Jeff Lindsay | Nov 10, 2017 wrote:Gee also provides valuable insights into the Abrahamic covenant and Abraham’s teachings on astronomy, the preexistence, and the Creation.
I presume you mean Gee’s insights come via Joseph Smith’s Book of Abraham and Facsimile No. 2, rather than other sources because you lump “preexistence” in the middle of your list and a Newtonian type of astronomy seems to fit the definitions described by Smith. What part of these astronomy teachings if any have been adopted by science today? Newton’s science is outdated and rusty. Einstein and modern science is par for the course. The astronomy teachings of Facsimile No. 2, to my knowledge are not adopted into scientific journals and books of our day. There is nothing in there that gives me insight in understanding astronomy from a scientific point of view. Several strange words (sound foreign) claim to be Egyptian but are not anything I learned while studying Egyptian grammar and researching Egyptian ideas of earth and heaven.
With that said, whatever insight Gee claims to receive from Smith’s “astronomy” is beyond me and I have to ask you if these things are published in professional journals not sponsored by Mormon apologetics? I have the impression that there isn’t anything pertaining to astronomy in the Book of Abraham chapters and Facsimile No. 2, that has been embraced by modern scientists or incorporated into scientific literature as worldview truths. My impression is that Smith’s astronomy is entirely outside the bounds of professionalism. Am I correct in stating that?