I just got an email from someone asking me about Paul Gregersen's YouTube videos on the Book of Abraham, claiming that he can prove it is true and challenging any Mormon critic to prove him wrong. I had never heard of him, but I watched one of his videos for about five minutes. The guy is off the wall, but a good example of how a crazy Mormon apologist works. Just search YouTube for his name.

I picked Part 8 to watch.

That's cuz I'm blessed.

And now I know that "...the biggest movie ever made...was based on the Book of Abraham..." Yes, even "Star Wars"!

Therefore, the church is true.

You're welcome.



ETA: given that Part 8 is 4 hours and 12 minutes long, I did NOT watch the whole thing. I just let the spirit guide me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2022 10:54PM by elderolddog.

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2024810

Also a brief discussion of him here (see the last comment)

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/63xkrl/paul_gregersen_book_of_abraham_expert_who_is_this/

I love this stuff. It is watching a train wreck that keeps going and going. I'm sure the Q15 and supporting positions hate when someone with a love of this 'gospel' and an imagination kick into overdrive. How do you stop it? When does the membership of the creative writer become a liability for the organization?

I saw part 9 and there was some Star Wars references in there too. This is like Julie Rowe without the energy work.

I hate it, but I love it.

I've made it about an hour into part 9... Wow, the camera swipes with all the stars, the circles, the "lets turn to the book of Abraham" swipes or whatever you call it. The echoing voice effect for emphasis. It is a parody of itself. Paul is playing Uncle with my mind. Just to make him stop I want to tell him I believe in this nonsense. Just stop talking. I'll bet he is a real hoot to have at ward parties, and family reunions.

Edited to add this: He says he was authorized by the church leadership to write about the mark of the beast. After that book was published, there was probably a Q15 meeting with a powerpoint presentation titled "What the Fuck Did We Just Do?" with the purpose of not letting these type books through their any authorization or sanction my the Morporation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2022 03:12PM by cheezus.

You know what? An actual sitting member of Congress convinced herself that Jewish space lasers are setting California forest fires, and former Entrata board chairman and founder David Bateman convinced himself that covid vaccines (all of them, apparently), and the virus itself, are part of a Jewish plot to depopulate the world.

If they can do that, then Paul Gregersen convincing himself that the BoA is anything other than a JS bull session that got out of hand is completely believable, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.

As the aphorism goes, reality is just a crutch for people who lack imagination. Gregersen appears to have an excellent imagination. I may watch part of one of his rants just for laughs. It was the BoA, and Nibley's analysis of the papyri, that broke my shelf to splinters.

The book of Abraham has been debunked from the get go.
Every hieroglyphic translator who has looked at the scrolls has so attested.
I seriously doubt that any knowledgeable egyptologist would be allowed any where near the scrolls.
Like its companion "the Book of Mormon" it is a fictional novelmade up in the very creative mind of Joe Jr.
The Mormon Church keeps hammering it because they have so little to back up the allegations of their founder.
Who by the way was a very talented con artist

Actually, the Mormon hierarchy does not hammer the BoA anymore. You hardly ever hear about it over the pulpit. It is tucked way back in the corner of Mormonism. Apparently Gregersen did not get the memo.

i'm pretty sure that if they could figure out a way to remove the BoA from their scriptures without being noticed, they'd do it in a heartbeat.

Well, from what little I've been following about Mormonism these days, it seems that R. Nelson is following the playbook of the RLDS (now known as the Community of Christ). They tried to become more mainstream Protestant but couldn't make it until they finally threw Joseph Smith under the bus. I don't think it has helped much to grow their numbers of membership.

Pres. Nelson is making BofM, Mormonism, Mormon all dirty words. Even removed the word from the choir's name. If you can be that dismissive of the major work that represents your religion, why wouldn't it be just as easy to toss out the BofA? Start by taking it off the reading list. Then make it a secondary source of doctrine. Finally, just make it irrelevant and stop publishing it. When nobody can find a copy of it then it will be out of the church doctrine.

I agree, except I think you have it backwards. Dumping the BoA has been the plan for at least 40 years now. The decision to do so was probably made when the priesthood ban for Black males was lifted, or shortly thereafter.

I'm curious as to when the last time the BoA was part of the Sunday School curriculum? When was the last time it was quoted in GC? I bet it has been a very long while.

I think the Q15 would love to remove it from the PoGP, but are afraid, correctly IMHO, that the hard-core membership would have a cow. So they leave it there, but completely ignore its presence.

Hinckley made a half-hearted attempt to dump the name "Mormon", but apparently decided that that was too heavy a lift. The name actually served many useful functions, like what to call members of TCOJCOLDS.

Nelson has come to the conclusion that however difficult it will be to dump the name Mormon, and later, the BoM, they need to bite the bullet sooner or later, and better sooner. The BoM is simply too toxically racist to keep around.

He's right about that, of course. It is impossible to read the BoM without getting the message that God likes white people better. The message is not subtle in the book. Dumping the BoM from Mormonism will cost it plenty in terms of name recognition, not to mention credibility.

And the bigger problem is that the BoM is not the only toxic thing in Mormonism, even if it is near the top of the list.

There are two scriptures in the PoGP that define Mormonism that would be problematic to jettison. The first being the book of Moses scripture that says "this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the eternal life of man" and the second is the passages about Abraham being known of God in heaven. I think the buzz words are Abraham being a "noble and great one" which has implications about JS being really super awesome and great. I think Holland references that one often.

If they were to go Community of Christ, they would lose that credibility. They have the bank accounts where that might not matter in terms of the organization being decimated of membership, but the would be a laughing stock and subject of much deserving ridicule. Lawsuits might ensue, which might be a real fear.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I agree, except I think you have it backwards.
> Dumping the BoA has been the plan for at least 40
> years now. The decision to do so was probably made
> when the priesthood ban for Black males was
> lifted, or shortly thereafter.

I think the decision was already underway by 1978. Doubts about the BoA had been circulating for many years and the church had felt defensive enough to ask Nibley to write a defense, which was published in about 1975. The volume fulfilled the order but did so in a transparently fatuous way, as I'm sure a lot of church leaders realized.

My guess is that the Q15 were already backing away from the BoA and that that rendered it a bit easier to renounce the priesthood ban. Unbeknownst to the members, both processes began in the late 1960s.