Referenced scholar in Book of Abraham Essay responds...

[_No_Hidden_Agenda]

An enterprising enquirer over at Reddit reached out to one of the scholars referenced in the Church's Book of Abraham essay to inquire whether her work was being properly used by the church. Does not go well for the church:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... ed_in_the/

While reading the Church's Book of Abraham essay, I noticed a number of footnotes, some of which did not provide links to the documents they referenced, and some of the documents are in languages other than English (how convenient!...).

Reference 30 comes at the end of this paragraph:

Some have assumed that the hieroglyphs adjacent to and surrounding facsimile 1 must be a source for the text of the book of Abraham. But this claim rests on the assumption that a vignette and its adjacent text must be associated in meaning. In fact, it was not uncommon for ancient Egyptian vignettes to be placed some distance from their associated commentary.

The reference is to a piece written by Valérie Angenot. With some sleuthing, I was able to find an email address for Valérie and wrote her the following email:

Hi there,

First, I apologize for such a random email. Second, I apologize for beginning with an apology.
I had a question about an academic work you published some time ago, Discordance entre texte et image. Deux exemples de l’Ancien et du Nouvel Empires.

Now, I have not read it. I've tried to find an online version, but I cannot. I am curious because it was cited in an essay I recently read.

The LDS (Mormon) Church has recently written an essay in which they attempt to explain the origins of their canonized Book of Abraham. Most of the world of Egyptology, as I understand, has debunked the book thoroughly. But, in this essay, they cite your article as a defense of the fact that the various vignettes (which they insist are depictions of Abraham) have nothing to do with the surrounding text of the papyrus.

Do you feel that they are accurately representing the viewpoint of your published piece? Does your piece lend any legitimacy to their argument, in your opinion?

Again, I'm sorry for such a random email, but I am quite curious about your thoughts on the matter.

The article can be found here: https://www.lds.org/topics/translation- ... m?lang=eng

You are listed in reference 30.

Sincerely,
randomapologist

After some time, I received the following reply:

Hello,
I have to apologize, in my turn, for my lateness in getting back to you.

Your question is delicate to answer because I have very dear Mormon friends doing Egyptology. However, not being a Mormon myself, I cannot totally share their beliefs and analysis of the Book of Abraham.

What I can do is confirm that the reference to my article somewhat matches the statement "it was not uncommon for ancient Egyptian vignettes to be placed some distance from their associated commentary", although I'd say the process is most often used for connecting walls between them in a tomb or temple (as a microcosm) rather than used in papyrus (but this is still possible, I have not deepened the question).

The other thing I can do is attach my article for you to make your own idea of the arguments I defend in it. You may find it online as well on academia.edu

Hoping this will help.
All the best,
Valérie Angenot

The article can be viewed here.

I don't speak French, so I'm hoping some of you French-speaking RMs can help give some insight, but based on the movie poster examples given on the final page of the doc, I doubt this lends credibility to the idea that generic, ancient funeral docs might be randomly injected with stories about Abraham. Enjoy.

[_Sammy Jankins]

I love what one of the reddit commenters said:

The fact that she she says she is going to be careful in her wording so as not to offend her Mormon friends tells us all we need to know

[_Fence Sitter]

Footnote 30 in its entirety reads:

Henk Milde, “Vignetten-Forschung,” in Burkhard Backes and others, eds., Totenbuch-Forschungen (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006), 221–31; Holger Kockelmann, Untersuchungen zu den späten Totenbuch-
Handschriften auf Mumienbinden (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008), 2:212–14; Valérie Angenot, “Discordance entre texte et image. Deux exemples de l’Ancien et du Nouvel Empires,” GöttingerMiszellen 187 (2002): 11–21

I wonder if either of the other two cited authors were contacted and what their response was?

[_Chap]

I've just read the article in question.

The claim was that this article helped to justify the statement:

... it was not uncommon for ancient Egyptian vignettes to be placed some distance from their associated commentary.

Firstly, as the author said, her article did not refer to 'vignettes' in papyrus documents, but to the way that texts and images were arranged in monumental inscriptions on the walls of funerary chapels.

Secondly, the two examples she gives are not about distance between text and image in a way that could justify saying that an image on a wall was physically far removed from the related text. Here are two extracts summing up the examples:

L'image représente Akhethotep debout face à six registres de personnages et d'animaux, prolongés dans son dos par différents scribes ou fonctionnaires (Pl. 1b). Le texte annonce: «Regarder le don en animaux du désert». En balayant la
paroi du regard, on s'aperçoit qu'effectivement, les quatre registres périphériques, en haut et en bas, exposent différentes espèces de caprins, mais qu'aux deux registres centraux, des personnages s'avancent, porteurs de plantes et d'animaux aquatiques. Or quelles espèces sommes-nous le moins susceptibles de rencontrer dans le désert si ce ne sont canards, oies, tiges de papyrus ou fleurs de lotus, propres aux régions palustres?
En marquant un tel décalage entre le texte et l'image —décalage qui ne peut se subsumer ni en terme d'“illustration” ni en celui d'adjonction de légende— le concepteur de cette tombe manifeste là une intention don't je vais tenter de saisir le fondement.

Here the image shows MORE than the text mentions - the text says 'watching the offering of desert animals', while the image shows not only desert animals but also others.

Le second exemple que j'analyserai appartient à la tombe thébaine numéro 100 de Rekhmirê6 et concerne le mur gauche de la paroi ouest de la salle transversale. Vizir de Thoutmosis III, Rekhmirê était —de par sa fonction— chargé de recevoir les tributs des contrées étrangères. C'est la figuration de cette charge qui nous retiendra un moment.
La paroi présente quatre registres de tributaires étrangers et un de captifs (Pl. 2). Ces
derniers ont été ramenés «pour remplir les ateliers et être les serviteurs de l'offrande divine
d'Amon7». Le texte qui se trouve au-dessus de Rekhmirê énonce: « Recevoir le tribut du pays ainsi que le tribut de Pount C9, le tribut du Retchenou (Syrie)
et le tribut du Keftiou (monde égéen), ainsi que les captifs des
différents pays, ramenés pour la gloire de sa majesté le roi d'Égypte, Menkheperrê, puisse-t-il vivre éternellement».
La composition imagée s'étage sur cinq registres montrant, de haut en bas, les tributs et ambassadeurs 1) de Pount, 2) du monde égéen, 3) de peuplades nubiennes, 4) de populations syriennes et enfin 5) les captifs nubiens et syriens accompagnés de femmes et enfants.
On constate ainsi que, si les CONTENUS du texte et de l'image sont bien identiques, c'est, cette fois, l'ordre d'ENONCIATION qui est bouleversé. Le texte annonce d'abord les pays du sud puis ceux du nord, tandis que l'image les alterne.

Here the text refers to "Receiving the tribute of [various countries] and the captives from different countries", with the southern countries named first, while the illustration puts the southernmost country (Punt, French Pount) in the lowest register.

The article discusses the rhetorical significance of these facts - but there is nothing here that justifies the use made of it in the footnote of the Book of Abraham article.

Do these people not care that someone might actually check up on them? Apparently not.

[_I have a question]

I've just read the article in question.

The claim was that this article helped to justify the statement:

... it was not uncommon for ancient Egyptian vignettes to be placed some distance from their associated commentary.

Firstly, as the author said, her article did not refer to 'vignettes' in papyrus documents, but to the way that texts and images were arranged in monumental inscriptions on the walls of funerary chapels.

Secondly, the two examples she gives are not about distance between text and image in a way that could justify saying that an image on a wall was physically far removed from the related text. Here are two extracts summing up the examples:

Do these people not care that someone might actually check up on them? Apparently not.

The use of the referenced work within the LDS essay on the Book of Abraham bears the hallmarks of shoddy, if not deliberately, deceitful scholarship. The Church should edit the essay immediately and remove the reference. In terms of tracing the potential author of the Book of Abraham essay, do we know any Egypological LDS 'scholars' that might have standards this low?

[_CaliforniaKid]

Wow. So if I'm understanding you correctly, Chap, Dr. Angenot was speaking of metaphorical rather than physical "distance"? As in, the sense of the explanatory text is somewhat removed from the sense of the illustration?

[_Chap]

Wow. So if I'm understanding you correctly, Chap, Dr. Angenot was speaking of metaphorical rather than physical "distance"? As in, the sense of the explanatory text is somewhat removed from the sense of the illustration?

Even that goes a bit far - it's more that the illustration does not simply repeat exactly what the text is saying.

[_cinepro]

I love what one of the reddit commenters said:

The fact that she she says she is going to be careful in her wording so as not to offend her Mormon friends tells us all we need to know

That was my initial thought too. I suspect if non-LDS Egyptologists ever took the time (and courage) to look into the Book of Abraham and tell us what they really thought, it would be extremely negative.

[_Res Ipsa]

This is the NIbley trick: cite sources in foreign languages or obscure journals so that it is difficult to verify the citation.

[_Fence Sitter]

That was my initial thought too. I suspect if non-LDS Egyptologists ever took the time (and courage) to look into the Book of Abraham and tell us what they really thought, it would be extremely negative.

Ritner has done just that in The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition.
Just a few quotes from Ritner's book.

"Rhodes wrongly transcribed the passage into hieroglyphs...."
"Contra Nibley's nihilistic quibbling on the impossibility of true translation..."
"Where faith and scholarship are irreconcilable, the apologist defer to faith. I prefer scholarship."
"Gee's interpretation is untenable phonetically and grammatically.."

"While recent disputes over this or that feature of Smith's interpretations typically dominate these exchanges, often lost in the greater picture is the simple fact that the Mormon defense of the Book of Abraham has been lost for well over a century. Long past are the days when any speculation could be attributed to the Egyptian language or history; such fantasies are intellectual casualties from Napoleon's Egyptian expedition and the decipherment of hieroglyphs of Champollion. As noted in the included essay by Christopher Woods, the depiction of Mesopotamian society in the Book of Abraham is no less problematic. The basic events of Smith's romance do not correspond with either Mesopotamian or Egyptian history, and outside of Mormon confessional institutions, the Book of Abraham is not taught-or usually even noted- in studies of ancient history, religion or society."

The book is full of specific criticisms illustrating how apologist have abused & misused material to try and cast a glimmer of hope that Joseph Smith actually was translating Egyptian.

Additionally Ritner has written a direct response the the church essay on the Book of Abraham, pretty much destroying it. See here.

From this essay:

All of Smith’s published “explanations” are incorrect, including the lone example defended by the new web posting: the water in which a crocodile is swimming (Fig. 12 of Fascimile 1)

Far too often, the LDS approach has been to find individual minor identifications or remote possibilities that cannot in sum either explain or justify the Book of Abraham. The new LDS citations of sources that are of minor relevance, misleading or false does not advance the cause of the church and its disputed scripture.