile Elohim?

The classical Hebrew word for "sex" was min, and this continues in use in modern Hebrew. The influence of ancient Egypt is often apparent in Hebrew.
Here and elsewhere you seem not to understand how religious syncretism is to be taken. The influences are powerful.

[_SteelHead]

After pages of exchanges we get.

Missing scrolls.
Which is typical, but still seems to pale as what we do have is an abject failure to map into the explanation of the facsimiles as provided by Joseph Smith.

Followed by:

It is not the Egyptologists, but you that are wrong. Of course the Breathing Certificate of Horus has his name in the facsimile. Did you ignore my very pointed citation of Egyptologists advising you to read the figures as well as hieroglyphs? The facsimiles are merely used as late illustrations of events thousands of years earlier. They do double-duty, as it were, representing not only a Breathing Certficate and a Hypocephalus, but also simultaneously providing Book of Abraham illustrations. A remarkable thing.

Can you prove that last assertion.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Nope.

[_Robert F Smith]

After pages of exchanges we get.
Missing scrolls.
Which is typical, but still seems to pale as what we do have is an abject failure to map into the explanation of the facsimiles as provided by Joseph Smith.
Followed by:

It is not the Egyptologists, but you that are wrong. Of course the Breathing Certificate of Horus has his name in the facsimile. Did you ignore my very pointed citation of Egyptologists advising you to read the figures as well as hieroglyphs? The facsimiles are merely used as late illustrations of events thousands of years earlier. They do double-duty, as it were, representing not only a Breathing Certficate and a Hypocephalus, but also simultaneously providing Book of Abraham illustrations. A remarkable thing.

Can you prove that last assertion.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Nope.

Your merely rhetorical question, followed by your own answer based on fear, is surely indicative of your preference not to engage the real documents and issues.
Once again, you are shaken at the prospect of having to actually read a point of view different than your own. You appear unable even to consider the possibility that you might be wrong. That is not actual discussion or scholarship, but rather sheer effrontery, and anti-Mormon effrontery at that.

[_SteelHead]

Oh no, anti-mormon effrontery. How awful.

Now please prove up on your claims that the facsimiles can be interpreted in other ways, or more specifically, (as I can make unfounded claims to have translated the facsimiles into Revenge of the Sith) that the Book of Abraham is in there somewhere.

[_Themis]

Good to see that you have corrected your error and no longer limit everything to a "funerary" tradition.

Not really. I stated already how I was using the term, and it is in line with how others, including experts have used it.

I thought we both already understood the notion of variations among vignettes (not vintages) and the documents which they accompany. What you still do not seem to get is that, although two of the Book of Abraham facsimiles are indeed from the Breathing Certificate of Hor, that does not mean that the Book of Abraham was not also on the same papyrus scroll.

Your problem is that all the evidence points the the BoB roll as the claimed source. First because fac 1 and 3 belong with the BoB. Why would the Book of Abraham text be anywhere else. It doesn't make sense. You also have the Book of Abraham text saying the source is the same as fac 1. Add to that the KEP also has documents putting hieroglyphs from the BoB with Book of Abraham text in order from the BoB. There is to much to make it reasonable to be anywhere else. Of course you cannot accept this, since you have already made conclusions before even looking at the evidence. The other problem is that the facsimiles do not tell a Abraham story, but tell an Egyptian one, and one we expect. You even admit that Hor is mentioned with fac 1 and 3. It's really about him and Egyptian religious beliefs and practices, and not about Abraham.

Among the currently available Joseph Smith Papyri we have only a few fragments of the original collection of papyri purchased by Joseph from Michael Chandler. As John Gee has pointed out, a complete audit of the fragmentary evidence indicates that within the JSP (indicated by the KEP) there were papyri belonging to at least five separate persons, and there may have been additional papyri.* There is no reason why we should see any fragments of the Book of Abraham papyrus. Especially if it is hidden in the backing of the Breathing Certificate.
* J. Gee, “Some Puzzles from the Joseph Smith Papyri,” FARMS Review, 20/1 (2008).

Of course there is. We have the BPOH where it is supposed to be. It would also take up a lot of papyri just to write down the unfinished Book of Abraham we have, and then include the BoJ. We see absolutely nothing, but based on all the facts we know that we shouldn't see any.

These are non sequiturs since they are not at issue, and you have yet to provide an example of the "many" which you falsely claimed.

Who is this "some"? Down from your specious claim of "many."
"Meeting" someone online who hides behind a pseudonym seems a poor basis for knowing them. When I speak of "meeting" someone, I mean that I have met and talked to them in person.

I have already proven you wrong. I even showed that you knew you were wrong. I have showed that fair brings up the theory as a possibility. I see no reason to waste more time since it is not a big issue, and I have already proven my point.

C. S. Lewis said much the same thing when he was an atheist professor at Oxford UNiversity, but then realized that Jesus had actually been resurrected.

What you do not realize is that (to Egyptologists like Jan Assmann and the late Klaus Baer) much of Christian doctrine comes from ancient Egypt, e.g., the Christian Trinity and the notion of hypostasis was taken from ancient Egyptian religion. Baer said that Amon-Re-Ptah subsume all gods and that all gods are three, and three are one. According to him (and Harry Wolfson), the Christian Trinity was developed at Alexandria. However, Assmann argues for the expression of the Egyptian trinity or “triunity” at least as early as the Middle Kingdom (contemporary with Abraham).
There is nothing new in these assertions, and they are usually associated with one or more items from an entire constellation of common Christian and Egyptian religious terms and characteristics, including
(1) both Mary and Isis being called Mother of God (Theotokos “God-bearer”), Queen of Heaven (Regina caeli), and Heifer.
(2) both presented iconographically throughout the Mediterranean world as the Mother (Maria Lactans) suckling young Jesus/Horus.
(3) Gilles Quispel even argues that Revelation 12 is really a version of the Legend of Isis the Virgin fleeing with her son Horus from Seth (Typhon-Hydra);
(4) the festal birth of the child-god who comes “to bring salvation into the world” through his legitimate kingship,
(5) the very son of the Sun-god,
(6) whose traditional birth date, like that of Jesus, is conceptually the very birthday of Reʿ at Winter Solstice,
(7) and is associated with formal temple triads/the Holy Trinity;
(8) the newborn child is blessed, “circumcised, purified, and” formally “presented . . . as the new king.”
(9) New Year’s gifts are given for “the feasts of Choiak and Nb-kЗw as well as those of wp rnpt,” i.e., “the Opening of the Year.”
(10) There is a strong link between ancient Egyptian water lustrations and Christian baptism.
(11) The iconography of St. George and the Dragon has its origin as “Horus as a mounted Roman warrior spearing Seth [Apophis] in the form of a crocodile.”
(12) Hell or Amentit as a lake of fire and brimstone (sulfur) which purges or devours the evil ones.
I could go on for several pages, and with detailed footnotes. I may put it all online soon, even though it is merely part of a forthcoming book.

So what? This does nothing to prove anything here. Resurrection is a common theme, just as reincarnation is. Christianity did not evolve in isolation.

It is not the Egyptologists, but you that are wrong. Of course the Breathing Certificate of Horus has his name in the facsimile. Did you ignore my very pointed citation of Egyptologists advising you to read the figures as well as hieroglyphs? The facsimiles are merely used as late illustrations of events thousands of years earlier. They do double-duty, as it were, representing not only a Breathing Certficate and a Hypocephalus, but also simultaneously providing Book of Abraham illustrations. A remarkable thing.

You have yet to engage what the experts have said about the fac, and provide evidence that your assertions are actually happening with the fac. I have shown how experts see the fac, and it's obvious they don't match at all with what Joseph asserted. They shouldn't since the story is about Hor and Egyptian religious beliefs and practices. The papyri just backs it up. I see you are now moving to the hidden meaning theory. It would be nice if it was true, but some would rather go with what the evidence says, then what they want to believe. It took me decades to get to that point.

[_Robert F Smith]

Themis,
You are now inventing and attributing to me positions which I have not taken, possibly because you are afraid to read and respond to my "A Brief Assessment of the LDS Book of Abraham,” Dec 2012, online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/118810727/A-Brief-Assessment-of-the-LDS-Book-of-Abraham .

Why are you afraid to reply to my actual statements and examples? I provide plenty of scholarly examples. You say that you have taken decades to arrive at your current position. Too bad you didn't bother to read scholarly discussions of the issues, and instead simply uncritically took in the anti-Mormon position.
Bob

[_SteelHead]

Back to the names of the 4 gods. If I remember what I have read in regards to these names, they are:
a. names found in the Bible
and/or
b. explained as mishmashes of chunks of languages from the area.

Dialogue, A Journal of Mormon Thought
Stephen E. Thompson "Egyptology and the Book of Abraham"
footnote 67

Wheeeeeeee, the sharpshooter fallacy again rears its ugly head.

If I take a couple of names from the Bible, make up a couple more and claim that they are the name of Egyptian gods, as I am allowed whatever 4 names I choose to represent them, because "The four do not have to have only one set of names." (eg I can claim whatever 4 words I want) What have I proven?

Absolutely nothing.

[_Themis]

Themis,
You are now inventing and attributing to me positions which I have not taken,

I have no idea what you mean. Perhaps you could elaborate.

possibly because you are afraid to read and respond to my "A Brief Assessment of the LDS Book of Abraham,” Dec 2012, online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/118810727/A-Brief-Assessment-of-the-LDS-Book-of-Abraham .

I have read it, and we have commented on a couple of points. I have asked you multiple times to bring up one or two points in your article and we can go from there.

Why are you afraid to reply to my actual statements and examples? I provide plenty of scholarly examples. You say that you have taken decades to arrive at your current position. Too bad you didn't bother to read scholarly discussions of the issues, and instead simply uncritically took in the anti-Mormon position.

How can one be in apologetics so long and not get where the problem of people changing their views in the church come from. It's not from anti sources, but from friendly or more neutral(scholarly work). This is where we go to get information from.

Now why have you from beginning to end not dealt with what I have asked about the facsimiles and papyri and what Egyptology has to say about them, and why you think we should reject that? If you want a starting point lets start with what they say about fac 3. I have provided more then one source, but then I expect you have been around long enough to know what they do say. Perhaps that is why I have yet to see you address these issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Abraham