LDS Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham is False

[mmksparbud]

That was not a dead person on the table.

Exactly---so why would they be trying to mummify him?

Still no answer to my question. I may also note that, thought the pharaoh's had their slaves killed when they died and buried with them---they were strangled, or decapitated---never embalmed.

 

[He is the way]

Still no answer to my question. I may also note that, thought the pharaoh's had their slaves killed when they died and buried with them---they were strangled, or decapitated---never embalmed.

They were trying to sacrifice Abraham.

 

[mmksparbud]

They were trying to sacrifice Abraham.

Like I said---Egyptians did not do human sacrifice. When they killed the servants oEgyptians did not associate with foreingers--0it was an abomination to them. Bujryi9ng an Isrsaeliter with the Phaoah wouold have desecrsted the tomb. f Pharaoh, it was during His death ceremony, not before or long after. And they killed them in the tomb, usually by sword and beheaded them. Sometimes by garroting, always in the tomb of the Pharaoh when he was being buried. And they only killed those who would be of service to him, the purpose being that they were to continue serving him in the afterlife. What was Abraham going to do--pray to his foreign God? They only sacrificed those who already were serving him. There is no record of Abraham visiting a dead Pharaoh, only live ones! They did not carry dead bodies into the tomb, they killed them in the tomb. Not to mention the fact that it was an abomination to even eat with an Israelite, to bury one with a Pharaoh would have totally desecrated the tomb. Everything about this scene screams---fake!
It would be better if you would answer the questions raised then to keep repeating they were trying to kill Abraham, what was their purpose in doing so, and not by means that were employed when killing during a burial of a Pharaoh or other high ranking official.

 

[He is the way]

Like I said---Egyptians did not do human sacrifice. When they killed the servants oEgyptians did not associate with foreingers--0it was an abomination to them. Bujryi9ng an Isrsaeliter with the Phaoah wouold have desecrsted the tomb. f Pharaoh, it was during His death ceremony, not before or long after. And they killed them in the tomb, usually by sword and beheaded them. Sometimes by garroting, always in the tomb of the Pharaoh when he was being buried. And they only killed those who would be of service to him, the purpose being that they were to continue serving him in the afterlife. What was Abraham going to do--pray to his foreign God? They only sacrificed those who already were serving him. There is no record of Abraham visiting a dead Pharaoh, only live ones! They did not carry dead bodies into the tomb, they killed them in the tomb. Not to mention the fact that it was an abomination to even eat with an Israelite, to bury one with a Pharaoh would have totally desecrated the tomb. Everything about this scene screams---fake!
It would be better if you would answer the questions raised then to keep repeating they were trying to kill Abraham, what was their purpose in doing so, and not by means that were employed when killing during a burial of a Pharaoh or other high ranking official.

Actually they did do human sacrifice:

"One issue that intrigued me was based on intimations from some authors that human sacrifice did not exist in ancient Egypt. [5] Egyptologists largely denied the existence of the practice, sometimes with vehemence. [6] I had always accepted this line of thought, until a fellow Latter-day Saint in my doctoral program, Val Sederholm, pointed out one possible instance of human sacrifice in Egyptian history. [7] Neither of us felt that proof of human sacrifice in Egypt was necessary for the support of the Book of Abraham’s story about Abraham’s near sacrifice since Abraham made it clear that the priest who nearly sacrificed him represented an amalgamation of ancient Near Eastern religions (see Abraham 1:7). Some of the cultures represented certainly performed human sacrifice. Still, the whole concept of sacred violence fascinated me, so I set out to write my dissertation on the religious framework for sanctioned killing in ancient Egypt. [8] I did not have a particular axe to grind; I merely wanted to discover what had happened in Egypt regarding this matter.

For a year and a half, I dedicated almost all of my time—sometimes fourteen hours a day—to researching and writing about sacred violence in Egypt. What surprised me most was how well the Egyptian culture I was discovering matched the culture painted by the Book of Abraham, and also how this knowledge helped me to understand various nuances of that book. Here I can give only the briefest synopsis of my findings."

More at: Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham | Religious Studies Center

 

[drstevej]

More at: Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham | Religious Studies Center

^^^
BYU Religious Studies Center

 

[Ironhold]

^^^
BYU Religious Studies Center

And?

 

[mmksparbud]

Actually they did do human sacrifice:

"One issue that intrigued me was based on intimations from some authors that human sacrifice did not exist in ancient Egypt. [5] Egyptologists largely denied the existence of the practice, sometimes with vehemence. [6] I had always accepted this line of thought, until a fellow Latter-day Saint in my doctoral program, Val Sederholm, pointed out one possible instance of human sacrifice in Egyptian history. [7] Neither of us felt that proof of human sacrifice in Egypt was necessary for the support of the Book of Abraham’s story about Abraham’s near sacrifice since Abraham made it clear that the priest who nearly sacrificed him represented an amalgamation of ancient Near Eastern religions (see Abraham 1:7). Some of the cultures represented certainly performed human sacrifice. Still, the whole concept of sacred violence fascinated me, so I set out to write my dissertation on the religious framework for sanctioned killing in ancient Egypt. [8] I did not have a particular axe to grind; I merely wanted to discover what had happened in Egypt regarding this matter.

For a year and a half, I dedicated almost all of my time—sometimes fourteen hours a day—to researching and writing about sacred violence in Egypt. What surprised me most was how well the Egyptian culture I was discovering matched the culture painted by the Book of Abraham, and also how this knowledge helped me to understand various nuances of that book. Here I can give only the briefest synopsis of my findings."

More at: Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham | Religious Studies Center

So, what you have is an LDS moving heaven and earth to try to make a culture do what everybody else says they do not do!! Great--is that the best you can do? OK---so you have nothing. Understood.

Book of Abe----total fiction. LDS unwilling to accept---big surprise!!!

 

[He is the way]

So, what you have is an LDS moving heaven and earth to try to make a culture do what everybody else says they do not do!! Great--is that the best you can do? OK---so you have nothing. Understood.

Book of Abe----total fiction. LDS unwilling to accept---big surprise!!!

The person on the table was very much alive. It couldn't have been anything else but a sacrifice.

 

[mmksparbud]

The person on the table was very much alive. It couldn't have been anything else but a sacrifice.

Except they did not do human sacrifice as portrayed nor did they mummify anyone other than high ranking officials or the wealthy.

 

[He is the way]

Except they did not do human sacrifice as portrayed nor did they mummify anyone other than high ranking officials or the wealthy.

So are you saying that the papyrus was not real? Do you also believe that Abraham was a nobody?

 

[Dale]

Martin Luther spent ten months at Wartburg Castle. During that time he translated the New Testament from Greek. Luther also composed several pieces during that time, including one addressed to an Orthodox Bishop.

In contrast, Joseph Smith first say the Egyptian papyrus in 1835. He did not publish a translation until 1842, seven years later. It took Joseph Smith seven years to translate the Book of Abraham, which is about 6500 words. Smith is a very slow translator.

What do we know about the time Smith spent working on the Book of Abraham?

"While some of the documents are clearly textually dependent upon others, there is also evidence of overlapping creation, false starts, and building upon previous work."

"The conflict ended with Joseph Smith’s arrest and the violent expulsion of thousands of Latter-day Saints from Missouri. By the time of the expulsion, each clerk who had assisted Smith in the translation of the Book of Abraham and Egyptian-language project had either left the church or been subject to church discipline."

The papers that JS left behind show "overlapping creation" and "false starts," clearly a sign that the B of A isn't a translation. We know that some of the clerks who helped Smith left the LDS church. Maybe they saw through Joseph Smith after assisting him at close quarters. Other assistants felt the lash of "church discipline." It looks like Joseph Smith was very hard on those who worked under him.


Link:
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/intro/introduction-to-revelations-and-translations-volume-4

 

[Dale]

Actually they did do human sacrifice:

"One issue that intrigued me was based on intimations from some authors that human sacrifice did not exist in ancient Egypt. [5] Egyptologists largely denied the existence of the practice, sometimes with vehemence. [6] I had always accepted this line of thought, until a fellow Latter-day Saint in my doctoral program, Val Sederholm, pointed out one possible instance of human sacrifice in Egyptian history. [7] Neither of us felt that proof of human sacrifice in Egypt was necessary for the support of the Book of Abraham’s story about Abraham’s near sacrifice since Abraham made it clear that the priest who nearly sacrificed him represented an amalgamation of ancient Near Eastern religions (see Abraham 1:7). Some of the cultures represented certainly performed human sacrifice. Still, the whole concept of sacred violence fascinated me, so I set out to write my dissertation on the religious framework for sanctioned killing in ancient Egypt. [8] I did not have a particular axe to grind; I merely wanted to discover what had happened in Egypt regarding this matter.

For a year and a half, I dedicated almost all of my time—sometimes fourteen hours a day—to researching and writing about sacred violence in Egypt. What surprised me most was how well the Egyptian culture I was discovering matched the culture painted by the Book of Abraham, and also how this knowledge helped me to understand various nuances of that book. Here I can give only the briefest synopsis of my findings."

More at: Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham | Religious Studies Center

It looks like the only human sacrifice ever practiced in Egypt is "retainer sacrifice." Servants of the Pharoah or some other eminent person were killed to serve their master in the afterlife. No one was ever offered to the gods in the manner of the Book of Abraham.

Even retainer sacrifice is generally believed to have ended after the First Dynasty. The First Dynasty lasted from 3100 BC to 2900 BC. It ended about 2900 BC. Now one of the few things all students of the Bible seem to agree on is that Abraham lived around 2000 BC, or about 4,000 years ago. Abraham lived about nine hundred years after retainer sacrifice ended as the norm in Egypt.


"Why was the practice of retainer sacrifice discontinued after the First Dynasty?"

This sentence opens one section of an article on the subject on the History of the Ancient World site.

No, it simply is not believable that Egyptians were practicing human sacrifice by priests at the time of Abraham.


Links
First Dynasty of Egypt - Wikipedia

Did the Ancient Egyptians Practice Human Sacrifice? - History of the Ancient World

 

[mmksparbud]

Except they did not do human sacrifice as portrayed nor did they mummify anyone other than high ranking officials or the wealthy.

I have no opinion of the papyrus itself. Many have been found, some even empty. But I am totally convinced that the human sacrifice depicted is completely made up. The translated words are all vastly different from what the actual Egyptian says, according to actual archeologists.

 

[He is the way]

Martin Luther spent ten months at Wartburg Castle. During that time he translated the New Testament from Greek. Luther also composed several pieces during that time, including one addressed to an Orthodox Bishop.

In contrast, Joseph Smith first say the Egyptian papyrus in 1835. He did not publish a translation until 1842, seven years later. It took Joseph Smith seven years to translate the Book of Abraham, which is about 6500 words. Smith is a very slow translator.

What do we know about the time Smith spent working on the Book of Abraham?

"While some of the documents are clearly textually dependent upon others, there is also evidence of overlapping creation, false starts, and building upon previous work."

"The conflict ended with Joseph Smith’s arrest and the violent expulsion of thousands of Latter-day Saints from Missouri. By the time of the expulsion, each clerk who had assisted Smith in the translation of the Book of Abraham and Egyptian-language project had either left the church or been subject to church discipline."

The papers that JS left behind show "overlapping creation" and "false starts," clearly a sign that the B of A isn't a translation. We know that some of the clerks who helped Smith left the LDS church. Maybe they saw through Joseph Smith after assisting him at close quarters. Other assistants felt the lash of "church discipline." It looks like Joseph Smith was very hard on those who worked under him.


Link:
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/intro/introduction-to-revelations-and-translations-volume-4

You say Joseph Smith was a slow translator yet he translated the Book of Mormon in just 65 working days while in his 20's. After the Book of Mormon was published in 1830 Joseph Smith had a lot of responsibility given to him. His time was divided in many directions. Previously from June of 1830 to July of 1833 he had gone through the Old and New Testaments producing nearly 500 pages of manuscript, containing thousands of variant readings and new passages that clarify and enhance the message of the Bible known today as the Joseph Smith translation or the JST. Joseph Smith was no slouch, but was willing to do whatever God asked him to do.

 

[Leaf473]

You say Joseph Smith was a slow translator yet he translated the Book of Mormon in just 65 working days while in his 20's. After the Book of Mormon was published in 1830 Joseph Smith had a lot of responsibility given to him. His time was divided in many directions. Previously from June of 1830 to July of 1833 he had gone through the Old and New Testaments producing nearly 500 pages of manuscript, containing thousands of variant readings and new passages that clarify and enhance the message of the Bible known today as the Joseph Smith translation or the JST. Joseph Smith was no slouch, but was willing to do whatever God asked him to do.

a few years ago, on a different forum, I was talking with a nice Mormon gentleman who really liked how the Joseph Smith translation clarified Genesis 2:5.

he was using the King James, and talked about how that verse didn't really make sense.

I tried several times to explain that verse 5 in the KJV is a continuation of a sentence that begins in verse 4.
everything makes sense when that is understood.

it seemed like he wasn't able to follow what I was saying, or was pretending that he wasn't able to.

 

[mmksparbud]

a few years ago, on a different forum, I was talking with a nice Mormon gentleman who really liked how the Joseph Smith translation clarified Genesis 2:5.

he was using the King James, and talked about how that verse didn't really make sense.

I tried several times to explain that verse 5 in the KJV is a continuation of a sentence that begins in verse 4.
everything makes sense when that is understood.

it seemed like he wasn't able to follow what I was saying, or was pretending that he wasn't able to.

Yes! It seems at times they do not understand the fact that the bible was not written with punctuation, sentences, paragraphs caps and chapters and verses. It is quite interesting to read a bible as it was written---without any of that and sometimes things just take on a different meaning. It can be very confusing at first. It is an interesting project to take a few verses, and totally eliminate all that and just read it and see where we put the punctuations. But they think whatever and however JS wrote things, that is the correct way. I don't think you friend was pretending, they are so convinced that everything JS writes is correct, they can not see it any other way, esp. those that were brought up as LDS from infancy.

 

[Leaf473]

Yes! It seems at times they do not understand the fact that the bible was not written with punctuation, sentences, paragraphs caps and chapters and verses. It is quite interesting to read a bible as it was written---without any of that and sometimes things just take on a different meaning. It can be very confusing at first. It is an interesting project to take a few verses, and totally eliminate all that and just read it and see where we put the punctuations. But they think whatever and however JS wrote things, that is the correct way. I don't think you friend was pretending, they are so convinced that everything JS writes is correct, they can not see it any other way, esp. those that were brought up as LDS from infancy.

a thing I find interesting is that both Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses claim that the Bible we have today has been significantly altered from what was originally written.

and both also claim to be fully in line with the Bible.

 

[He is the way]

It looks like the only human sacrifice ever practiced in Egypt is "retainer sacrifice." Servants of the Pharoah or some other eminent person were killed to serve their master in the afterlife. No one was ever offered to the gods in the manner of the Book of Abraham.

Even retainer sacrifice is generally believed to have ended after the First Dynasty. The First Dynasty lasted from 3100 BC to 2900 BC. It ended about 2900 BC. Now one of the few things all students of the Bible seem to agree on is that Abraham lived around 2000 BC, or about 4,000 years ago. Abraham lived about nine hundred years after retainer sacrifice ended as the norm in Egypt.


"Why was the practice of retainer sacrifice discontinued after the First Dynasty?"

This sentence opens one section of an article on the subject on the History of the Ancient World site.

No, it simply is not believable that Egyptians were practicing human sacrifice by priests at the time of Abraham.


Links
First Dynasty of Egypt - Wikipedia

Did the Ancient Egyptians Practice Human Sacrifice? - History of the Ancient World

There are certainly a lot of disagreements according to your article:

"
The viewpoint that the practice of human sacrifice ended after the First Dynasty is the most commonly held opinion amongst academics in the field. There are, however, other views regarding Ancient Egyptian human sacrifice. Some egyptologists discredit human sacrifice and ritual collective suicide entirely. The proximity of the subsidiary graves has often been used to prove retainer sacrifices existed but it’s also been noted that graves close to the king was a standard practice that continued well into the Old Kingdom. There has also been disagreement over the idea that all the graves were built simultaneously.

On the other side of the coin is the argument that retainer sacrifice carried on well into the Middle Kingdom. The argument being based on the one discovery of a decapitated foreigner inside the Middle Kingdom tomb in Migrissa, which was part of the Egyptian empire in Nubia. While sacrifice disappeared in certain regions when Nubia was ruled by the Egyptians, there is evidence their practices of ritual sacrifice continued well into the 5th and 6th century AD. Van Dijk mentions evidence of cultic retainer sacrifice in smaller numbers occurring at Migrissa. This was Nubian sacrifice, not Egyptian. This was not a case of ‘Egyptians extending such practices’ beyond their borders’. It was a Nubian practice that trickled away during Egyptian rule only to be revived when Nubian rule over Egypt ended in 657 BC. When Nubia was an Egyptian colony, Van Dijk maintains that “Slaves were protected from grim Nubian customs such as retainer sacrifice.”

There are also contridictions as to when Abraham lived, see:

Abraham and the Chronology of Ancient Mesopotamia

Best case scenario is that we really don't know a lot about that time period since there is so much disagreement. However, the evidence does lead to human sacrifice.

 

[ViaCrucis]

You may think it convenient that much of the papyrus from the Book of Abraham was burned by fire in a museum in Chicago, never the less it was.

Except the papyrus in question wasn't lost in the fire. Much of it was preserved and is very much still around, some of the papyrus was lost.

If the argument is that the Book of Abraham was only found in those papyrus fragments that are now lost, then yes, that is a pretty fantastic convenience.

If your dog eats your homework once, it's unfortunate.
If your dog eats your homework twice, it's suspicious.
If your dog keeps eating your homework, then you probably don't have a dog.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[He is the way]

a few years ago, on a different forum, I was talking with a nice Mormon gentleman who really liked how the Joseph Smith translation clarified Genesis 2:5.

he was using the King James, and talked about how that verse didn't really make sense.

I tried several times to explain that verse 5 in the KJV is a continuation of a sentence that begins in verse 4.
everything makes sense when that is understood.

it seemed like he wasn't able to follow what I was saying, or was pretending that he wasn't able to.

This scripture helps also:

(Old Testament | Genesis 2:1)

1 THUS the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.