LDS Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham is False

[dzheremi]

How can they say "the entire 'Joseph Smith Papyri'" when they don't have all of it and most likely most of what they do have isn't a part of the Book of Abraham?

The entire extant papyri known as the Joseph Smith Papyri has been translated, yes. The claims of the Mormon religion have nothing to do with the actual papyrological evidence.

 

[Rescued One]

hi Phoebe Ann!

it sounds like you're making a faith-based statement.
That's fine of course!

I've heard people say that they simply believe that the KJV is the absolute inspired word of God, word for word.
sometimes a person will choose to believe that the Earth is flat.

I think it is difficult to show that the documents that make up the Bible have been significantly altered.
this situation changes, though, if a person is highly motivated to believe they have been altered.

I think this is especially true for the New testament.
there are thousands of ancient Greek manuscripts available.
they agree for the vast majority of words.

doing some brief research on my phone, I found this quote and webpage which basically sums up the situation:
"For more than ninety-nine percent of the cases the original text can be reconstructed to a practical certainty."
Manuscript Evidence for the Bible's Reliability | Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries

I'm very confused by your response to 1 Nephi 13:29. Could you please explain?

 

[Rescued One]

I don't understand.
anything written by Joseph Smith would long ago have passed into the public domain.

any particular edition (a book or a website) produced in the last 100 years could be copyrighted,
but the actual text of the translation could not be copyrighted.

I found these two links to digitized versions of the 1867 edition,
but they're very difficult to search, imo.

The Holy scriptures : Smith, Joseph, 1805-1844 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The Holy Scriptures, tr. and cor. by the spirit of revelation : Smith, Joseph, 1805-1844 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I have a copy of the Holy Scriptures, Inspired Version(c. 1944, 13th printing), purchased by my husband in an LDS bookstore in 1970. There was no JST available. When he asked why the LDS don't use it, the answer he received was that the RLDS were an apostate group and the LDS, therefore, could not be certain of its accuracy.

Thank you for this information.

 

[Rescued One]

The January 1986 copy of the Ensign magazine carried an article by George A. Horton, Jr., "A Prophet Looks at Genesis."

A Prophet Looks at Genesis

 

[He is the way]

The entire extant papyri known as the Joseph Smith Papyri has been translated, yes. The claims of the Mormon religion have nothing to do with the actual papyrological evidence.

The 11 fragments have been translated, but much of the Papyri was burned up in the Chicago fire. It is likely Joseph Smith used one of the other scrolls for most of the Book of Abraham.

 

[dzheremi]

The 11 fragments have been translated, but much of the Papyri was burned up in the Chicago fire. It is likely Joseph Smith used one of the other scrolls for most of the Book of Abraham.

It really isn't likely, though. Because Egyptologists like Dr. Ritner know the provenance and content of the papyri (i.e., that it is not from Abraham's time, and that it is a common funerary scroll), they know what is reasonable to find with it and what is not reasonable to find with it. Mormon claims regarding what must've been found on the rest of the papyri are not reasonable at all, and are driven by religious rather than academic concerns.

Dr. Ritner deals with these kinds of claims himself below, beginning ~ 14:42:

The long and short of it is that there is absolutely no reason to expect much more -- or significantly different -- material than what is already found on the Joseph Smith Papyri as it is known to Egyptologists, and when what is claimed about the content of the text can be checked against what is actually found on the Papyri, it is wrong in basically every way that something can be wrong.

Just face it: There's no historical validity to the Book of Abraham. It is not what the Mormon religion says it is. Period. End of story.

 

[He is the way]

It really isn't likely, though. Because Egyptologists like Dr. Ritner know the provenance and content of the papyri (i.e., that it is not from Abraham's time, and that it is a common funerary scroll), they know what is reasonable to find with it and what is not reasonable to find with it. Mormon claims regarding what must've been found on the rest of the papyri are not reasonable at all, and are driven by religious rather than academic concerns.

Dr. Ritner deals with these kinds of claims himself below, beginning ~ 14:42:

The long and short of it is that there is absolutely no reason to expect much more -- or significantly different -- material than what is already found on the Joseph Smith Papyri as it is known to Egyptologists, and when what is claimed about the content of the text can be checked against what is actually found on the Papyri, it is wrong in basically every way that something can be wrong.

Just face it: There's no historical validity to the Book of Abraham. It is not what the Mormon religion says it is. Period. End of story.

It is very clear that the person on the table is not dead that is why it is not a common funerary scroll that was used. As far as time There are two important and peculiar aspects of ancient authorship which must be considered here. One is that according to Egyptian and Hebrew thinking would be that any copy of a book originally written by Abraham would be designated as the very work of his hand no matter how many reproductions were made. The other is that no matter who did the writing originally, it was Abraham who commissioned or directed the work and he would take credit for the actual writing. We don't have the original manuscript of the Bible yet we do know who wrote it.

 

[dzheremi]

It is very clear that the person on the table is not dead that is why it is not a common funerary scroll that was used.

How do you come to this conclusion? The person not looking dead to you means that non-LDS Egyptologists are all wrong?

Here's an image from an unrelated Egyptian funerary scroll (not the JS Papyri), for comparison:

That person doesn't 'look dead', either, yet it's the same general genre of writing as on the JS papyri. I don't see how this is evidence of anything. I'm not even an Egyptologist and I can still tell from the way actual Egyptologists talk about their profession that they do not base their conclusions on whether or not the figure who is laying down looks dead or alive. They base it on the actual text, which they can read, in addition to the surrounding scenes.

As far as time There are two important and peculiar aspects of ancient authorship which must be considered here. One is that according to Egyptian and Hebrew thinking

"Egyptian and Hebrew thinking"...what?

Are you pretending to know what ancient Egyptians and Hebrew thought, based on (presumably) what Mormonism says about those people? That's adorable. You're silly.

any copy of a book originally written by Abraham would be designated as the very work of his hand no matter how many reproductions were made.

This would almost be a point if it weren't for the fact that the text itself doesn't say that. There's nothing on the papyri itself that says anything about Abraham one way or another. That's not its topic.

The other is that no matter who did the writing originally, it was Abraham who commissioned or directed the work and he would take credit for the actual writing.

And if I were the queen of England, I would be living in a palace instead of a regular apartment. What's your point?

Again, this is just unrelated to the actual text of the papyri, so it's not really addressing the core complaint (that what JS came up with as the Book of Abraham bears no relation to the papyri, even though it is claimed in the book's introduction that it does).

We don't have the original manuscript of the Bible yet we do know who wrote it.

What?

Do you know what the Bible is? There is no "original manuscript of the Bible", since the Bible is not one book. It is a collection of writings from various sources, assembled according to a given canon (not all Christians or all Jews share the same canon of their respective holy scriptures).

 

[Leaf473]

I'm very confused by your response to 1 Nephi 13:29. Could you please explain?

sure, thanks for asking!

I had written

my impression from the bits and pieces I've read from Mormon sources about the JST is that he started it because he believed the Bible had been significantly corrupted.

I think this is a difficult case to make, especially for the New testament documents.

I believe you responded with the quote of 1 Nephi 13:29.

it sounded to me that you were saying that, against good evidence, the ancient manuscripts used to translate the Bible into English had been significantly corrupted, because 1 Nephi 13:29 said that it had been.

what you say is a difficult case to make unless one simply chooses to believe it.

this is in part because of the thousands of ancient Greek manuscripts available for the New testament.

so, we can have a high degree of confidence that we know what Paul wrote to the church at Corinth.
one thing he wrote is:
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Now I declare to you, brothers, the Good News
(good news means gospel)
which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

since Paul's written description of the Gospel is still available today, there is no need to restore it.

 

[Leaf473]

I have a copy of the Holy Scriptures, Inspired Version(c. 1944, 13th printing), purchased by my husband in an LDS bookstore in 1970. There was no JST available. When he asked why the LDS don't use it, the answer he received was that the RLDS were an apostate group and the LDS, therefore, could not be certain of its accuracy.

Thank you for this information.

you're welcome!

a book published in 1944 would still be under copyright.
however, it may contain a large amount of text that is in the public domain.

 

[Leaf473]

How do you come to this conclusion? The person not looking dead to you means that non-LDS Egyptologists are all wrong?

Here's an image from an unrelated Egyptian funerary scroll (not the JS Papyri), for comparison:

That person doesn't 'look dead', either, yet it's the same general genre of writing as on the JS papyri. I don't see how this is evidence of anything. I'm not even an Egyptologist and I can still tell from the way actual Egyptologists talk about their profession that they do not base their conclusions on whether or not the figure who is laying down looks dead or alive. They base it on the actual text, which they can read, in addition to the surrounding scenes.



"Egyptian and Hebrew thinking"...what?

Are you pretending to know what ancient Egyptians and Hebrew thought, based on (presumably) what Mormonism says about those people? That's adorable. You're silly.



This would almost be a point if it weren't for the fact that the text itself doesn't say that. There's nothing on the papyri itself that says anything about Abraham one way or another. That's not its topic.



And if I were the queen of England, I would be living in a palace instead of a regular apartment. What's your point?

Again, this is just unrelated to the actual text of the papyri, so it's not really addressing the core complaint (that what JS came up with as the Book of Abraham bears no relation to the papyri, even though it is claimed in the book's introduction that it does).



What?

Do you know what the Bible is? There is no "original manuscript of the Bible", since the Bible is not one book. It is a collection of writings from various sources, assembled according to a given canon (not all Christians or all Jews share the same canon of their respective holy scriptures).

The person on the table in the image you posted appears to have their eyes open, in my non-egyptologist opinion.

 

[He is the way]

How do you come to this conclusion? The person not looking dead to you means that non-LDS Egyptologists are all wrong?

Here's an image from an unrelated Egyptian funerary scroll (not the JS Papyri), for comparison:

That person doesn't 'look dead', either, yet it's the same general genre of writing as on the JS papyri. I don't see how this is evidence of anything. I'm not even an Egyptologist and I can still tell from the way actual Egyptologists talk about their profession that they do not base their conclusions on whether or not the figure who is laying down looks dead or alive. They base it on the actual text, which they can read, in addition to the surrounding scenes.



"Egyptian and Hebrew thinking"...what?

Are you pretending to know what ancient Egyptians and Hebrew thought, based on (presumably) what Mormonism says about those people? That's adorable. You're silly.



This would almost be a point if it weren't for the fact that the text itself doesn't say that. There's nothing on the papyri itself that says anything about Abraham one way or another. That's not its topic.



And if I were the queen of England, I would be living in a palace instead of a regular apartment. What's your point?

Again, this is just unrelated to the actual text of the papyri, so it's not really addressing the core complaint (that what JS came up with as the Book of Abraham bears no relation to the papyri, even though it is claimed in the book's introduction that it does).

What?

Do you know what the Bible is? There is no "original manuscript of the Bible", since the Bible is not one book. It is a collection of writings from various sources, assembled according to a given canon (not all Christians or all Jews share the same canon of their respective holy scriptures).

I can see that the person in your picture does NOT have one leg and both arms sticking up in the air. The one you pictured is in a sarcophagus. How is that the same? If you do not believe what I said about Egyptian and Hebrew thinking check it out for yourself, I did. So while it is true that the Papyri came from a latter period of time and was not the original papyri from Abraham it is still considered by him just as the copied manuscript from the writers of the Bible is considered their work. Do you believe the Bible is a fake because it is not written from the original manuscript which we do not have? Still you are missing the point. You believe that the 11 fragments of the papyri that was found in New York constituted the manuscript used to write the Book of Abraham. I believe that the original papyrus for most of the Book of Abraham was burned up in John H. Wood's museum in Chicago.

 

[mmksparbud]

I can see that the person in your picture does NOT have one leg and both arms sticking up in the air. The one you pictured is in a sarcophagus. How is that the same? If you do not believe what I said about Egyptian and Hebrew thinking check it out for yourself, I did. So while it is true that the Papyri came from a latter period of time and was not the original papyri from Abraham it is still considered by him just as the copied manuscript from the writers of the Bible is considered their work. Do you believe the Bible is a fake because it is not written from the original manuscript which we do not have? Still you are missing the point. You believe that the 11 fragments of the papyri that was found in New York constituted the manuscript used to write the Book of Abraham. I believe that the original papyrus for most of the Book of Abraham was burned up in John H. Wood's museum in Chicago.

That is not a sarcophagus---it is an Egyptian bed.

 

[He is the way]

That is not a sarcophagus---it is an Egyptian bed.

I was not talking about the bed. I was talking about what is on the bed.

 

[mmksparbud]

I was not talking about the bed. I was talking about what is on the bed.

Just going by this

The one you pictured is in a sarcophagus.

The one you pictured is a sarcophagus. And, no one has yet explained to me why any Egyptian was trying to kill Moses---with a knife. I don't remember what the book says and have no wish to read it again.

 

[He is the way]

Just going by this


The one you pictured is a sarcophagus. And, no one has yet explained to me why any Egyptian was trying to kill Moses---with a knife. I don't remember what the book says and have no wish to read it again.

They were going to sacrifice Abraham to the gods.

 

[mmksparbud]

They were going to sacrifice Abraham to the gods.

Oh, yah, now I remember. It6's just that this kind of human sacrifice was rarely done except in very early Egypt. Not at the time of Abraham. I did find this.

Human sacrifice is not generally connected with ancient Egypt. There is little evidence of human sacrifice during most of the dynastic period of ancient Egypt... but there is some evidence that it may have been practiced in the Nile Valley during the 1st Dynasty and possibly also Predynastic Egypt.



The earliest known example of human sacrifice may perhaps be found in Predynastic burials in the south of Egypt, dated to the Naqada II Period. One of the discovered bodies showed marks of the throat from having been cut before having been decapitated.



-- Human Sacrifice, Jacques Kinnaer



The two definitions of human sacrifice that could be applied to the very early development of ancient Egypt are:

• The ritual killing of human beings as part of the offerings presented to the gods on a regular basis, or on special occasions.
• Retainer sacrifice, or the killing of domestic servants to bury them along with their master.

-- Human Sacrifice, Jacques Kinnaer



Offerings to the Gods



One form of human sacrifices to the gods may have been in the form of slaying criminals and prisoners of war. Some early dynastic depictions of sacrifices have been found, showing a man holding a bowl, possibly using it to catch the blood of a victim who is seated in front of him. The man and the victim are normally before either gods or men of power, making it seem as if these scenes are of human sacrifices. Despite the pictures, there is not enough information as to why it was done, what happened with the blood in the bowl, or for whom it was done. Other than the human sacrifice theory, there is another theory as to what is happening in the scenes:

Two slabs were discovered dating to the beginning of the 1st Dynasty, one in Abydos concerning King Aha and the other in Saqqara, concerning King Djer. Each slab depicts a seated person directing a pointed instrument to the throat or chest of another person who is kneeling backwards with his arms tied behind his back. Petrie, Emery and Zaki Saaed believed that this denotes human sacrifice whereas Vikentiesf and Hussain believe it to be a tracheostomy being performed. The latter view is more appropriate as the lancet is used as a determinative "to breath" rather than the habitual signs of the nose or the sail. In Aha's slab the sign Ankh is present; the way the scalpel is handled is more appropriately directed to the trachea than the neck vessels as obviously the best way for slaughtering was known even at prehistoric times!



-- Medicine and Surgery in Ancient Egypt, Ahmes L. Pahor



Later in Egypt's history, Amenhotep II of the 18th dynasty claimed to have executed seven Syrian princes at the temple of Amen in Karnak, then displayed six of the bodies on the temple walls. Although he did not claim that it was a sacrifice to the gods, it shows that there is enough evidence that prisoners were killed at temples, making the depiction of Predynastic killings in front of deities likely to have actually happened.



The Cannibal Hymn



Not strictly an offering to the gods, the Cannibal Hymn of Unas and Teti talk of cannibalism to gain power from the gods in ancient Egypt. The Pyramid Texts have a section that seems to hint that in Predynastic times, the ruler could gain the magical powers of the gods through human sacrifice.



Utterances 273 - 274 of the Pyramid Texts, known as the Cannibal Hymn, describe the pharaoh as a god who cannibalises the gods - 'A god who lives on his fathers and feeds on his mothers ... who lives on the being of every god, who eats their entrails ... Pharaoh is he who eats men and lives on gods.'



It is a blood-thirsty text of the power of the pharaoh, talking of death and killing and devouring of body parts. This seems to combine ritual cannibalism with sacrifices to the gods, but there is no direct evidence that cannibalism was normally practiced in ancient Egypt.

No sacrifice was done on a bed. And they were done before whichever god they were sacrificing to. There is a very clear distinction between the writing of the ancient human sacrifice writing and that of much later, as at the time of Abraham. This depiction is not according to either period. Nope, nothng really supports the LDS claims.

 

[dzheremi]

I can see that the person in your picture does NOT have one leg and both arms sticking up in the air.

Neither does the person in the JS Papyri. It's filled in to look that way at a later date by someone. That's very obvious if you just look at the thing with your eyes:

The one you pictured is in a sarcophagus. How is that the same?

Where did I write it was the same, chuckles? I wrote that it was a from an unrelated (i.e., not the JS papyri) funerary scroll, since that's what the JS paypri actually is, so it makes sense to compare them. The point was to highlight that here is a piece of Egyptian writing that contains a similar scene, and as you can see there, the person being tended to by Anubis appears to be 'not dead', too (his eyes are wide open and everything), just as you had claimed about the image in the JS papyri. Or is the guy in the non-JS scene Abraham, too? Maybe the 'adulterous priest' (a.k.a., the jackal-headed god, for anyone who cares about the truth) is trying to kill Abraham this time with a giant Trivial Pursuit wedge, or whatever that is...

If you do not believe what I said about Egyptian and Hebrew thinking check it out for yourself, I did.

It's not that I believe it or disbelieve it; I just don't know what you're trying to say. I don't know what "Egyptian and Hebrew thinking" is. I mean, I wouldn't present myself as some kind of expert in how Egyptians think, though I am in communion with about 12 million of them, and have probably spent more time around them than you, and the ones I know would probably wonder the same thing that I wondered. I don't know if you've noticed this, but Egyptians and Hebrews have not exactly gotten along the best of any two people, either historically or currently, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make about any supposed commonalities you're claiming about their thinking, or how you have any knowledge in the first place about what's in their heads, let alone about what would have been in their heads centuries and centuries ago.

But by all means, anytime you want to point to something specific and defensible, I'm all ears.

So while it is true that the Papyri came from a latter period of time and was not the original papyri from Abraham it is still considered by him just as the copied manuscript from the writers of the Bible is considered their work.

Here's the problem with that, though: Even if that is true in a more generally sense about attribution of ancient texts, that wouldn't make a difference in this case because literally no one who isn't LDS or on the LDS/BYU/FARMS payroll thinks that the papyri has anything to do with Abraham in the first place. Because again, it doesn't. He is not mentioned at all in it.

Do you believe the Bible is a fake because it is not written from the original manuscript which we do not have?

Again, there is no "original manuscript" of the Bible in the first place. This point would be a lot easier to deal with if you knew what the Bible actually is, so that you could stop pretending that this means something.

Still you are missing the point.

You don't seem to have much of a point.

You believe that the 11 fragments of the papyri that was found in New York constituted the manuscript used to write the Book of Abraham. I believe that the original papyrus for most of the Book of Abraham was burned up in John H. Wood's museum in Chicago.

As I've already explained elsewhere, actual experts/academics in the field of Egyptology who have taken the time to translate the fragments that remain have thereby extrapolated from what is there to show that there is no reason to expect a substantially longer text than what they have now, let alone an unrelated text about Abraham. So this isn't much of a point, either.

It would be like if we had a papyri which had 75% of St. Mark's Gospel on it. Since we know where about to expect the beginning and ending of the entire thing (due to our possessing and understanding related manuscripts which are more complete/do not have that same damage), it would be unreasonable for someone to come along, a propos of nothing, and suggest that in the 25% that we know is missing (again, based on the text that we already have in front of us in comparison to other manuscripts we have), there was a story about Hezekiah and Sennacherib getting ice cream together and going windsurfing on the Nile. Why would that be there? Those are not figures from the Gospel of St. Mark, there's no reason to insert ice cream and windsurfing into a place and time where there's no evidence that they existed, etc. So it would be pretty foolish for a person to support such ideas, right? Even if they really, really believed in them and built a whole religion around believing in them and similar things.

I hope the parallel isn't lost on you.

 

[Rescued One]

sure, thanks for asking!

I had written

I believe you responded with the quote of 1 Nephi 13:29.

it sounded to me that you were saying that, against good evidence, the ancient manuscripts used to translate the Bible into English had been significantly corrupted, because 1 Nephi 13:29 said that it had been.

what you say is a difficult case to make unless one simply chooses to believe it.

this is in part because of the thousands of ancient Greek manuscripts available for the New testament.

so, we can have a high degree of confidence that we know what Paul wrote to the church at Corinth.
one thing he wrote is:
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Now I declare to you, brothers, the Good News
(good news means gospel)
which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

since Paul's written description of the Gospel is still available today, there is no need to restore it.

I believe the Book of Mormon is fiction. I merely provide information from LDS sources.

 

[Dale]

They were going to sacrifice Abraham to the gods.

I don't see where Joseph Smith has correctly given the name of one Egyptian god or one Babylonian god. The "gods" he mentions in the Book of Abraham are just a jumble.