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I am curious as to how folks that decide to stay, after troubling evidence, reconcile the Book of Abraham. I feel that it’s fairly obvious that the BoA was not a direct “translation” in the normal context of that word.
I understand the term “translated beings” to mean someone that has transitioned from physical/mortal to physical/immortal. Do you guys think that that explanation applies somehow?
Does that apply to the BoM as well? I guess what I’m asking is that if there were no golden plates involved, would Joseph Smith’s “translation” be as convincing?
I remember the missionary discussions when I was young with the little flip cards showing JS reading off the golden plates and writing. Of course, we now know that things didn’t happen that way.
Joseph Smith translated nothing. He had no language skills, and dictated the resultant scriptures (Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, Inspired Version) without looking at the source material, if there was any. Those are the facts. The best we can say is that he used Inspiration (the “gift and power of God”) to reveal scripture. Whether this is true is unknowable (unprovable, unfalsifiable), therefore it is a matter if faith.
Joseph himself never claimed to have translated scripture the way we think of that happening – so I agree with wayfarer. The question for me isn’t if the BofA is an actual, word-for-word translation. It obviously isn’t. The question for me is how I feel about the content as an inspired transmission of belief (as how I see “normal scripture” in that sense) – and I really like it. My only real issues with the content deal with the race-specific statements – but, in the context of an ancient record, they fit perfectly. As long as I don’t have to view them as factually inerrant and immutable, unchanging, everlasting truth (and I don’t have to do that), I can accept them as representative of a less enlightened time and actually use them to condemn racism in our own past, present and future.
Given my view of what it is, I’m not bothered by it – and I don’t even want to try to fight publicly other more traditional views of it. It’s not worth it to me.
I view the BoA and the BOM the same way as I view the Bible, Greek mythology, Navajo creation legends and Lord of the Rings….mythology to teach divine truths. I take what makes sense and works for my family…and reject the parts that don’t. Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2
At that time Joseph Smith translated the BoA there were two important factors: 1) He need to re-assert his power base by doing something prophetic.
2) No one in the world knew how to translate Egyptian.
The answer is very simple. He made it up.
All objective evidence points clearly to this. The only way you will conclude anything else is if you decide what you want to conclude before you look at the evidence.
bc_pg wrote:At that time Joseph Smith translated the BoA there were two important factors:
1) He need to re-assert his power base by doing something prophetic.
2) No one in the world knew how to translate Egyptian.
The answer is very simple. He made it up.
All objective evidence points clearly to this. The only way you will conclude anything else is if you decide what you want to conclude before you look at the evidence.
fact: his “translation” has nothing to do with the papyrus.conclusion: therefore the BoA is not a translation of the papyrus.
these are the only fact and conclusion justified here.
his underlying motivations are speculative, and while it would seem like he made it up, for the believer, god could have revealed the book, therefore you cannot conclude that he made it up.
my personal opinion is that it is an uninspired work, but i have no more evidence of that than the believer who sees it as inspired scripture. therefore, such unknowables are best left to faith.
I really want to share Ray’s point of view. But.
He made a rather elaborate showing of making an Egyptian alphabet, etc. This is what caused my disaffection from the mainstream church back in the day….I accepted the apologetic explanations for a long time but…it still bugs the crap out of me. Apologetic explanations such as “he really translated it word for word but the original stuff was lost in a Chicago fire” calmed me down for a while but after years of reseach/prayer, they really don’t hold water.
I guess that the question is “was JS lying or wasn’t he?”.
That’s a pretty fair and straightforward question, I think.
Bruce, I just transcribed the John Dehlin/Richard Bushman interviews on my blog. In answer to your question about “translated beings”, Bushman discussed that exact point. Quote:JD, “You know most people would be just stunned to know that there’s no real evidence that the plates were used materially in the translation, and that the Urim and Thummim, meaning the crystals in the breastplate weren’t used either. That’s real different from the accounts that we kind of grow up with primary and Sunday School and Seminary.”
Bushman, “Yeah. Well that’s the account that’s in the historical records though, so we just have to live with it.”
JD, “So we have to live with it. You know this really does bring up the question—oh two questions. One is, isn’t it completely dishonest or disingenuous to ever use the word ‘translator’ or ‘translation’? Aren’t those just the wrong words first of all, and then I’ll ask you the second question later, so let’s start there. Why do we even call it a translation?”
Bushman, “Well Nibley’s discoursed on that subject. What does it mean to translate, to carry over from one culture or one time to another? You know we use the word ‘translated’ to talk about bodies being resurrected or carried about one way or another. So I don’t think you could call it dishonest. It certainly has misled us into thinking that—you know I used to speculate, did Joseph Smith learn Reformed Egyptian staring at those plates and coming up with the words? And that of course is beside the point if you see it this way. Maybe we do need to have another word. I think we certainly need to make clear to our children as we teach them or whoever, that when we refer to a translation is carrying a message from one culture into the language of another, not necessarily by using a dictionary. So you do have to generalize or change the meaning of translation from its ordinary usage.”
Here’s more if you’re interested.
http://www.mormonheretic.org/2012/06/20/better-depictions-of-the-translation-process-of-the-book-of-mormon/ Old-Timer wrote:Joseph himself never claimed to have translated scripture the way we think of that happening.
Well, okay, but what then does he intend to communicate when he says things like
Quote:Spent the day in translating Egyptian characters from the papyrus.
The BoA was a big stumbling block for me personally, but I’m grateful now for what it forced me to consider.
I have often used the term “Pious Fraud” to describe the process of coming up with the book of Abraham. I believe I am technically correct in this, based upon the following facts: 1. Joseph Smith did not have egyptian language skills to translate the text.
2. The text of the Facsimiles and in the BoA does not in any way correspond to the papyrus.
3. The papyrus, having been duplicated in the BoA facsimiles and in Joseph’s notes, is the actual papyrus that Joseph Smith purchased and used for the ‘translation’.
4. Joseph Smith claimed that he was translating, in the traditional sense of the word, having created an aphabet for the purpose of translation, and having made that claim in writing in his journals and public pronouncements.
5. Joseph Smith’s claim of using a seer stone in the act of scrying was found to be fraudulent in a court of law.
While I think the above five facts are fairly well proven, what is not proven is what conclusion we can make of the BoA. Here are alternative conclusions:
1. He made it up intentionally to deceive. (we cannot know his intention here)
2. He thought he could translate and an inner voice ‘revealed’ to him the meaning of the text. This leaves three possible outcomes:
. a. He was completely deluded.
. b. He was inspired in some way, and revealed useful information mixed with man-made artifacts.
. c. God dictated the text through him.
Faced with the facts, the true believing position is likely to be 2c: God dictaed the text to him.
I find this to be unlikely for two reasons: (1) Joseph Smith in sections 8 and 9 indicated a more imprecise, feeling based approach to translation, therefore ‘dictation’ is typically not the method. (2) Joseph’s use of the seerstone was notoriously useless in determining the true location of treasure or water – to the point he was convicted of fraud, so why then would we assume that Joseph’s seer stone is suddenly word-for-word perfect?
Wayfarer, In regards to your #4….”The papyrus, having been duplicated in the BoA facsimiles and in Joseph’s notes, is the actual papyrus that Joseph Smith purchased and used for the ‘translation’.”
Are you open to the possibility that there were more papyri, and the BoA portion were lost? You guys have studied this way more than I. There is, as you know, a ton of info…pro and con…on this and it’s confusing as heck.
I’d love to believe that JS used the papyri as sort of a conduit, not unlike the plates, if it weren’t for the “Egyptian alphabet” stuff.
Small minds want to know….
wayfarer wrote:Joseph Smith translated nothing. He had no language skills, and dictated the resultant scriptures (Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, Inspired Version) without looking at the source material, if there was any. Those are the facts.
The best we can say is that he used Inspiration (the “gift and power of God”) to reveal scripture. Whether this is true is unknowable (unprovable, unfalsifiable), therefore it is a matter if faith.
I think it is knowable. I’ve seen a few things be designated as unknowable and I’m not sure that’s really the case. Rather than saying something is unknowable, should it not be said “this has not been made known to me” without assuming others cannot know?Quote:If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery;
But he that believeth these things which I have spoken, him will I visit with the manifestations of my Spirit, and he shall know and bear record. For because of my Spirit he shall know that these things are true; for it persuadeth men to do good.
And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
And ye may know that he is, by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore I would exhort you that ye deny not the power of God; for he worketh by power, according to the faith of the children of men, the same today and tomorrow, and forever.
EDIT: Since no one has posted under me, I will add some more. People have had different experiences and walked different paths. Some may really know something divine. I say it cannot be known that a thing is unknowable
On the accuracy of the translation: Thanks to elementary school study of ancient Egypt, one of my 11-year-old kids once saw that I was looking at Facsimile 3, and said, “hey, that’s Osiris”. On the papyrus as a conduit for unrelated inspiration: Here, this gets down to what makes sense to you, so I’ll pose one case against, and one case for this view of the BofA, and allow you to find your own way… Case Against) You could make the same argument that JS had inspirational insight into the life of a descendent of Ham, and that the Kinderhook Plates were a conduit for JS to receive inspiration. The papyrus had no more to do with Abraham than the phony Kinderhook Plates had to do with said descendent of Ham. I think Kinderhook-Plates-as-Conduit-for-Legitimate-Inspiration would be a stretch, even for the apologists at FARMS. Case For) The Book of Moses is clearly defined as a conduit-based-revelation, resulting from JS’s “translation” of the book of Genesis, with nothing more at his disposal than the KJV version of the Bible. Therefore, there is an existence-proof that JS himself subscribed to the notion of conduit-based-inspiration, and that he himself also viewed this as falling into the realm of “translation”.
On the content of the BofA: “Gods” “Kolob”… it’s a bit out-there, in my opinion… That said, I think Chap 3 is quite interesting, not in its treatment of astronomy, but in the metaphorical use of it to signal the relationship between God, Christ, and noble and great ones that would play “starring” roles in the preexistence and in this life.
On Own Now wrote:On the content of the BofA: “Gods” “Kolob”… it’s a bit out-there, in my opinion… That said, I think Chap 3 is quite interesting, not in its treatment of astronomy, but in the metaphorical use of it to signal the relationship between God, Christ, and noble and great ones that would play “starring” roles in the preexistence and in this life.
I think that the BoA is an uninspired work. While the apologists can say all they want, there are things in BoA that are just plain harmful.one never talked about is the idea of a lineary precedence hierarchy, as you note in Chapter 3.
Joseph Smith, in Abraham 3:19 wrote:And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.
Is therereallya precedence hierarchy of intelligences? So, if there is a “noble and great one”, that person’s “intelligence” is greater than those who aren’t? This is not the gospel. This is dominance hierarchal thinking. And it infuses the church, top to bottom, literally. An apostle or a prophet, according to the 14f, can speak of any topic without credentials, and whatever is spoken, even if it isn’t preceeded with “thus saith the lord” is mandatory. When is the last time a general authority has sought advice to be a better leader? When is “feedback” from below ever appreciated?
With linear precedence hierarchies, there is no need to ask people their advice, because, if you’re in the position, you’re by definition more intelligent than those below. And this is what this verse infused into the church.
I know that Hugh Nibley made a big deal about there was more to the papyrus than has been found. I know Signature Books just released a new book called “The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri” by Robert K. Ritner “, an Egyptologist, and I’ve heard that Ritner shoots Nibley’s theory down. I haven’t read the book, but here’s a link to it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007P70OPC?ie=UTF8&creativeASIN=B007P70OPC&tag=mormhere-20
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