I only have time to address one point right now, but it is a cucial one.
“You said:FC: The Egyptian hieroglyphics have been translated and say nothing at all what Joseph Smith babbled on about, that is not a matter of opinion.”
[DU:Translations are always a matter of opinion.]
Absolutely false.
Translate this “Eres muy mentiroso.”. Let’s see if you come up with a different interpretation than I meant.
The fact is, if one thread in the Joseph Smith story breaks, the whole thing falls apart. If the Heieroglyphic were funerary calls to Egyptian Gods instead of the Book of Abraham, then Joseph Smith was a bald faced liar.
But your own Mormon hieroglyphic expert, Hugh Nibley, ended up believing Josph Smith’s translation was a fake:
[ While one has to depend upon Joseph Smith’s own story and the testimony of the Book of Mormon witnesses concerning the plates, in the case of the Book of Abraham it can be established with certainty that Joseph Smith had some ancient Egyptian papyri which were purchased from Michael Chandler while he was in Kirtland, Ohio. While there is no question about the papyri’s authenticity, many people have had. serious reservations regarding the accuracy of Smith’s translation. Unfortunately, while Joseph Smith had the papyri in his possession the science of Egyptology was in its infancy. Therefore, Joseph Smith’s work as a translator could not be adequately tested. To make matters worse, after Smith’s death the Mormon Church lost control of the papyri and it was believed that they were destroyed in the Chicago fire.
Since neither the gold plates nor the Egyptian papyri were available, it appeared that Joseph Smith’s ability as a translator would never be tested. However, on November 27, 1967, the church’s Deseret News announced one of the most significant events in Mormon Church history:
“NEW YORK—A collection of papyrus manuscripts, long believed to have been destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871, was presented to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here Monday by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.... Included in the papyri is a manuscript identified as the original document from which Joseph Smith had copied the drawing which he called ‘Facsimile No. 1’ and published with the Book of Abraham.”
After the papyri were recovered by the church, many Mormons felt that Joseph Smith’s work would be vindicated. Church apologist Hugh Nibley, however, was not optimistic about the matter and warned his people that there was trouble ahead. On Dec. 1, 1967, the Daily Universe, published at Brigham Young University, reported these statements by Dr. Nibley: “The papyri scripts given to the Church do not prove the Book of Abraham is true,’ Dr. Hugh Nibley... said Wednesday night. ‘LDS scholars are caught flatfooted by this discovery,’ he went on to say.”
Since Nibley was supposed to be the Mormon Church’s top authority on the Egyptian language, such a pessimistic assessment must have jolted Mormons who read his comments. After all, anyone could see that there were three rows of hieroglyphic writing on the right side of the papyrus which Joseph Smith used as Facsimile No. 1 in his Book of Abraham. In addition, another row of hieroglyphic writing appeared on the left side of the papyrus. Since the papyrus was surrounded by Egyptian writing, how could it fail to prove the Book of Abraham? If Joseph Smith really knew how to translate Egyptian, the writing would prove that the scene found in Facsimile No. 1 showed “The idolatrous priest of Elkenah attempting to offer up Abraham as a sacrifice.”
As it later turned out, when the writing found on the papyrus was translated by Klaus Baer, Associate Professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, it became clear that the papyrus was a pagan document which had absolutely no relationship to Abraham. The translation, in fact, revealed that the papyrus was really made for a dead man named “Hor”—after the Egyptian god Horus. Experts who have examined this papyrus agree that it is drawing of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead, being prepared for burial by the god Anubis. The fact that this is a funerary papyrus is made clear in Dr. Baer’s translation of the line on the left side of the papyrus: “May you give him a good, splendid burial on the West of Thebes just like...” (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Autumn 1968, page 117) Since the text of Joseph Smith’s Book of Abraham says that Abraham survived the attempt to take his life, there would have been no reason to speak of burial. Furthermore, the Egyptians would not have given a sacrificial victim a “splendid burial on the West of Thebes.”
Since the Egyptian papyri did not support Joseph Smith’s Book of Abraham, Hugh Nibley was not anxious for a translation to come forth. In the Spring 1968 issue of Brigham Young University Studies, page 251, Dr Nibley made this revealing comment: “We have often been asked during the past months why we did not proceed with all haste to produce a translation of the papyri the moment they came into our possession....it is doubtful whether any translation could do as much good as harm.” ]
Here’s a full analysis:
http://www.nowscape.com/mormon/papyrus/by_his_own_hand.htm
Joseph Smith even made his own drawings of the hieroglyphics, so if theose drawings show a man named Hor was the subject of the papyri, then all of Mormon theology collapses in flames.
Good luck explaining Hugh Nibley away.
FC,
YOU of course, are making a HUGE assumption
that by providing factual evidence, you MAY
change a committed mormon’s belief in the
authenticity of his or her church.
By now, you know that nothing can be further
from the truth. Nothing.
No matter how “dull and smelly the turd”,
it will be polished and re-presented to
you - after calling you the appropriate
names, of course - as a scurrilous attack
by those with an agenda! An agenda, mind
you!
It doesn’t matter if it is Joseph Smith
seeing people walking about the moon,
dressed like Quakers. (true)
It doesn’t matter if their High Prophet
tells you there are people living on
the sun wearing DKNY sunglasses. (true,
except for the sunglasses)
It doesn’t matter if it is JS telling
you how to shake hands with angels
to tell the good from the bad.
(true)
It doesn’t matter if it is an armed JS,
firing into the crowd. (true)
Once, one even told me Joseph Smith used
a Seer Stone, but it was because GOD was
“training him” in preparation for translating
those golden plates. (true)
In short, FC, FACTS do not matter. Nor does
it matter where the facts come from.
I could walk into the sub-terrainian LDS
vault located 1,000 feet below the SLC Temple,
select a document (that was signed by Joseph
Smith, including fingerprints, the statement
of 3 witnesses, and photos of him signing it)
where he confessed that moroni was really
what his niece called him and it seemed
appropriate for an angel, so when he made the
whole thing up, he went with moroni.
If I presented it here, it would be jumped
on as “not really considered scripture”.
That he was ill when he signed it. He was
forced to sign it. He was under the influence
of a drug someone slipped him. You would never
get the response, “Well, if JS said it himself,
by golly, maybe the whole thing really is a turd.”
No, the polishing cloths would be pulled out...
Before you knew it, Genesis would be amended
to say the future prophet would be forced
to recant... etc.
FC. Have you considered this?
best,
ampu
but you KNOW there'll be a PILE of text forthcoming; doing this very thing!!
Soon after the purchase of the original papyri, Joseph Smith stated that he "commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics, and . . . found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph of Egypt" (History of the Church, 2:236). In December of that year, he said that "The Record of Abraham and Joseph, found with the mummies, is beautifully written on papyrus, with black, and a small part red, ink or paint, in perfect preservation" (History of the Church, 2:348). Hugh Nibley points out that the Book of Breathing text is "entirely different" from the record of Abraham described by Joseph Smith. The Book of Breathing papyri were neither beautifully written nor well preserved and were devoid of rubrics (passages in red). Thus, on each of these three points, the Book of Breathing manuscript conspicuously fails to qualify as the manuscript Joseph described.And...
Hugh Nibley further observed that one of the three or more original scrolls was described as long enough that when "unrolled on the floor, [it] extended through two rooms of the Mansion House" (Dialogue, vol. 3, no. 2, 1968, p. 101). He also noted that in 1906, Joseph F. Smith remembered 'Uncle Joseph' down on his knees on the floor with Egyptian manuscripts spread out all around him .... When one considers that the eleven fragments now in our possession can easily be spread out on the top of a small desk ... it would seem that what is missing is much more than what we have (Judging and Prejudging the Book of Abraham, as reprinted in They Lie in Wait to Deceive, p. 243). We should also add that only one of the three Abraham facsimiles were among the rediscovered fragments. This fact alone demonstrates that significant portions of the original scrolls are still lost. The traditional opinion held by LDS scholars has been that the Book of Abraham papyri are among those fragments which are still lost.These were taken from Was the Book of Abraham Disproved?
"The papyri scripts given to the Church do not prove the Book of Abraham is true,’ Dr. Hugh Nibley said... Wednesday night. ‘LDS scholars are caught flat-footed by this discovery,’ he went on to say. According to Dr. Nibley, Mormon scholars should have been doing added research on the Pearl of Great Price years ago. Non-Mormon scholars will bring in questions regarding the manuscripts which will be hard to answer because of lack of scholarly knowledge on the subject.... Dr. Nibley said ‘worldly discoveries are going to bury the Church in criticism’ if members of the Church don’t take it upon themselves to become a people of learning.”So, he is pointing out that we have not been studying enough egyptology to answer the questions that we will now undoubtably be recieveing.