Here is a little follow-up on the some of the material presented in the Backyard Professor’s podcast mentioned in my previous post. I’d like to actually take the time to cite some of the quotations Kerry addressed in that video in which he made some excellent comments. I’ll add a little of my own comments for good measure.
Terryl Givens; The Pearl of Greatest Price, Mormonism's Most Controversial Scripture, p. 153 wrote:Facsimile 3 presents perhaps the greatest challenges to Smith’s defenders, since in this instance he translates actual Egyptian characters, not scenes or symbols. For instance, he interprets Figure 2 as “King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above the head”; Figure 4 means “Prince of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, as written above his hand”; and Figure 5 means “Shulem, one of the king’s principal waiters, as represented by the characters above his hand.” However, both Rhodes and Ritner translate those same characters as “Isis the great, the god’s mother,” “Maat, mistress of the gods,” and “The Osiris Hor . . . justified forever.” If Smith was indeed in some oracular manner deciphering elements originating with Abraham in the papyri he possessed, the consensus is that his powers apparently failed him when it came to the actual translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics – at least in this case. No LDS Egyptologist disputes the standard translations of those particular symbols, and they are quite unlike Smith’s rendering. The majority of scholarly opinion, in sum, is dismissive of Smith as an “explainer” of the three facsimiles. Regarding his efforts as a translator of particular glyphs, the consensus finds even few dissenters from the nearly universal rejection. In sum, little has changed from the early twentieth-century assessment presented earlier.
I get the impression that Terryl Givens is stumped with what to do about the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3 and he knows it!
But, what about Egyptologist John Gee? When will he admit that he’s stumped? What has he said on this very subject?
John Gee and Brian M. Hauglid; Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant, 2005, p. 95,96 wrote:Facsimile 3 has always been the most neglected of the three facsimiles in the Book of Abraham. Unfortunately, most of what has been said about this facsimile is seriously wanting at best and highly erroneous at worst. This lamentable state of affairs exists because the basic Egyptological work on Facsimile 3 has not been done, and much of the evidence lies in neglected and unpublished in museums. Furthermore, what an ancient Egyptian understood by a vignette and what a modern Egyptologist understands by the same vignette are by no means the same thing. Until we understand what the Egyptians understood by this scene, we have no hope of telling whether what Joseph Smith said about them matches what the Egyptians thought about them. I have no intentions of explaining Facsimile 3 or providing parallels at this time. I rather desire to debunk a few persistent myths circulating about Facsimile 3.
That has to be the most astounding thing I have ever read from an Egyptologist commenting on a ancient Egyptian funerary vignette. I am simply at a loss for words. I can’t begin to fathom any of Gee’s professional colleagues (who are not members of the Church) agreeing with him on the salient points he made in that statement. On a professional front his statement is grounds for dismissal and termination. With that said, it’s obvious that the book WAS
NOT PROFESSIONALLY PEERED REVIEWED! The overall assessment of Facsimile No. 3 is unprofessional Mormon apologetics at work. I think it’s important to note that Gee’s coauthor (Brian M. Hauglid) has abandoned this apologetic approach and Gee now stands alone without his coauthor or support from professional peers outside the Church.
Professor Gee, what’s the king’s name in Facsimile No. 3?
How do you spell, “Shulem”. Can you point to those hieroglyphs in the label above Hor’s hand, please?