Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah and Korash ...Really?

[_Drifting]

Darth, I hope you don't mind but I would like to lift your 'five truths' challenge to a thread of its own.

[_LDSToronto]

Well, looks like this thread has been dropped down to the Terrestrial Kingdom. Sigh. I was halfway through a Celestial type composition, now on my third day. But now that we are down here, and after the progress of all BrianH debates, I doubt it's worth my time to address BrianH with any more seriousness.

After all, Brian's challenges have been answered. Consig and Honourentheos, BCSpace, Runtu and others have offered him factual refutations of his stupid challenges, I've offered LDS theological and logical arguments, Darth and others have offered him more Christian theological thought to refute his stance, and most here have raised very smart intellectual arguments, and yet BrianH rejects every argument. Rejection not based on fact, logic, or philosophical position, but based on a bias against the Mormon people.

Seems Mike Reed was the smartest of all of us, calling BrianH out for what he is - uninformed. And BrianH displayed this in spades.

So, folks, I'm not going to go through a long defense against BrianH's Dark Arts as I'd said I would before. Nay, now that the debate has descended to this forum I will resort to well-aimed japes intermingled with scriptures, facts, and occasionally, lies.


H.

PS. Brian, in case it wasn't abundantly clear, I am no defender of the church; most would call me a critic, others would call me worse. I guess you just bring out the best in me!

[_Runtu]

Seems Mike Reed was the smartest of all of us, calling BrianH out for what he is - uninformed. And BrianH displayed this in spades.

Uninformed is what you get when your knowledge of Mormonism consists of Walter Martin and Internet message boards. If nothing else, BrianH reminds me of just how much I enjoy reasonable and informed discussion about the church.

[_mfbukowski]

So I guess that stupid Joseph, even though Egyptian was already in the process of being translated, very bad conman that he was, decided to write up the Book of Abraham which clearly has no relation to the temple "revelations" so no one would even see that relationship as justifying their existence, knowing full well that the papyri he left behind would later be translated by competent Egyptologists, even though he had already been burnt in the Anthon affair by making the same "mistake".

And he did all this because of his incredibly stupidity knowing that all future ages would see him as the con man he was; and that none of his theological ideas have any merit on their own.

Is that about what you (plural) are saying?

I am unaware that Joseph knew that Egyptian was currently being deciphered. Could you provide sources? My understanding is that he would have thought it a dead language. I am also unaware that he was worried about being found out after he was long gone.

I don't consider Joseph stupid. I think he was very smart and talented. Making up what he did takes some smarts and talent. He didn't do it perfectly, and made many mistakes. Thankfully he did or many of us would not have the information we need to see that.

Edit: Also you have brought up the anthon affair as Joseph being burned. Could you say how he was burned? I have seen you say this before, but I still don't see how he was burned. He didn't have any problem making a go at the Greek Psalter. MY impression is that he reveled in this kind of thing, wanting others to think highly of him. Just like his Zelph the white Lamanite.

Well I certainly do not hold myself out as an expert or even particularly "informed" about these issues since I regard most historical arguments about Mormonism irrelevant. But, that said, you caught me making a historical argument I suppose.

The Egyptian Revival was huge in early 19th century in America mostly because of Champollion and the discovery of the Rosetta stone. There were tons of buildings being built in that style, and Egyptian stuff was just plain "cool" like maybe Harry Potter or whatever is now.

In fact the whole reason Chandler was touring with the mummies was that he was capitalizing on this "Egyptian fever" with his side-show of mummies and papyri. I think it would be hard to be an American in this period who was NOT aware of things Egyptian at least in a vague way, and certainly for Joseph, who was clearly interested in such things, he would have been drawn like a magnet to anything of this nature.

Furthermore there is evidence that Anthon had a copy of Champollion's book and more interestingly, that Martin Harris apparently used Anthon's phrase "Egyptian shorthand" to WW Phelps, putting a possible direct link between the scholar Anthon and Joseph's inner circle- and notice this was much before the Book of Abraham. This quote is from footnotes found right at the end of this article: http://www.shields-research.org/42_Questions/ques20.htm
(Emphasis added)

3. Champollion’s decipherment of the Rosetta Stone was completed by 1824. He had been working on the problem since 1808, and on 17 September, 1822, read before the Academy of Inscriptions his "Lettre à M. Dacier." The culmination of his Rosetta Stone work was his Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Egyptiens (Paris, 1824, 2nd ed., 2 vols., 1828).

4. Anthon referred to Champollion’s work in his expansion of John Lempriere’s A Classical Dictionary. First published in 1788 by Lempriere, Anthon added 4000 new entries (including some Egyptian) to Lempriere’s work beginning in 1825. The Lempriere/Anthon work underwent an additional six editions by 1828. See Stanley B. Kimball, "The Anthon Transcript: People, Primary Sources, and Problems," BYU Studies 10, No. 3 (1970) pp. 325-352. Kimball found Anthon’s copy of Champollion's work at Cornell University. See also Reexploring, p. 73-74, where is given the information that early L.D.S. convert W. W. Phelps used the term "Egyptian Shorthand" in a letter. The article provides evidence that this term likely came to Phelps from Harris, who almost certainly got it from Anthon.

So in my view, Joseph would definitely be aware of Champollion, or at the very least the idea that Egyptian was being, or about to be, deciphered.

So to me that indicates that he would have had to be a total fool to publish "translations" which he must have known would eventually be translated literally, especially now that there is evidence that he was aware of Anthon's knowledge of Egyptian.

I mean who would be so stupid as to be caught twice in the same lie?

Furthermore it seems clear to me that the "translation" of the facsimilies were never intended to be anything but symbolic. I don't feel like looking it up but I think of facs. 2 where it says in many cases things like "Priesthood keys to be had in the temple" etc- clearly that is NOT a "translation" by any means.

If you google "Champollion Joseph Smith" you find other evidence that critics think that "Joseph should have known better", in fact there are a few videos making that case, very poorly in my estimation.

My point was that YES he should have "known better" if he was a fraud, but he was not a fraud.

I think we can all agree that Joseph was anything but stupid.

But again, this is just a "hunch", and I am not a historian, nor frankly do I care much about this issue since I subscribe to a "catalyst" theory and don't much care about the history but much more about the spiritual value of the Book of Abraham. And I definitely don't want to discuss it further.

[_mfbukowski]

Oh and one more thing- I have this vague sense that George Miller has said something about Champollion in a masonic context- that masons particularly would have been very interested in the decipherment of Egyptian, and that such information was freely distributed through Masonic channels in Western New York.

But I could be wrong. Obviously Mike Reed here would know about that.

Mike?

[_mfbukowski]

Oh and regarding Joseph being "burned"- what I meant was that Joseph had already lost a portion of the Book of Mormon by disclosure of the "charactors" when Harris took them to Anthon, with (what he took to be) disastrous results.

Why would he do the same thing again with the Book of Abraham, when he probably already knew (as implied by the Phelps letter) that Anthon was aware of Champollion and himself contributing to the decipherment of Egyptian?

The point is: He wouldn't.

But I really don't have time to be caught up in a debate on this matter - I really don't care enough, since I take the Book of Abraham on its spiritual value and find the history irrelevant.

[_Drifting]

But I really don't have time to be caught up in a debate on this matter - I really don't care enough, since I take the Book of Abraham on its spiritual value and find the history irrelevant.

What is it's spiritual value to you?

[_mfbukowski]

But I really don't have time to be caught up in a debate on this matter - I really don't care enough, since I take the Book of Abraham on its spiritual value and find the history irrelevant.

What is it's spiritual value to you?

I find it very important in understanding the temple ordinances and chapter 4 is a masterpiece of social constructivist theology in my opinion.

Reality is brought into existence by definitions- by "calling" things and giving them names.

Coheres well with "In the beginning was the Word" - in my view the "word" is what organizes the chaos of our experience.

[_Drifting]

I find it very important in understanding the temple ordinances and chapter 4 is a masterpiece of social constructivist theology in my opinion.

Reality is brought into existence by definitions- by "calling" things and giving them names.

Coheres well with "In the beginning was the Word" - in my view the "word" is what organizes the chaos of our experience.

Thanks mfb.

Please don't take this as being disrespectful because I don't mean to be mean. But...

There is a mountain of evidence weighing heavily against the Book of Abraham being anything but a total fraud. It clearly isn't what Joseph said it was "written by the hand of Abraham on the papyrus".

Could it be a Fraud and you still find it of spiritual value or does it have to be truthfully the words of Abraham written on the papyrus as Joseph stated?

[_Mike Reed]

Oh and one more thing- I have this vague sense that George Miller has said something about Champollion in a masonic context- that masons particularly would have been very interested in the decipherment of Egyptian, and that such information was freely distributed through Masonic channels in Western New York.

But I could be wrong. Obviously Mike Reed here would know about that.

Mike?

Yes. Masons were very much caught up in the Egyptomania of the day. I'd expect the Smith family to have caught wind of some the breakthroughs Egyptologists were having. In fact, at least one of the Masonic sources that George and I believe Joseph used to supplement the Book of Abraham narrative discusses some of those breakthroughs. I won't speak for George... but myself personally; I don't believe that Joseph Smith thought Egyptian was dead and gone.