So my mom has forwarded an e-mail that I send her where I said that DH and I are questioning the truthfulness of the church because of the Book of Abraham. Here is another response I got.

"The Book of Abraham is not nearly the issue some people make it to be:
The most cited "reference" is a book published in 1912, the responses of scholars a hundred years ago about the Book of Abraham, and, specifically about the facsimiles. One of the sites you have seen is based on that book.

There is an interesting letter missing from among those generated in the book: the letter that posed the question. We don't know what the published asked, so the answers are really not as useful as they could be.

That serious issue aside, we should keep in mind that, although the "Rosetta Stone" was discovered several years before Joseph got the BoA papyri, and had largely been deciphered, the science of Egyptology had barely been invented in 1912. The differences between what they understood back then and what we see today is much like what the medical communities of each period think of as accurate.

I'll give you a specific example, but remember there are hundreds of things that are the same.

First, however, we need to recognize what the papyri are, where hey have been, and what Joseph did.
I won't go into the story of how Joseph go them. You know it well enough to skip that. The papyrii were of two types: one were "rolls", the other were small "leaves" stuck together as a package in bitumen or some sort of tar. The three rolls are most important, although what role the leaves played is unknown, at least to me. I've never seen anything no them, except that they existed.

One "argument" used against the Book of Abraham is that it cannot be the "writings of Abraham" because it is not old enough (Abraham lived 2,000 before Christ, the papyrii are from the iii or as late as the II). So, Abraham cannot be the author of the book we call by his name. That's hogwash! I have a Bible in my hand, and I know it was produced in 2001. But that does not mean that Peter, Matthew, Isaiah, or Moses did not write it. In fact, I have seen scrolls dating from the III, and they weren't Moses' handiwork, either, even though he did write the words.

Josiah Quincey is often cited as the authority for the purported statement of Joseph that a certain set of characters were "Abraham's own signature". In that same story, Quincey said that Joseph was showing him the scrolls, said he had to leave for a few minutes, and ran off in a carriage at high speed without any further word of explanation. Hundreds of people visited Joseph, especially during the Nauvoo years, and not all were friendly to him or the Saints. All of them related that he was a diligent host, and did not leave them unattended, nor did he abandon them, even when under grave necessity. Quincey's story includes many other features that run wholly contrary to the vast majority of depictions. This, too, seems to be hyperbole in his part. There is no other account of an "autograph", and this seems to be something that a fraud, as Quincey purports Joseph to have been. It is a safe choice to disregard this "fact".

Others claim that the hypocephalus, Facsimile 2, is a common theme and that they are all the same. This is untrue. There are many, many hypocephaluses from Egypt, but they are not the same. They all have the same themes: creation and resurrection, but the details are very different. Some have 2 "apes", some have four. Some have boats, some have none. This list goes on and on. The critics, however, claim that they know what this hypocephalus means because they have seen others. If they distort this trivial fact, one is left to wonder what else they may be hiding or twisting.

Joseph said the scrolls were the books of Abraham and Joseph. He translated them into a text that required several hours to read aloud, and even then by "relays" of readers. (Anyone can read the current Book of Abraham in less than a half hour, and I can do it in twenty minutes or so. I haven't clocked it lately, but that's what I recall from back in high school when I did.) The amount of text is important because it shows something we can use to demonstrate that the attacks on the BoA are selective, and not valid, so we'll look at this in its proper place a bit later on.

It's obvious that we do not have the Book of Joseph today, although many people recorded that Joseph cited it in some of his talks, especially in Nauvoo. It's hard to attack a text that no longer exists, but the fact that this text is not among us points to the possibility of others being gone, too. What we have today in the Book of Abraham is a tiny fragment of Abraham's writings. Reading it, one ends up in the middle of the creation story, and, BLAM! it's over.

The rolls, were not a secret. hundreds, thousands of people saw them while Joseph was working on them. He, himself,described them as being in "a perfect state of preservation", and that the writing and images were done with black, blue, and red ink (or paint). None of the pieces of papyri we have today have any blue, and as I recall, none even has red. Many sources tell us that Joseph's description was accurate.

After the martyrdom, and because Joseph had "given" the papyri to his mother (she used them to earn a little money form people who came to look at them), she and Emma took possession and eventually, Lewis Biddamon sold them to a guy who ran a "museum". he later sold them to another museum in Chicago, where, it was thought, they were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. However, a few pieces turned up in New York in 1966. The Church got them that year and Hugh Nibley (as well as others) looked at them.

One of those others was a fraud who'[d convinced may people that he was a famed Egyptologist. He declared Nibley to be a faker, and that the Book of Abraham was not a translation of the papyri that he had seen. Of course, since he was a fraud, neither of those declarations was worth a hill of dust bunnies, but many enemies of the Church leapt his "scholarship" and the old mantras from Joseph's day and 1912 were zombiefied and marched into the battle as if they were real arguments.

So, I promised you that I'd give you an example. In the famous hypocephalus (it was placed under the head of the deceased, hence the name). In the middle is an image of the "Hathor cow". Joseph said the Egyptians identified her with the sun. Critics (correctly, as far as they go), say she was a "tree goddess" (although, how a cow gets to be a tree goddess is a puzzle, unless you are an Egyptian). But, since Hathor is the mother of Ra (the sun god who is usually an ibis, she is associated with the sun. But that's not exactly what Joseph said. It urns out, however, that Hathor was closely connected to the Egyptian resurrection and that is a functino of the sun, as well. So, when Joseph said the Egyptians thought of Hathor as the sun, he was 100% correct.

There are dozens of similar examples of the critics' saying that Joseph was wrong. but it turns out that he was correct far more often than we thought, and the research continues, so, it seems to me, that his statements will all be corroborated in time."

Again the explanation makes no sense JS drew the wrong head on and it is totally wrong translated not just a little bit.

I casually brought up the book of Abraham to try to discuss with my mom. She said she didn't care, it didn't bother her. That even if he didn't get it from those papers, it was still clearly divine scripture revealed by God. Aaahhhrrr. I think she was just trying to prove how strong her testimony was, as an example to me.... "it doesn't matter what disturbing facts we learn, you should NEVER doubt the church!". such a wonderful important message for every member to learn.

Mandy we must be cousins lol.

Everybody stretch and warm up.... it's time for mental acrobatics.

One "argument" used against the Book of Abraham is that it cannot be the "writings of Abraham" because it is not old enough (Abraham lived 2,000 before Christ, the papyrii are from the iii or as late as the II). So, Abraham cannot be the author of the book we call by his name. That's hogwash! I have a Bible in my hand, and I know it was produced in 2001. But that does not mean that Peter, Matthew, Isaiah, or Moses did not write it. In fact, I have seen scrolls dating from the III, and they weren't Moses' handiwork, either, even though he did write the words.

>>> So the argument here is that the papyrus Joseph Smith received was not the original one written by Abraham but a copy? OK that's a stretch, but fine. This really isn't important to the real issues. Basically taking this argument first is a red herring because it isn't particularly important.



Josiah Quincey is often cited as the authority for the purported statement of Joseph that a certain set of characters were "Abraham's own signature". In that same story, Quincey said that Joseph was showing him the scrolls, said he had to leave for a few minutes, and ran off in a carriage at high speed without any further word of explanation. Hundreds of people visited Joseph, especially during the Nauvoo years, and not all were friendly to him or the Saints. All of them related that he was a diligent host, and did not leave them unattended, nor did he abandon them, even when under grave necessity. Quincey's story includes many other features that run wholly contrary to the vast majority of depictions. This, too, seems to be hyperbole in his part. There is no other account of an "autograph", and this seems to be something that a fraud, as Quincey purports Joseph to have been. It is a safe choice to disregard this "fact".

>>Red herring - completely unimportant to the real issue.

Others claim that the hypocephalus, Facsimile 2, is a common theme and that they are all the same. This is untrue. There are many, many hypocephaluses from Egypt, but they are not the same. They all have the same themes: creation and resurrection, but the details are very different. Some have 2 "apes", some have four. Some have boats, some have none. This list goes on and on. The critics, however, claim that they know what this hypocephalus means because they have seen others. If they distort this trivial fact, one is left to wonder what else they may be hiding or twisting.

>> What is the evidence to back up the claims here that the hypocephalus is wrong? Where is the peer reviewed citation? The - if they got this wrong, they probably got lots of other things wrong is a logically fallacy. This in no way provides any evidence that Joseph Smith did a correct translation.

Joseph said the scrolls were the books of Abraham and Joseph. He translated them into a text that required several hours to read aloud, and even then by "relays" of readers. (Anyone can read the current Book of Abraham in less than a half hour, and I can do it in twenty minutes or so. I haven't clocked it lately, but that's what I recall from back in high school when I did.) The amount of text is important because it shows something we can use to demonstrate that the attacks on the BoA are selective, and not valid, so we'll look at this in its proper place a bit later on.

>>This argument makes absolute no sense of any kind. So the claim here is that it took longer to read the Book of Abraham on the scrolls than it took to read the current Book of Abraham? So the argument is that whatever was written on the scroll of the Book of Abraham is not what we have in our scriptures today? (Because the scripture version is only 20 minutes long.) This is a complete red herring and if anything makes the case that those reading off the scroll were faking.

It's obvious that we do not have the Book of Joseph today, although many people recorded that Joseph cited it in some of his talks, especially in Nauvoo. It's hard to attack a text that no longer exists, but the fact that this text is not among us points to the possibility of others being gone, too. What we have today in the Book of Abraham is a tiny fragment of Abraham's writings. Reading it, one ends up in the middle of the creation story, and, BLAM! it's over.

>> The Book of Joseph does not matter - another red herring- only the Book of Abraham. There is significant evidence that the scroll we have today is what was used by Joseph Smith as the source of the Book of Abraham. You can't just wish it away with the waive of a hand with wishful thinking. Some of the evidence - a) there is a handwritten, wrong translation of the characters in order, b) the text of Book of Abraham says that facsimile 1 is attached to it - this is the text that facsimile 1 is attached to.

The rolls, were not a secret. hundreds, thousands of people saw them while Joseph was working on them. He, himself,described them as being in "a perfect state of preservation", and that the writing and images were done with black, blue, and red ink (or paint). None of the pieces of papyri we have today have any blue, and as I recall, none even has red. Many sources tell us that Joseph's description was accurate.

>>This statement has been thoroughly debunked.

After the martyrdom, and because Joseph had "given" the papyri to his mother (she used them to earn a little money form people who came to look at them), she and Emma took possession and eventually, Lewis Biddamon sold them to a guy who ran a "museum". he later sold them to another museum in Chicago, where, it was thought, they were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. However, a few pieces turned up in New York in 1966. The Church got them that year and Hugh Nibley (as well as others) looked at them.

One of those others was a fraud who'[d convinced may people that he was a famed Egyptologist. He declared Nibley to be a faker, and that the Book of Abraham was not a translation of the papyri that he had seen. Of course, since he was a fraud, neither of those declarations was worth a hill of dust bunnies, but many enemies of the Church leapt his "scholarship" and the old mantras from Joseph's day and 1912 were zombiefied and marched into the battle as if they were real arguments.

So, I promised you that I'd give you an example. In the famous hypocephalus (it was placed under the head of the deceased, hence the name). In the middle is an image of the "Hathor cow". Joseph said the Egyptians identified her with the sun. Critics (correctly, as far as they go), say she was a "tree goddess" (although, how a cow gets to be a tree goddess is a puzzle, unless you are an Egyptian). But, since Hathor is the mother of Ra (the sun god who is usually an ibis, she is associated with the sun. But that's not exactly what Joseph said. It urns out, however, that Hathor was closely connected to the Egyptian resurrection and that is a functino of the sun, as well. So, when Joseph said the Egyptians thought of Hathor as the sun, he was 100% correct.

There are dozens of similar examples of the critics' saying that Joseph was wrong. but it turns out that he was correct far more often than we thought, and the research continues, so, it seems to me, that his statements will all be corroborated in time."

>>Again a red herring that has almost nothing to do with the issue.

---- This argument failed to address any of the major problems with the Book of Abraham.

- The bottom line is facsimile 1 is not a drawing of Abraham being sacrificed - it is a common scene from Egyptian mythology. Joseph Smith got that wrong. That 100% proves that he translated it incorrectly. Everything else with the little niggly details is a red herring - he faked the translation. Period. End of story. All other evidence of the other facsimiles and the actual text backs up that none of it was translated correctly.

- No expert in the Egyptian language that is not a Mormon apologist has ever stated that Joseph Smith got anything right. In fact each of about a dozen experts have all specifically and directly stated that the translation is completely wrong.

- Even if the text was not recovered which all evidence indicates it was - the 2 of the 3 facsimiles were recovered. The translations of these facsimiles are completely wrong according to all expert Egyptologists.

- Self proclaimed Mormon Egyptologists have attempted to make the waters murky by claiming certain translations. However, they have never submitted any of these claims for peer review. In short, they know they don't have a leg to stand on otherwise they would use the established scholarly methods to establish the validity of their claims. Instead they have avoided submitting these claims through the appropriate scholarly channels because they know they would be torn apart.

- Joseph Smith attempted to draw in the missing sections of facsimile 1. Before it was rediscovered Egyptologists correctly identified the sections that Joseph had drawn in incorrectly. The argument used to be that we don't have the original facsimile and maybe the Abrahamic facsimile just differed in those areas.

However facsimile 1 has been recovered and we can see for certain which parts were missing and which parts Joseph drew in. We can see that he drew those sections in completely wrong.

Now that it has been recovered it can be shown that, in fact, he



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2013 03:26PM by The Oncoming Storm - bc.

Match these canopic jars up with the fascimiles in her scriptures. Joseph labels these jars different gods. This was what I saw that stuck out the most. Notice which creatures these are then match them up with the ones under Isaac's sacrifice table in the scriptures.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopic_jar

Half way down this page you see a similar image of Anubis preparing the body with jars underneath. They are for organs. This site here isn't at all about Mormonism.

http://egyptologypage.tripod.com/religion.html

Joseph labels these jars other gods than they are. See the Holy Spirit bird? You will see that bird a lot on the Egyptian sites.

If they can't get this one fraud they will not be able to get the other ones. Their comprehension level is very low. Sorry, but I'm not very smart and I can even get this.


http://imgur.com/WpkY69I.jpg
Anubis: http://imgur.com/E9uQLHe.jpg



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2013 03:33PM by snuckafoodberry.