Abraham 1:10 mentions human sacrifice at "Potiphar's Hill" at the "head of the plain of Olishem."

Mormons are crowing that the name has now been found in an ancient Akkadian manuscript from about 2000 BC (Abraham's period!). How could Joseph Smith have known that?

A few problems you might mention, if any Mormon tries to stump you with this one:

The Akkadian place is not "Olishem" but "Ulisum." Not quite the same, just as "Homburg" and "Hamburg" are different places in Germany. And "Acton" is not the same as "Ogden."

Ulisum was several hundred miles north of "Chaldea," where "Olishem" was supposed to be.

Joseph Smith was learning Hebrew at the time he was producing the Book of Abraham, and obviously using that knowledge in his text ("Kokaubeam" really is Hebrew for "stars"). He likely invented the name from Hebrew 'olah' ("burnt sacrifice" or "evil") and 'shem' ("name"): "Olishem" is Smith's made-up Hebrew word for "name of a place for evil sacrifice."

Oddly, if you Google "Olishem" you will find a few people whose parents gave them that name!

Similar to my post earlier this morning the word "Akkadian" is of Hermetic and mystical origin. Search for the words "Akkadian" and "hermetic" in the following link, this will again open your eyes to the true basis of Joseph Smith's fraud.

http://www.world-news-research.com/ancientgreece-2.html

The Pearl of Great Price relies on german versions of "Hermetica" in the early 1800s. Another connection to Joseph Smith's fraud is the fact that the Hermetic interest in the time was due mainly to its influence in Free Masonry. In late 1600s and early 1700s Stonemason guilds were transformed into Free mason guilds. The change was the the Free mason guilds included esoteric and mystical teachings that spawned from Germany and France. It so happens that the Hermetica text was translated in the 14th century from Greek to French and then to German. Here's a neat suggestion when you guys do research on Joseph Smith:

Whenever you search for one of Joseoph Smith's unique words that he supposedly translated from ancient Egyptian just make sure to include with the search "hermetic", "hermes", and/or "hermetica." This isn't a conincidence. Its the same with names like Nephi and Ammon which are both names found in hermetic doctrine. Check wikipedia for "hermetica" so that you get a better idea of what I am writing here. Joseph Smith's fraud was a lot less complex than what most assume or write about. Cool thing about the stuff that he stole from mystical and esoteric christianities is that you will find other mormon-doctrine like principles. These additional doctrines would make for an extremely interesting church talk. Anyway, stop overestimating Joseph Smith's fraud. If you look at what was popular among the whack jobs back in his time, then the picture becomes suprisingly clear.

Good reading
"Refiner's Fire: The making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844" by John L. Brooke

This is very interesting.

For years I've been hesitant to read Mike Quinn's Magic World View because I didn't want to give over time that would result from going down that rabbit hole. I already waste too much time on this stuff as it is.

However, if you are aware of any "cliff notes"-like resources (ex. Sunstone or Dialog articles) I'd love to get a high level view of this stuff.

Recognizing Joseph Smith as one of history's most prolific purveyors of bullshit, I'm somewhat interested in learning a little about the reservoirs of bovine excrement that he drew from.

If you want to count the "hits" you have to count the "misses".

Yeah. And we already know which list is longer and which list is a desperate grab at straws.

Shem is the son of Noah as found in the same chapter of Genesis in which Abraham is first mentioned. Many variations of "shem" are to be found in the BoM. "Oli" could be the nickname for Oliver as in Oliver Cowdery.

This is another "parallel" that defenders of the fictional BOM
like to pull up to "prove" their claims.

As Richard has noted, "Olishem" and "Ulishem" are not exact.
So the question to ask is "how common are near-coincidences?"

Math Professors Persi Diaconis and Frederick Mosteller recently
did a study of how common "coincidences" are. It turns out
they are way more common than we suspect.

Even more important for all the "almost coincidences" that
mopologists come up with is how common are they? Again
Diaconis and Mosteller looked into that also:

"A third category of coincidences is those that are close but
not exact. The odds of a coincidence then go up enormously."

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/27/science/1-in-a-trillion-coincidence-you-say-not-really-experts-find.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1


What about the evidence AGAINST the Book of Abraham? Are they
willing to consider that too? What about this:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1356045,1356045#msg-1356045



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2014 10:25PM by baura.

Thought this was interesting:
Homer's Odyssey

"to the Elysian plain…where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor heavy storm, nor ever rain, but ever does Ocean send up blasts of the shrill-blowing West Wind that they may give cooling to men."

— Homer, Odyssey (4.560–565)[11]

Olishem plain vs Elysian plain

The chance of the BoA being true is less than the sun revolving around the earth, or the earth being flat.

I know exactly where Olishem is.

You head into Florsheim Valley, past the old Moroni Bait Shoppe. Take a left at Tree of Life Road. Above you you'll notice the fowls of the air, defecating. With luck a few apostates will be milling around, gathering figs of thistles.

Soon Zeezrom's Tapirs 'N' Things is on your right, which means you're almost there!

Just a few more tens of thousands of dollars and maybe six, seven hundred hours of free labor cleaning toilets, jabbering nonsense, wearing silly aprons and hats, and baptizing dead people, and the plain of Olishem is right around the corner.

LOL!!! Boner.

Mormons: can't tell Olishem from Shinola since 1830.

So...
The "translations" are proven false. The completed pics and filled-in symbols Smith put in are completely wrong. None of the "astronomy," history, or anything else in the book is right. It wasn't translated. It isn't Abraham's own hand upon papyrus.

BUT...we found one word in it that's sort of kinda like a real word! So it's all true!

So sad.