Secrets of the Book of Abraham

I guess a lot of these types of things depend highly on one’s personal level of magical world view. I don’t think that line of thinking is right or wrong per se, just different ways of building our experience.

Does God encrypt things or keep them hidden because the knowledge of them would give a person magical power? I honestly don’t know. On one hand, it doesn’t makes sense for something profound and important in life to be all esoteric and only accessible to a chosen few. On the other hand, people aren’t particularly responsible en masse with powerful information. Certainly scripture and mystical wisdom is understood on many levels depending upon the initiate. So that is one good example.

I personally am not one who leans towards there being real magical artifacts of power. This reminds of an author I enjoy named William Henry who did a lot of research into the subject of Rennes le Chateau, Mary Magdalene and the bloodline of Christ. In his work Les Pommes Blues (The Blue Apples), he theorized that Jesus had a rod or staff with the power to resurrect someone from the dead. His research into history told a fascinating story, but it lost me when it came to someone hiding a tangible wooden staff that had this “dangerous” magical power, like anyone who found it could simply point and shoot with it.

I *LOVE* conspiracy theory as literature. People do in fact hide things in ciphers. But people doing that is different than God doing it. Is that really the modus operandi for God? I’m not sold on that idea. I don’t think God really needs to encrypt his hard drive or anything to make sure the mortals don’t hack it and mess everything up for Him.

I loved this quote from the above link:

It is a characteristic of Egyptian art that nothing in the compositions was left to chance. Within Egyptian illustration, every gesture, symbol and glyph has a very specific meaning and the meaning of the whole is often enhanced significantly depending on the additive nature of its parts. As I built this illustration I couldn’t help but marvel at the cumulative significance and consistency the Egyptian symbols had with literary and scriptural references to the Ark.

It is characteristic of Egyptian iconography within an illustration to be read as if it were part of a text. The way the iconography is read and applied to an illustration creates its own meaning. These subtleties are rooted in the fact that the Classical Egyptian language was written in Hieroglyphics. The phonetic aspects of Hieroglyphs and their meaning often were directly derived from pictographs and iconography, making the language replete with double meaning and pun. The ancient Egyptian language was very conservative in its evolution throughout its history and remained the instrument of the scribes and the ruling classes. It was not until much later in history at approximately the time of the creation of the Phoenician Alphabet and its derivatives languages that words were written entirely phonetically and with no pictorial references.

At this point in time after the evolution of language away from the formal Hieroglyphic texts it appears that written language become more egalitarian in its general use and application, however the majority of the populous in any given culture remained illiterate.

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This artist has spent so many years studying each symbol in the Egyptian glyths so that he could recreate the Ark of the Covenant, that he is actually able to point out which symbols refer to the Ark and their spiritual significance. For example, the Ark is a symbol for the Virgin Mary who will carry and bring forth the word of God. The Israelites did not want the Egyptians (or anyone else) to harm the young Christ, so there writings of him are somewhat encrypted and symbolic.

Brian,

Is the modern temple ceremony somewhat similar to what is being presented about the scrolls and Hieroglyphs?

It is kept “secret” from some as a tool to motivate individuals to attain higher standards of spirituality in order to attain the knowledge?

Brian,

Is the modern temple ceremony somewhat similar to what is being presented about the scrolls and Hieroglyphs?

It is kept “secret” from some as a tool to motivate individuals to attain higher standards of spirituality in order to attain the knowledge?

I totally agree that symbols can be understood on different levels based on experience and wisdom (like the LDS Temple or Egyptian artwork). But there’s a difference to me between a deep, rich symbol that attempts to encompass the essence of a transcendent idea vs. encrypted information.

Definition of “Encryption”:

“encryption is the process of transforming information (referred to as plaintext) using an algorithm (called cipher) to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key.”

Maybe I am splitting hairs, but there’s an important difference to me. A transcendent symbol (if it is an effective one) is open for anyone and everyone to decrypt. They “key,” if you want to call that encryption, is personal enlightenment and wisdom. The information isn’t encrypted. It’s just not understood until we “learn” the language of the symbol.

Under the more specific definition of “encryption” above, it is humans trying to hide information from other humans. That doesn’t make it special, just hidden. We aren’t going to get anything out of it unless we have the key or attack the encryption algorithm to crack it.

The ancient Egyptian’s way of thinking was highly influenced by their radically different language and use of numbers and math. I only scratched the surface of this, but years ago I spent some time studying this (Studying the “Temple of Man” and other works by R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz). It was interesting to me. Their basic mathematics were different and really quite innovative. They could do some sophisticated operations in their head or on paper that we might find difficult with our way of thinking and language. Their written language being pictographic made them think differently when writing IMO, and these both tie into their art and architecture. They thought more in relational proportions than precise decimals (which often end up irrational).

The artist in the link describes a symbol, not encrypted text (I have this Graham Hancock book he mentions BTW):

“The primordial waters:

In Graham Hancock’s book “The Sign and the Seal” he mentions the metaphorical comparison of the Ark to the Virgin Mary. This comparison is a traditional metaphor that is extremely well developed in the Roman Catholic liturgy. In a sense a woman’s amniotic fluids can be compared to the primordial waters of creation. In fact, universally life still comes forth from this source throughout nature. For Christians the metaphor becomes that through Mary the living word came forth from the womb as the Ark was a vessel for the word of God.”

He isn’t saying the Hebrews encrypted Christian secrets into the Ark. He’s saying that the Ark ties into a large archetype commonly found in many cultures (Egyptian, Hebrew and later Catholic/Christian).

Dear Cadene,

I assure you that you are so very right. I have always believed that the Gospel is so very simple that even an 8 year old child can believe and understand it. We complicate things. I had recently read of a young women who promptly left the church after hearing of the Book of Abraham controversy. I wanted to make sure that the B of A had a “fair trial” and that I was not being a “hang ’em high” mob/jury. My mind is simple open to all of the explanations that have been put forth.

The Book of Abraham is the scripture I struggle with most.

I don’t have a problem with the astronomy particularly or the polytheism, it’s the curse of Ham business, and the fact that I can in no way reconcile the work with the papyri. There are just too many problems, with the lacunae (missing material) being filled wrongly, the date seeming to be wrong, and the hieroglyphics having nothing to do the revealed scripture. I find it hard to have any testimony of it. I often wonder if that’s why investigators don’t see much of it.

I almost wish it had been channeled a la Book of Moses, or wish that the source material was gone like the Book of Mormon.

I almost wish it had been channeled a la Book of Moses, or wish that the source material was gone like the Book of Mormon.

I thought there was evidence that the source material IS gone. That what we currently have is a few scraps, and not nearly as much as was described by the people that saw what was purchased from Mr. Chandler.

HiJolly

Some of it, but what we do have, are papyri which match closely the facsimiles in the POGP, plus “idiosyncrasies” where the holes in these papyri are. There’s simply no way I can see that stuff being connected with the text.