I've been thinking a lot about the Book of Abraham in the past months and it's implications for the Church. It is no mystery to most people in this forum that the BOA has some serious issues. Joseph Smith's translation (or lack of it) of the BOA has been proven to be way off (not even in the ballpark) by numerous prominent Egyptologists. This finding is what started my serious questioning of JS as a translator and has been the catalyst of my own personal deconstruction of the whole LDS faith.

Of course the well publicized essay came out recently regarding the translation of the BOA. The Church began to step away from the literal "by his own hand on papyrus" paradigm--a literal translation documents personally written by Abraham.

There is also debates in many forums about the possibility of a de-canonization of the BOA. In my opinion, de-canonization of the BOA absolutely CANNOT happen and here is why:

(from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Abraham)

"The Book of Abraham text is a source of some distinct Latter-day Saint doctrines such as the exaltation of humanity,[14] the plurality of gods,[15] priesthood,[16] pre-mortal existence,[17] and the existence of other inhabited worlds in the cosmos.[18] The Book of Abraham also contains the only reference in the Latter-day Saint canon to the star Kolob, which, according to the text, is the star closest to where God lives.[19]"

If the BOA is de-canonized, the LDS Church would lose much doctrine that makes it a unique religion (Plan of Salvation and the creation of the world are a couple of major ones).

Losing the BOA would essentially make the LDS Church just another Protestant religion and the leaders would lose much of their authority.

What do you think?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2014 04:29PM by zenmaster.

I disagree because there is little resemblance between the canon and the Morg's current policy, procedure, goals, power, and practices.

All they care about is that successfully guilt you into 1) paying tithing and 2) obeying everything they say. They no longer derive their authority from scripture or by the common consent of the governed.

Doctrinally however, I agree that they are bankrupt. That only matters to those of us who cared about the truth.

100% agree with you.

They will make it up as they go along

The suckers inside the church buy whatever they are told to

There is really only one LDS doctrine:

"Follow the Prophet"

Once you agree to that, the LDS Church can make any changes it wants and get away with it.

They need to take out the facsimiles completely and take out any reference to papyrus or scrolls. Then change the story to say that the book was revealed to him and take out all reference to translation.

Pull a 1984, like they did with blacks in the priesthood (saying now that they have no idea why that was in place) and change history.

The church is exactly like 1984 in so many ways already and it works. Just go with it.

In the essay, it is clearly stated that the BoA is LDS scripture. Not that they won't undo that stance later, but for now, they are doubling down on it being canon.

Didn't the church just come out and state-boldly mind you, that the book of abraham was not a literal translation but inspired scripture. This goes directly against all we have been taught. Doesn't it? The more the PR dept speaks the worse it gets.

The BOA was always one of my favorites as a kid because it was fun to imagine all that outer space stuff. I had Kolob pegged at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Then Carl Sagan and Cosmos came along and shot that idea out of the water. Now I find out there's a black hole at the center of our galaxy. Hopefully, some scientist will find Kolob in that black hole and restore my faith in JS (and Abraham, too).

i'm torn on this particular issue

on the one hand i would like to think that if it happened when i was a TBM i would have had enough 'braininess' to see what was really going on behind the curtain

on the other hand i think there's enough 'useful idiots' in TSCC that they could de-canonize the BoA and spin it however they want (a la 1984) and nobody (except for us) would give it a second thought

idk - feeling very jaded about humanity today...