After the fraud of JS's translation came to light, Bishop Spalding of the LDS church predicted the church's future demise. Why is it taking so long? It is because they continue to revile scholarship!
"Bishop Spalding hasn't much hope of reaching the ordinary variety of faithful Mormon who "sustains the authorities" in all things, including politics and tithing offering, with his little pamphlet of exposure. But he hopes that Mormons who have been trained in the universities and have some conception of the integrity of scholarship and the inscrutability of evidence, such as that presented in the Egyptian collection at the Metropolitan Museum, will have open hearts, and so will receive the plain truth presented to them. The breaking up of Mormonism through the desertion of the intelligent part of its membership is the future for the Prophet Smith's church which Bishop Spalding foresees. It is for that reason that he prefers to address the Mormons as his friends rather than to attack them.
"Advance copies of Bishop Spalding's exposure of the Mormon prophet's translations, when they reached the dignitaries of the Mormon Church, caused something more than the stir that might normally have been expected. The official newspaper of the Church, The Deseret Evening News, spent its entire editorial page reviling scholars and scholarship. Brigham H. Roberts, the best known scholar of the Church, and its chief living defender, publicly thanked Bishop Spalding for the moderation of tone characterizing his work and for its scholarly and judicial spirit.
Well, that makes more sense. I shouldn't skim over so quickly. I seriously thought that there was an enlightened Bishop in the LDS church at one point in time. I guess I am delightfully mistaken!
paisley70 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I seriously thought that there was an > enlightened Bishop in the LDS church at one point > in time. I guess I am delightfully mistaken!
Haha, you're so funny! An enlightened LDS Bishop! That's a good one!
The good news is the LDS main group is in decline. it is now a large but dying cult. And that is what it is now, a cult since it denies all forms of evidence against it, stands against mainstream science where science has no vested interest in LDS claims, and continues to push a morphing agenda either concealing, lying, or whitewashing its past.
Unfortunately the US will have to face having circa half a million increasing loony fundamentalist people living in Utah as mormonism splits into those who are social mormons and those who actually believe the lies and fight for it.
Thank you for this. As the article explained, the format of the facsimiles was the later version of the three used by the Egyptians and was dated long after Abraham was supposed to have lived. This debunks one of the apologist arguments that ancie
.....oops, computer malfunction. Had to use my backup.... The fact that the format used for the facsimiles post dated the time that Abraham was alive debunks the apologists argue net that the Egyptians often used old manuscripts over and told different stories using other, older document for convenience. I heard this one one of the apologist videos on the Book of Abraham on YouTube.
Didn't the real language experts (real non-mormon language scholars using only science) just recently fully crack the language used in the Book of Abraham, and literally translate everything there, only to find that those writings had no resemblance to what the Mormon church says it said?
The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799. Hieroglyphs were decoded over time, but by the late 19th century the language was easy enough for experts to read with reasonable accuracy.
What you are probably thinking about is the discovery in 1966 of the actual texts, which were thought to have been destroyed by fire in 1871. It wasn't long before the BoA texts were translated by Egyptologists and found to be common funerary texts.
The next stage was that tendentious effort by Nibley, who, confronted by the mundane nature of the texts, contrived the notion that the documents were written in a hidden code. When that code was properly read, it revealed--voila--the Book of Abraham. That was probably the moment that Nibley lost the last of his faith in Mormonism and became entirely venal. His life must have been quite unpleasant from that point onward.
Yep. But let's not forget that *long* before the papyrii were discovered (as early as 1856), Egyptologists translated the "facsimiles" published in the BoA, and already knew they were common funerary texts...
Amen. I am feeling like a dipshit ex-Mormon every day of my life. There is no excuse now, considering the advent of the internet.
The Millenials will bring the church to its knees with their exodus. Stemming from their discoveries in the historicity of the LDS church.
The white General Authorities will have a lot to think about when Mormonism suddenly becomes a predominantly African religion. All other geopolitical boundaries of the church are set for downfall due to internet access. Except Africa. The "brethren" know this.
Let the dominoes cascade freely from this point going forward...