- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
fence sitter wrote:
Hello all,
My first post on what is probably my favorite LDS subject. Usually I find that people are either tired of talking about the subject or completely uninterested, so it is nice to see some interest in it. I hope that I am not intruding and that what I have to say is of interest.
A few observations if I may.
1. The claim that Facsimile#1 is unique is, in my opinion, not really relevant. Since each copy of this scene was hand drawn, even direct copies were not identical in every detail, variation is actually the norm. The areas that Joseph Smith recreated are problematic to what one would expect to find in similar Lion couch scenes. Probably the most difficult aspect of Joseph’s recreation is the knife. Since Anibus (the dark figure with the knife) is there to help the Osiris (Hor deified laying on the Lion couch) come back to life, there is no reason for him to be holding a knife. This would not be just a unique scene, it would be contrary to what one would expect to be buried with a Priest from the an Egyptian cult.
Assuming it’s Anibus and assuming it’s Osiris. Or maybe it’s Abraham and a priest.
Variation is indeed the norm. But where the facsimile is different to other pictures is important. The figure is clothed, has shoes (or slippers) and has one leg and both arms raised. The position of the figure is also in the horizontal figure of someone praying.
[img]http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/6395/424/1600/582457/boa-2.gif [/img] 
[img]http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/6395/424/1600/219213/boa3.gif [/img] Lion couch scenes are either of mummification in which case they are usually masked and lying flat…
[img]http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/lion35.jpg [/img] Or… The other use of lion couches in Egyptian art is for those who are living. Either being resurrected or “contemplating procreation” But in neither of those cases is the person dressed (and none that I know of wearing shoes… ready to run?). They may have one leg raised, but not both arms (it’s the two arms which put him in the prayer position). Like this:
[img]http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/lion33.jpg [/img] I’m inclined to agree with Jeff Lindsay when he says:
Quote:there are numerous details about Facsimile 1 that take it outside the realm of any typical Egyptian scene involving the lion couch. What he have here is not a common scene from Egyptian lore, but a drawing that is obviously based on Egpytpain elements but apparently modified significantly to tell a unique story. And I don’t think any other story fits the details better than this: a living person on an altar is praying…
I’m not yet in a position to fully accept that Book of Abraham is a pure and literal translation of a document hand-written by Abraham. I’m willing to accept that the papyrus may indeed have served as a ‘muse’ for Joseph and that it’s ‘inspired fiction.’ But I don’t accept that the evidence proves conclusively that we ‘have to’ reject it being exactly what Joseph then and the church today say it is.
More useful reading here:
http://mormanity.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/leg-up-on-critics-facsimile-1-of-book.html http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/charles.htm http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/rename.htm fence sitter wrote:
2. In Facsimile #3 we can find some of the few extant examples where we have both the text from which Joseph Smith is translating and how he interprets it. We know exactly whichtexthe is trying to translate. 3. Facsimiles #1 & #3 are agreed upon by both critics and apologist as being at the beginning and end of the Hor scroll. For a book of Breathing this was not unusual though in the case of the Hor scroll the normal location of Facsimiles#1 & #3 are reversed. The starting and ending points of the scroll is important when considering the length of the scroll because it is possible to determine the uppermost outside diameter of the scroll by measuring damage on the first (Facsimile#1) part of the scroll. Both critics and apologists agree that the diameter of the Hor scroll could not be more than 1 & 1/4″ to 1 & 1/3″ in diameter. (That is about the diameter of an empty toilet paper roll.) This diameter limits that absolute length that the scroll could be.
4. Even though there are missing portions of the facsimiles it does not mean the critics are guessing Joseph Smith went wrong in recreating them. Any time the Joseph Smith versions of the restored facsimiles are shown to Egyptologist they are able to identify those areas that he recreated as opposed to the original undamaged areas. It is not just a question of guessing what was there in the missing portions, but that the recreations themselves are done incorrectly. (Upside down text, hieratic vs hieroglyphics in the wrong spot and so on.)
There are so many other issues and it is such an interesting subject.
I don’t know enough about Facs. 3 to comment. I’ll read up and come back to this.
The link in the OP shows that ‘critics and apologists’ don’t agree on the scroll size/length. Some are estimating up to 40 feet in length. Certainly the fragments we have now mean we only have a small percentage of what was originally held.
I agree there are lots of issues and it’s an interesting subject. I just don’t accept it as ‘conclusive’ – even though I’m not personally certain it’s what I thought it was a few years ago.
I’m often curious why BoA discussions (or problems) never seem to sidestep into the Book of Moses. Both are set side-by-side in the Pearl of Great Price. Why doesn’t anyone ever seem to have a problem with the Book of Moses first? There was no text. Joseph made no claims of translating a historical record. He just sat down and wrote it out. From an outsider, non-believing perspective: he made the whole thing up! The notion that Moses even wrote a short book of scripture like that is even ridiculous, and that it would be transmitted thousands of years later to a frontier American mystic for first release (again, I am speaking from an outsider perspective).
But people freak out and cry foul when we find out that Joseph maybe just “made up” the Book of Abraham, riffing on some over-priced, looted Egyptian scrolls he purchased. I say: at least the Book of Abraham has some tenuous connection to history and a for-real ancient people!
🙂 My personal opinion: Joseph Smith used all kinds of inspiration to come up with his mystical and prophetic writings. It’s pretty much how all prophet-archetype figures have worked throughout history. The value in this genre of literature is the poetic meaning. Our church has focused far too much on the literal historicity as a form of “call to authority.” When IMO, a religious text is only valuable if WE can make something useful from it in the present context of our life.
Scripture is more like poetry than a technical hardware manual.
I happen to think the BoA is cool. It certainly makes Mormonism unique. The ideas in it are pretty trippy and mind-expanding. And yeah … there are some really bad ideas in it too (like the canonization of the “curse of ham” theory that isn’t original to Mormonism).
Quote:It’s pretty much how all prophet-archetype figures have worked throughout history.
Too few people understand that.
Joseph doesn’t fit what we moderns picture what a prophet “should” be (our own illusion) – but he fits really well what prophets actually “have” been throughout history (the illusions of their times).
The Apostle Paul is either directly or indirectly responsible for most of the New Testament. He never even met Jesus nor heard him preach in person. Paul claimed that Jesus appeared to him on his commute to the office (the road to Damascus) to tell him the “real” way of doing things, much to the frustration of Peter and James. Mohammed “memorized” the words taught to him by the angel Gabrielle over several years of camping out in a cave.
The Oracle of Delphi also received revelations while camping out in a cave filled with odd gasses that welled up from a fissure.
The Buddha sat under a tree until he realized he’d be happier without a nagging wife and kids, or the burden of partisan politics as a king — the original hippie-slacker! I’m not sure his “revelation” was all that original or required anything supernatural
😆 Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th century German mystic and nun, was the sickly 10th child of an aristocratic family and was tithed (donated) to the church. She is noted for all kinds of amazing and complex musical compositions, as well as treatises on healing and the use of herbs. She claimed she could retrieve any information she needed from a universal light that she could see (nobody else could see it).
Joseph Smith wrote books from words given to him by sparkly rocks in a hat, from visions, or from Egyptian papyri.
I’m not saying all this to point out that religion isn’t “true” or to make fun of foundational religious narratives. Billions of people have found great value in the teachings of some of these “prophets.” I’m just pointing out that if you step back a few feet and look at them all, none of them would be judged as normal by our current standards, or even the standards of their own time! The one universal truth about prophets is they are all a little crazy, and they were all truly inspiring enough to ignite a following.
Quote:I’m not saying all this to point out that religion isn’t “true” or to make fun of foundational religious narratives. Billions of people have found great value in the teachings of some of these “prophets.” I’m just pointing out that if you step back a few feet and look at them all, none of them would be judged as normal by our current standards, or even the standards of their own time!
The one universal truth about prophets is they are all a little crazy, and they were all truly inspiring enough to ignite a following.Wow…hilarious yet inspiring. Thanks for sharing…I am tempted to use this as my signature
I tend to dig up old threads… I came across this one and reading it made me transition to “one of those days.” I’ll open the wound again and do my best to remain civil. 
I agree with some of those latter comments from Brian Johnston. I’m a convert and one thing that felt right about this church in the beginning was that it jived with all the other crazy stuff God had done in the past. Call a 14 year old kid on a farm to change the world? Right up God’s alley as far as I was concerned.
Brian Johnston wrote:I’m often curious why BoA discussions (or problems) never seem to sidestep into the Book of Moses. Both are set side-by-side in the Pearl of Great Price. Why doesn’t anyone ever seem to have a problem with the Book of Moses first? There was no text. Joseph made no claims of translating a historical record. He just sat down and wrote it out.
Fair questions. I think you touched on the key difference between the two, Joseph made no claims of translating a historical record with respect to the Book of Moses. The BoA has always been put forth as a translation of historical text and it seems very natural to see how someone might feel deceived when they find out that most signs point toward that not being the case. In short: Book of Moses – no way to know one way or the other; BoA – might have got caught in a lie. It’s the lie more that the origin itself.
If anything the Book of Moses origin story supports the glaring issues with the BoA origin story, it raises other questions. I’ve made the BoA/Book of Moses connection in the past: If JS was comfortable stating that the Book of Moses was direct revelation why wouldn’t he make that same claim with regards to the BoA, especially if it was the truth? Why invent a translation story? Did he himself believe he was translating when he was actually receiving direct revelation? To me that’s the best case scenario, that he received a direct revelation but through imperfection believed it was a translation.
Sometimes tone isn’t conveyed properly in text. I don’t know if you’ve ever sent an e-mail just to be surprised by a response wondering “why you are so angry” when you truthfully weren’t. Many words for saying I hope I didn’t set a negative tone. I’m just explaining my point of view when I first took issue with the BoA. I know most on this site have no issue with the origin story and instead focus on the principles the book teaches. That’s fine, to some degree I understand and also believe similarly. That was my takeaway from the other thread. Not to be flippant but you can get inspiration from an episode of Underdog (granted there are varying levels of concentration of inspirational material between tPoGP and Underdog so one must decide where to best employ one’s time when looking for inspirational materiel). Were I still need work is figuring how that translates to maintaining harmonious coexistence in an organization that claims divine authority, to be the one true church, etc. when the very foundations may be based on lies or half-truths. Inspirational scriptures, manuals, classes, talks aside… how views toward divine authority (to put it brief) survives and the implications of the death of that belief are something I’ll need to work through.
Maybe it all goes back to my concentration of inspired material thought. Maybe it’s a choice between sifting through a sea of principles and beliefs to get at inspiration things vs. the highly concentrated inspirational principles to be found in the church.
I think I’ll stop there for now, but I do want to contribute something more positive and uplifting to the thread in the near future. I want to go back and review some of my notes from some time ago and maybe share a few things. I’ll try not to go too far down the apologetics route. In the end apologetics didn’t work for me and I know many people on the site wouldn’t appreciate it if I were to fill up a page with apologetic material. Still I hate to leave things off on a downer note.
The Book of Abraham “translation” method is very similar to that of the Book of Mormon – some record that served as the inspiration for the words that were seen apart from the record itself. I use the term “transmission” rather than “translation”, given the description of the process, but I have no problem accepting the Book of Abraham as inspired scripture given that I see the Book of Mormon that way. Also, as I’ve said in other threads, I think we need to be careful when talking about “lies”. Perhaps he did lie about the BofA, but I think Joseph really did believe he was channeling inspiration / revelation with both the BofA and the BofM, and I think his experience with the BofM gave him even more confidence in his ability to take an ancient record and “translate” it through “spiritual eyes”. It is instructive that Joseph never claimed to be fluent enough to translate the BofA in a traditional, scholarly method – so, even though it came from the papyri, there is no indication that it was anything other than a “visionary” experience, if it really is inspired scripture. Again, that is consistent with the process of recording the Book of Mormon.
I am completely open to the possibility that Joseph “made it up” – but I think he was sincere and truly believed he was recording scripture, so my own take on “made it up” is not as negative as saying he “lied”.
Finally, I don’t know if you’ve read “
Early Mormonism and the Magic World View” by Michael Quinn, but it is fascinating. I recommend it highly. mackay11 wrote:I sometimes wonder why people feel the need to take it so literally.
Maybe because it says in the introduction to the BofA:
Quote:
TRANSLATED FROM THE PAPYRUS, BY JOSEPH SMITHA Translation of some ancient Records, that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. – The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus
Do you think that might have something to do with it????
Sheldon wrote:mackay11 wrote:I sometimes wonder why people feel the need to take it so literally.
Maybe because it says in the introduction to the BofA:
Quote:
TRANSLATED FROM THE PAPYRUS, BY JOSEPH SMITHA Translation of some ancient Records, that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. – The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus
Do you think that might have something to do with it????
Hmmm… I think I wrote that back in my “everything’s a metaphor” days. It was a coping mechanism I’d imagine.
I think he believed it was a translation. I accept it as midrash.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.