Joseph Smith & a LITERAL 3500 Year Old Abraham Autograph

[_Shulem]

I have to take that against what Joseph Smith said in his Documentary History that he was not willing to identify the personality of the mummies. I don't have that book with me right now to be able to give a direct quote, but do recall that that is what he said. So where is that information you presented coming from? Is it hearsay, or what Joseph Smith actually said? Can those references be pinned down to what Joseph Smith actually said? When you have pinned it down, then I will accept it; otherwise it is nothing more than hearsay.

Bullet #1, Bang!

October 17th, 1840 an article testified of the prophet's contemplation of possible royal connections with the mummies. A reporter for the Quincy Whig newspaper toured the Egyptian exhibit and personally interviewed President Smith. We learn that the Mormons asserted that the mummies were royal ― perhaps as far back as Moses himself.

"After he had shown us the fine grounds around the dwelling, he conducted us, at our request, to an upper room, where he drew aside the curtains of a case, and showed us several Egyptian Mummies, which we were told that the church had purchased, at his suggestion, some time before, for a large sum of money.

'The embalmed body that stands near the center of the case', said he, is one of the Pharaohs, who sat on the throne of Egypt, and the female figure by it was probably one of the daughters.'

'It may have been Princess Thermutis,' I replied, 'the same that rescued Moses from the water of the Nile.'

'It is not improbable, ' answered the Prophet, 'but time has not yet allowed fully to examine and decide that point.'

'Do you understand the Hebrew language,' said he, raising his hand to the top of the case, and taking down a small Hebrew grammar of Rabbi Seixis.

'That language has not altogether escaped my attention,' was the reply.

He then walked to a secretary, on the opposite side of the room, and drew out several frames, covered with glass, under which were numerous fragments of Egyptian papyrus, on which, as usual, a great variety of hieroglyphical characters had been imprinted.

'These ancient records,' said he, throw great light on the subject of Christianity. They have been unrolled and preserved with great labor and care. My time has been hitherto too much taken up to translate the whole of them, but I will show you how I interpret certain parts. There,' said he, pointing to a particular character, 'that is the signature of the patriarch Abraham.'

'It is indeed a most interesting autograph,' I replied, 'and doubtless the only one extant. What an ornament it would be to have these ancient manuscripts handsomely set, in appropriate frames, and hung up around the walls of the temple which you are about to erect at this place.'

'Yes', replied the Prophet, 'and the translation hung up with them'." (The Saga of the Book of Abraham; Jay M. Todd, p. 210,211)

[_Maksutov]

Why? You won't believe it anyway. The record of Shulem's claim is clearly and unmistakably in my paper which I referenced in the very first post of this thread. You know, the one you won't read and comprehend because in your mind it's anti-Mormon, which in reality is a serious and sincere attempt to look at the historical situation. We see nothing but you making silly and worthless comments. In other words, you Mormons really are bankrupt on this issue. If apologists were so sure of their stance, they could remain here and defend it. Where are they all? You certainly don't qualify to even that standard however, since you refuse to engage in the actual information. You refuse to read and grasp and discuss the historical situation we have evidence for and can discuss. You simply want to bear testimony. Well, do that in church, here we discuss, analyze, and assess claims to the truth. Some of us actually thought you were just goofing around a bit, but now we are not so sure. I am seriously questioning whether you know much of anything about Joseph Smith and early Mormonism, especially in regards to the Book of Abraham.

Debate is about presenting and discussing evidence, not about reading somebody's lengthy, boring chapters.

We aren't talking about your "book", we're talking about Philo's.

[_Philo Sofee]

Zerinus

When you have pinned it down, then I will accept it; otherwise it is nothing more than hearsay.

I don't believe you. You are being extremely dishonest here. You haven't accepted one thing yet of the many we have presented as having been "pinned down." You always wiggle. That's your choice, of course, but please dispense with the phony honesty here. We know you won't accept any evidence, let alone grasp it.

[_Philo Sofee]

Zerinus

Debate is about presenting and discussing evidence, not about reading somebody's lengthy, boring chapters.

How else am I to present the mountains of evidence child? You would have me summarize and then complain that I haven't "nailed it down," yet. Then when I nail it down with a lot of evidence you complain it's "long boring chapters."

[_Maksutov]

Zerinus

Debate is about presenting and discussing evidence, not about reading somebody's lengthy, boring chapters.

How else am I to present the mountains of evidence child? You would have me summarize and then complain that I haven't "nailed it down," yet. Then when I nail it down with a lot of evidence you complain it's "long boring chapters."

Alas, Philo, Z is a troll. He's here to irritate you, not to actually discuss anything with you. He's tried to sell a derivative and irrelevant text, without success. He knows he won't get this much attention on a pro-Mormon forum, where they would just ignore him or pick at some doctrinal trivia or ban him outright. So he's here. We might as well take advantage of his pathology for illustrative purposes, since he isn't interested in therapy or improvement.

It might be useful to find ways to catalog these folks. I think that he falls somewhere between Bharat and MG.

[_Philo Sofee]

Yep, that is my impression as well Mak. The child is amusing if nothing else.

[_Jersey Girl]

Debate is about presenting and discussing evidence, not about reading somebody's lengthy, boring chapters.

Peanut gallery reporting in!

They ARE presenting evidence to you. Unless you choose to read it, there can be no discussion.

You are playing games with two men who were devoted to their religious belief and church, to the point where they invested years of their lives defending it as apologists who extensively researched their topic. They are ready and willing to present evidences, for discussion.

They can't make you grow up and read them. Like a lazy child, you respond with a dismissive--BORING!!

You should be embarrassed of yourself.

[Guest]

More Bayes Theorem to support an original autograph:

Joseph Smith's claims about having the actual scrolls of Abraham and Joseph caused quite a stir not only in the Mormon community but in the surrounding nonMormon communities too. Word traveled and within a year FALSE rumors abounded that the Mormons actually claimed to have the very mummies of Abraham and Joseph in their possession.

I'm not making this up! That's why Oliver Cowdery had to address the situation in the Latter Day Saint Messenger and Advocate. He disavowed any claims that the church had the mummies of Abraham and Joseph but did NOT disavow the claim of having their scrolls, written by their very hands, autographed by the patriarch's own fingers.

EGYPTIAN MUMMIES—

ANCIENT RECORDS.

The public mind has been excited, of late, by reports which have been circulated concerning certain Egyptian Mummies, and a quantity of ancient records, which were purchased by certain gentlemen in this place, last summer.

It has been said, that the purchasers of these antiquities pretend they have the body of Abraham, Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, Joseph, who was sold into Egypt, &c. &c. for the purpose of attracting the attention of the multitude, and gulling the unwary—which is utterly false.

For the purpose of correcting these and other erroneous statements, concerning both the mummies and also the records, we give an extract of a letter written by a friend in this place, who possesses correct knowledge concerning this matter, to a gentleman who resides at a distance.

Who these ancient inhabitants of Egypt are, we do not pretend to say,—neither does it matter to us. We have no idea or expectation, that either of them are Abraham, Abimelech, or Joseph. Abraham was buried on his own possession, "in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre," which he purchased of the sons of Heth; Abimelech lived in the same country, and for aught we know, died there, and the children of Israel carried Joseph's bones from Egypt when they went out under Moses. Consequently, could not have been found in Egypt in the 19th century. But the records are the most important, concerning which, we refer our readers to the extract for information.

[_Jersey Girl]

In my own defense, years ago an apologist offered to teach me the Book of Mormon. Having already worked my way through various websites and discussions, and books among them Rough Stone Rolling, I took him up on his offer.

I'll admit that the material was foreign to me, and yes, the chapters were a dry read for me, and yet I read through every chapter summary he supplied me and read those chapters because I wanted to expand my knowledge about Mormonism and do justice to the religion that I had been previously known to attack pretty darn viciously (due to anger) online though there is no evidence of that on this particular board.

Sadly, we didn't finish our joint project due to in real life. However, the point is both his willingness to teach and my own willingness to learn from someone in a position that was diametrically opposed to everything I felt I stood for as a Christian and pulled no punches in my long ago criticisms.

On this thread you have the opportunity to learn what evidences have led to the apostasy of former apologists and why. You have an opportunity to learn, to increase your knowledge base and develop new insight.

My apologist teacher is on this thread. And, you are blowing your moment by acting like an impertinent child who stubbornly refuses to learn.

What are you so afraid of?

[_Shulem]

I accept the translation that Joseph Smith made of it (as far as he intended to make it) to be correct. There is nothing more to add to that. If you disagree with that translation, then I think you are wrong and he is right. I think Joseph Smith knew something that you don't know. What else is there left for me to say about that?

That's the weakest apologetic argument I've ever run across. You really are a lightweight that cuts and runs. But not so fast! I'm not going to let you get away with it. You have not provided any evidence to show that Joseph Smith was in anyway harmonious with anything that has to do with modern Egyptology and science. Not a single thing. All you do is say that Smith knew something that modern Egyptology doesn't and therefore his conclusions are correct regardless of how ridiculous Smith's translation become. Turning a girl into a boy! That's Joseph Smith's Egyptology! How do you arrive at that? What could Joseph Smith possibly know that would strip the vagina of a girl and put a penis on her? Where is the logic in this? There is none! Everything Joseph Smith did to Facsimile No. 3 is a mumbled up mixed up mess and totally wrong. There is nothing in all of ancient Egypt that could excuse this kind of nonsense.

We haven't even begin to discuss Facsimile No. 2. I want to rip you a new one, zerinus, and I will. I'll take the Explanations of Facsimile No. 2 and the blatant errors and blunders Joseph Smith made regarding his restoration of the damaged Hypocephallus and ram them down your childish throat.