Honestly I tried, but just being on lds.org makes me feel sick and anxious. I want to know what the big deal is though.

I don't want to have a panic attack. So could some kind soul give me a summary? Or a link to a good discussion on this site?

I haven't been here for a while, so I missed any past discussions.

Mormonthink.com has a good analysis on the essays.

Thank you.

Introduces them and has links to their analysis.

http://mormonthink.com/essays-responses-intro.htm



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2014 01:59PM by Starlight Kokaubeam.

I just came across this quotation on the mormonthink page:

"I have a hard time with historians… because they idolize the truth. The truth is not uplifting; it destroys. Historians should tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting. --Apostle Boyd K. Packer..."

My jaw dropped. Your mileage may vary, but I'm still stunned as I sit here typing this.

Wow. Really? I mean bkp is always ridiculous, but this is too much.

“Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham, though there is not unanimity, even among non-Mormon scholars,….”

“Scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts that were deposited with mummified bodies. These fragments date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.”

These statements in the new LDS essays on the issue drops an H-bomb on the ridiculous antics of LDS apologists.

These statements render anything and all other apologies and the more than apparent obfuscation found in said essay moot.

I guess I'm not understanding why they are publishing that.... I've already heard that JS didn't, you know, actually translate the scrolls. It was actually inspiration from god.


So why even bother with the scrolls nonsense?! I can't handle the cog-dis.

:/

That's what is funny about the essays. Some people, like you, have already heard the "it was inspiration" angle. Many others, like the mormons I hung out with in SLC 20 years ago, have been taught it was an actual translation.

Man, if you all start comparing notes at a cocktail party, it's going to end ugly. :)

"I guess I'm not understanding why they are publishing that.... I've already heard that JS didn't, you know, actually translate the scrolls. It was actually inspiration from god."

That's the spin that many apologists are putting out these days, but it's refuted by the fact that Joseph Smith and his associates made many statements asserting that he made an actual translation of the papyrus fragments. For instance, Smith's "interpretations" of the three facsimiles published in the BOA clearly indicate that he claimed to be making an actual translation.

The apologists' spin is silly: on the one hand, they assert that we don't have the specific scrolls that contained the BOA, so we can't judge Smith's "translating" abilities for certain; on the other hand, the apologists defend the "interpretations" Smith DID make, even though those "interpretations" have been soundly discredited by Egyptologists for more than a century.

There's really nothing to read anyways.

Essentially all the problems on Mormon Think, CES letter, DNA, tanners, wikipedia, and elsewhere still exist and are unanswered.

The essays fail to discuss the main concerns, provide few answers, make a few concessions, and state faith and prayer are the only way to know the church is true.

More often than not, they try to make it sound like there isn't solid evidence one way or the other and that we should just believe.

Personally I expected alot more out of the essays. All this evidence against them and they showed they have nothing. No supporting evidence at all, just belief. It's sad really.