Bazooka wrote:Themis wrote:...We have all 3 facsimiles that Egyptology have translated. It doesn't fit at all with Joseph's claimed translations of them. The Book of Abraham tells us fac 1 is the start of the commencement of the Book of Abraham story. Since we have text with Fac 1 which is the start of that record it is the claimed source of the Book of Abraham text. All the evidence points to this, especially the KEP. We have way more then enough to see Joseph is making it up. The guy really could never resist pulling this crap.
Joseph incorrectly translated everything that we have the original documents for, yet we should believe that he got it right with the documents that we don't now have.
Getting to the actual text, contents and context, of the books themselves, we have far less to argue about. Focusing on the "original sources" as some kind of skill with physical artifacts, is denying the presence of "God" behind all imagined things. Our imagination is (I've said this before) our most Godlike trait. (It is also the one thing that teachers of the very young have the least patience for, since imagination causes daydreaming and that loss of attention for the droning voice at the front of the classroom is a rebuke, and will not be tolerated, etc.) The point is: "God" works through EVERYTHING to bring about good things. Is anything that Joseph Smith wrote/translated/received/revealed a bad thing today? Polygamists are often "bad" at how they live their religion; abuses of all kinds occur. "United Order" experiments always attract the loafers of society and fail under the weight of their own inequities and arguing, etc. Aside from those TWO experiments, which were responsible for the birth of Mormonism but had an end once their utility was past, what other things that Joseph Smith taught that are practiced in the Church in the 21st century, are to be held up as bad things? Nothing I can think of. In fact the Church is well on its way in this century to becoming a visible, influential world religion. That's on a par, time-wise, with early Christianity as it grew on the Greco-Roman world stage amidst paganism and Judaism, et al. the "world religions" of the time. The secret to that growth is in the doctrines and teachings and the stories contained in scripture to convey those doctrines and teachings to the imagination, where living them becomes a reality.
J. R. R. Tolkien warned his readers/fans to not examine the bones from which the stew is made. His son Christopher ignored his daddy's warning and published virtually all of his father's stuff, the "bones", from which Middle Earth came into being. A similar injunction, against demanding that physical artifacts be the sole criteria by which one judges Joseph Smith's "translating" capability/gift, can be made: don't expect "God" to spell it out in terms that are absolutely undeniable, "he" always leaves mystery, even apparent contradiction, in the "original sources", so that unbelievers will not be condemned for rejecting what they don't want to believe, yet, for whatever complex of reasons. The papyri are an artifact, incomplete, but not incomplete enough to avoid criticism. The resulting story of Abraham fits in perfectly with Abrahamic religion exegesis, giving a fresher, more "novelistic" detail appealing to 19th century readers who were becoming addicted to creative writing at a voracious pace. Today the Book of Abraham seems quaint or even colloquial, not ancient enough, and therefore easily believed as Joseph Smith's imagination/manipulation/delusion, whatever. But the story fits in with other scripture without a seam. If you believe that "God" is speaking or has ever spoken through textual mediums, then there isn't anything out of order with the Book of Abraham either. The inspiration of ancient artifacts turned Joseph Smith's imagination "on", and the rest flowed....