How Was It Translated

[harrypotter]

Hi noticed a discussion going on about the BofA though i'd jion in as i have been studying this a bit lately.

According to the late Dr Hugh Nibley the facimiles are not a representation of the text for the book of Abraham in other words the text didn't come from the drawings, which are funaral papyri ie; book of breathing texts which are buried with the dead to aid them in the after life.

Egyptology should be intersting to LDS members as some parts of their beliefs are related to ours this is because the first pharaoh was a desedant of Ham one of the sons of Noah who having been denied the rights of the Priesthood through his linage saught to imitate it in his country named after this mother Egyptus ABR 1

How was the book of Abraham translated

Nibley explains the difference between translation and interpretation ie; any one can translate but not everyone can understand what they translate

an example would be if you stopped and egyptian and said "Horus is with Isris crossing the Nile followed by Anubis" they would just look at you and think you were crazy.

So how did Joseph Smith understand what was being said. i believe the answer to be it was given his through the Urrim and Thummin which being translated are called interpretors.

Through this he was able to understand what certain passages meant, how do we find out what they mean, we will recieve it from the Lord when we are prepared for it, like the sealed portion of the BofM.

CHAPTER III

Translated Correctly?

WHAT IS A TRANSLATION?

To the often-asked question, "Have the Joseph Smith Papyri been translated?" the answer is an emphatic no! What, then, is the foregoing? A mechanical transcription, no more. The hieratic text was mechanically reproduced by photography, transcribed into hieroglyphic by mechanically unimaginative reference to Moeller's and Levi's catalogues of signs, mechanically written in reverse by the use of a tracing table, transcribed into its theoretical English phonetic equivalents by reference to Gardiner's sign-list, and finally each word was matched by its modern equivalent as indicated in the Berlin Dictionary, while endings and particles were accounted for by rules laid down by Erman and Gardiner, who devoted their lives to making Egyptian texts translatable by infallible, automatic rules. What we have is a transmission rather than a translation of the text, and such transmission, as G. Santillana notes, "need in no way imply understanding." 1

Today those soliciting the aid of the computer find themselves forced to speak with a precision which philology in the past could always evade, and as a result confess to drastic defects in our knowledge of Egyptian. Thus W. Schenkel points out that so far no one has yet figured out a way to write Egyptian without hierogylphics—which means that there are fundamental aspects of the system which still escape us. The hardest question of all for the Egyptologist, according to W. Schenkel, is whether Egyptian writings can really be understood by anyone but an Egyptian. 2 Go up to the man in the car (it used to be the man in the street) when he stops at a red light and deliver this sober message to him: "Osiris shall be towed toward the interior of the great Pool of Khonsu," which is the first line of the Joseph Smith Papyrus No. XI. If the man gives you a blank look or starts an ominous muttering, explain to him that the great Lake of Khonsu is "probably a liturgical designation of the portion of the Nile that has to be crossed in order to reach the Theban cemetery on the west bank," and that Khonsu or Khons is a youthful moon-god. 3 When the light changes your new friend may proceed on his way knowing as much about the first line of our Book of Breathings as anybody else does, namely, nothing at all. Though as correct and literal as we can make it, the translation in the preceding chapter is not a translation. It is nonsense.

For what is a translation? The most carefully thoughtout definition is that of Willamowitz-Moellendorf: "A translation is a statement in the translator's own words of what he thinks the author had in mind." A little reflection will show that this is the best if not the only possible definition. Gardiner defines a sentence as "any set of words in which he [the hearer] can discern a reasonable intention on the part of the speaker." 4 A translation must therefore be not a matching of dictionaries but meeting of minds, for as the philologist Entwhistle puts it, "there are no mere words ... the word is a deed"; 5 it is a whole drama with centuries of tradition encrusting it, and that whole drama must be passed in review every time the word comes up for translation.

The ablest Egyptologists have always insisted that the main difficulty that confronts them is not a matter of grammar or vocabulary but a complete ignorance of what the Egyptian writer really had in mind. "The most perfect knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar of Egyptian does not suffice to pierce the obscurity," Renouf wrote long ago. "The difficulty resides not in the literal translation of the texts, but rather in the sense which is hidden behind the words with which we are familiar." 6 Or as Naville put it, "... a sentence that is easy to understand philologically, whose words and grammar cause us not the slightest perplexity, may all too often present a strange and even burlesque appearance; we have understood the form, but have not penetrated to the idea that lies behind it." 7 The Egyptian terms, Maspero noted, "always end up by escaping us, dragging us in the direction of our own present-day concepts." 8 "Too often we know approximately what a sentence means," Erman admitted, "but its exact translation is not yet possible in the present state of our knowledge," in which case he takes refuge, he says, in the "ars nescendi" of frankly admitting that he does not know, with a " 'das verstehe ich nicht,' und 'Gott weiss,' " whatever his students may think. 9

Hence "only by the unceasing re-working of texts, by combining, trial-and-error, and often also by daring guesses [is] it possible to make any progress. ... We are still obliged to come to grips with linguistic problems in every text that is not completely ordinary." 10 But here even the cautious Erman speaks too soon: is there such a thing as a "completely ordinary" text in Egyptian? To this day there is no agreement on the meaning of the most ordinary and familiar phrases in the religious writings, such as ma' khrw and per m hrw. 11 As an eminent contemporary Egyptologist puts its, "a certain helplessness in the face of these mythological records is unavoidable to both layman and Egyptologist," 12 and he demonstrates his point by showing how consistently the experts have misconstrued what an Egyptian had in mind when he employed various familiar words for "Sun." 13

The most valuable of all clues to understanding hieroglyphic texts has always been, according to Gardiner, "the logic of the situation." 14 Until we know what the situation is we are helpless, and the texts themselves rarely contain adequate clues: "These hoary strangers," wrote Breasted of the Pyramid Texts, "... often remain strangers until they disappear; we have no means of making their acquaintance or forcing them to reveal to us their names or the message which they bear, and no art of lexicography can force them all to yield up their secrets," for theirs is "a fabric of life, thought, and expression largely unfamiliar or entirely unknown to us." 15 Speaking of what have always been thought much easier texts, A. De Buck in our own day has written, "It is difficult to suppress a feeling of skepticism as to the intelligibility of the Book of the Dead version, not so much of its separate sentences, which as a rule are not difficult to translate, but before all things of the plot and story of the spell as a whole." 16 "I may say frankly," writes R. Anthes of an excellent popular edition of inscriptions in the tomb of Tutankhamen, "that I wonder what a reader not very well acquainted with Egyptian religion may possibly get out of the study of these texts and pictures. He may find in them scattered ideas which appeal to him in one way or another, but he will hardly know if his interpretations harmonize with what the Egyptians actually thought." 17

But is the Egyptologist much better off? "One is often asked this very simple question," wrote T. E. Peet. "Is it possible to read a piece of Egyptian as easily, as quickly, and as certainly as a piece of Greek or Latin? The answer to this must certainly be No." 18 "Egyptian texts are never easy," Peet explains. "Every translation ought to be accompanied by a copy of the original ... and by a mass of critical notes ... which repel the average reader." 19 But translations into English are properly meant for English readers who know no other language—the Egyptologist may be expected to read the original; what the average reader has a right to is a flawless translation here and now, and through the years various Egyptologists, by pretending that they could supply such, have beguiled the public and exploited its restless impatience with devastating effect against Joseph Smith.

The trouble is, in short, that the Egyptians just don't speak our language; every sentence of theirs from our point of view is in a technical jargon, "which," as Santillana observes, "can hardly be understood if it is not recognized. Nobody can interpret farther than he understands. ... The most refined philological method in the hands of expert philologists will yield only childish stuff out of them, if childish stuff is expected. Technical indications which would make clear sense to a scientist [or to a Latter-day Saint!] go unnoticed or mistranslated. ... It should be kept in mind that every translation is a mere function of the translator's expectations." 20 From which it would seem that no matter how well one knows one's Gardiner, or how many years one has spent in Egypt, one may still be totally excluded from the real meaning of any Egyptian text. Many scholars have known Greek better than any man alive knows Egyptian, yet to this day Greek literature is full of texts that no scholar even pretends to understand; is Egyptian so much more obliging?

HOW DID JOSEPH SMITH TRANSLATE?

What we are saying is that there is still an unbridged gulf, broad and deep, between the real message of the Joseph Smith Papyri and what purport to be translations of them. It is ironical that the chief weapon against the Prophet Joseph has always been the word translate, a word which none of his critics have bothered to define, but which if carefully considered might lead to fruitful investigation.

What the philologists have always overlooked is the positive contribution of Joseph Smith as a translator. He was a translator in the grand manner, whose calling was to convey the thoughts of the ancients to his own generation by any and all means which the Spirit put at his disposal. The work of restoring all things and "bringing all things together in one," the last great summing-up in which nothing should be lost, entails a great meeting of cultures and languages, and needs above all things an inspired interpreter. Joseph Smith's proper title is "Prophet, Seer, Revelator and Translator," the last referring to his unique and particular work and calling. He understands "translating," in its broad and proper sense, as the handing on of any part of the heritage of the past from one generation or culture or language to another, in which the rendering of written texts is only part of the process. Webster gives as the primary meaning of "translate," "to bear, remove, or change from one place, condition, etc., to another; to carry over; to transfer." Only when we get to his seventh choice do we find, "To render into another language. ... Broadly, to carry over from any one form or mode of expression to another; to interpret into another medium." Even here the idea of a "literal" translation must yield to that of interpretation, which is something quite different.

It is in this true and correct sense that Joseph Smith uses the word translation, while his crities, by employing it in a more narrow and limited sense, would ever turn it as a weapon against him. "While we were doing the work of translation which the Lord had appointed unto us, we came to the 28th verse of the 5th chapter of John, which was given to us as follows." (D&C 76:15.) Right here we can see that the critics of the papyri are wasting their time. The Prophet never claims to be operating as a linguist—the translation is given to him. We are reminded that he translated large parts of the Bible in the same way. Why, then, do scholars waste their time manipulating dubious Egyptian texts when a whole volume of Joseph Smith's translations lies to hand for comparison with countless translations by competent scholars of the very same biblical material? Take this passage from John, for example; are there not hundreds of scholars in the world today who can translate it "from the original Greek" better than Joseph Smith ever could? There are, and that should settle the matter. Only it doesn't. For if Willamowitz is right, how can any scholar ever be sure that he knows what John himself had in mind when he wrote those words which have baffled the doctors to this day? The "Johannine mystery" is today as much of a mystery as ever, and until we know just what John meant by the words attributed to him, we are in no position to claim that his words have been correctly translated.

Only within recent years have scholars such as Klaus Koch arrived at an estimate of the Apocrypha that exactly matches that of D&C 91, namely, that "there are many things therein that are true, and it is mostly translated correctly," but also that "there are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men. ... Therefore it is not needful that the Apocrypha be translated at this time." Here we are reminded that the problem is not one of translating from one language into another, for the incorrect interpolations are in the same languages as the rest, and no knowledge of language could produce a correct translation, which calls for nothing less than the original manuscript free even of all errors, even those made by the original writer; and it is doubtful whether any such text ever existed, for the hand is never completely obedient to the mind. To put it bluntly, short of revelation no real translation of John is possible, and that is why Bible experts today assure us that all translations are tentative and imperfect. But in section 91 translation plainly means transmission, which, as we have seen, is what a translation really is; we are told that certain parts are not translated correctly because they are false interpolations, yet they are in the same language as the rest and just as easy to "translate" as far as that goes—but that is not the point, which is that regardless of the language, they do not tell us what the original author wanted to say. No one ever stated the case more clearly than the Prophet Joseph himself when he said concerning 2 Peter, chapter 1, "the things that are written are only hints of things which existed in the prophet's mind. ..." (DHC 5:402.)

In 1835 the Prophet speaks of himself as being "continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham," using translation as the equivalent of deciphering—which it is. Again, speaking of what he entitled the "Explanation of the Above Cut" in the Book of Abraham, he writes, "the above translation is given as far as we have any right to give it at the present time," here identifying translation with interpretation or explanation of a picture in which there was no writing whatever. When we are told that "a few leaves, opened by Mr. Chandler for exhibition were shown to Professor Anthon of New York and Dr. Mitchell of Philadelphia, each of whom commenced a translation," we can be sure that those men were not translating as they did from the Classical languages which they knew so well—it was perfectly correct in this case to call any attempt at interpreting any old document a translation. 21 When we read in the eighth Article of Faith, "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God," we are given to understand that the latter work, though containing "the mistakes of men," is still translated more correctly than the Bible. Well, why translate the Bible at all? Can't we study Hebrew and Greek and read it in the original? We can, but again that is not the point, which is that it is not only the English Bible which has not been translated correctly, but that the ancient texts also have suffered in transmission. When Joseph Smith announced in the King Follett Discourse that "some old Jew without any authority" had altered the first verse of Genesis, he served notice that that verse as it stands cannot be translated correctly no matter how well one knows Hebrew. By using the word translation in one sense while Joseph Smith uses it in another, his critics have sought to do him great damage. What he means by translation is clearly apparent from a revelation given while the Prophet was producing the Book of Moses, in December of 1830: "Soon after the words of Enoch were given [these are contained in the Book of Moses], the Lord gave the following commandment: '... Behold, I say unto you that it is not expedient in me that ye should translate any more until ye shall go to the Ohio. ...' " (DHC 1:139; D&C 37:1.) In what language were "the words of Enoch" which Joseph had been translating? Where was the document? All we know is that Joseph Smith did produce—"translate"—a book of Enoch, which, matched with many ancient texts discovered since the Prophet's day, must be accepted as an authentic piece of the large and growing corpus of Enoch literature.

It is also important to understand Joseph Smith's method of translation. Typical of a carefully cultivated misunderstanding is Mr. Turner's statement to the world that "examination of these originals has heightened the confidence of some Egyptologists that the Book of Abraham is not a translation." 22 What originals? We have just seen that there has been a serious misunderstanding on this point: The Book of Breathings is not the pretended original text of the Book of Abraham at all. If the Book of Abraham were a hodgepodge of nonsense, one might well look for its source almost anywhere. But far from being nonsense, it tells a story of Abraham which subsequent documentary discoveries have confirmed in detail, and this, along with the now well-established tradition that Abraham did write an autobiography about his Egyptian experiences and that it was preserved and read by his descendants in Egypt, makes a very strong case for the proposition that the Book of Abraham was indeed taken from ancient writings. 23 If there is anything that the Mormons have always cried from the housetops, it is that Joseph Smith did not translate after the manner of the scholars; yet now Mr. Heward and his friends repeatedly put this fact forth as a brilliant discovery of modern science. Of course the Prophet did not translate in the manner of the Egyptologists—he had neither their tools nor their problems, for he had another method. Consider section 7 of the D&C: "Revelation given to Joseph Smith the Prophet, and Oliver Cowdery at Harmony, Pennsylvania, April 1829, when they inquired through the Urim and Thummim. ... The revelation referred to is the translated version of the record made on parchment by John and hidden up by himself." Here we have a translation which Joseph Smith did not make—it was given to him, and he calls it a revelation; yet it was made from a real document, on parchment or treated leather, which John wrote with his hand and then hid away. We know from recent discoveries that it was the custom among saintly communities of Palestine in John's day to write important things on leather and then hide them up in caves, so that is an authentic touch. But the remarkable thing is that though the translation was made from a real and tangible document, such a document was never in the hands of Joseph Smith; it may still be in existence in some corner of a cave or monastery or even museum, but it is plain that Joseph Smith never had it—he didn't need to have it or to know how to read it, for the whole thing was given to him: "Now this caused us to marvel, for it was given unto us of the Spirit." (D&C 76:18.) The translation of John, like the book of Enoch, was made from a document that was never in the Prophet's possession and may indeed have been destroyed thousands of years ago. Did he know the original language of Enoch? Nobody does, but that makes no difference when a translation is not worked out but given to one by revelation.

When he first got the plates, the Prophet recalled, "I commenced copying the characters off the plates. I copied a considerable number of them, and by means of the Urim and Thummim, I translated them." Mere copying was easy enough, with that he had no trouble; but translating was another matter—for that he needed the supernatural help of the Urim and Thummim. This was not translation by normal methods and was never proclaimed as such. As everybody knows, the rendering of an exact translation, especially from an ancient language, is supposed to be an impressively slow and meticulous process. But that is not how he worked. "Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon, without apparent hesitation, as fast as a scribe could write in long-hand. There is no chance for error on this point. The entire Whitmer family, besides Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and Joseph's wife, sat and listened, or had free access to listen, to the record as it grew day by day during the entire month of June, 1829." 24 As his wife tells it, "I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscript unless he was inspired; for, when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him." 25 "There were no delays over obscure passages, no difficulties over the choice of words, no stoppages from the ignorance of the translator; no time was wasted in investigations or argument over the value, intent, or meaning of certain characters, and there were no references to authorities. ... All was as simple as when a clerk writes from dictation. The translation of the characters appeared on the Urim and Thummim, sentence by sentence, and as soon as one was correctly transcribed the next would appear." 26 And so in seventy-five working days, between April 7, 1829, and the first week of July 1829, a book of 264,000 words was turned out, at an average of 3,500 words a day. 27

Plainly this peculiar type of translation depends on getting in the spirit and is not to be accomplished by intellectual effort alone. Of the Apocrypha the Lord told the Prophet, "... it is not needful that the Apocrypha should be translated. Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth; And whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit therefrom; and whoso receiveth not by the Spirit, cannot be benefited. Therefore it is not needful that it should be translated." (D&C 91. Italics added.) From this it appears that all men, and not just chosen prophets, have a right to inspiration if they are worthy, and that a translation is really a means of helping those to understand who are unable to get the Spirit for themselves.

Nothing could be less like the normal ways of scholarship than the inspired mood and method in which the Prophet Joseph did his translation. "In the darkness a spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God and not by any power of man." 28 If all the Prophet had to do was to read off an English text, why did he need the original characters in front of him? He didn't!

"I frequently wrote day after day," E. W. Tullidge recalls, "often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with a stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us. ... He used neither manuscript nor book to read from... the plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth." 29 David Whitmer confirms this: "He did not use the plates in the translation, but would hold the interpreters to his eyes ... and before his eyes would appear what seemed to be a parchment, on which would appear the characters of the plates ... and immediately below would appear the translation in English." 30

ARE GADGETS NECESSARY?

Why then did Joseph Smith need a Urim and Thummim, and why did he go through the greatest pains and perils to get and keep the plates if he didn't really need them? Can't we forget all the hardware and be guided by the Spirit alone? No, because God does not want it that way. Whether we find it agreeable and rational or not, God makes use of both human agents and physical implements in carrying out his purposes in the earth, not because he needs to but because he wants to help us help ourselves. We are here among other things to learn, and we will learn precious little if we get all our solutions from the answer book; we must have our faith tested and our skills improved. Being here to gain mastery of new dimensions of existence, we need practice and training in subduing the strange and difficult medium of the flesh, with which, thanks to the resurrection, we are destined to live forever; we cannot ignore physical bodies and physical things.

Let those who are still shocked at the proposition that the Spirit works with and through physical devices consider the visits of the Lord to his disciples after the resurrection. There he stands before them, the source of all knowledge and the wellspring of the scriptures themselves; he could well push the dusty books aside and admonish his listeners to heed him alone, from whom all the books came in the first place. Instead of that, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27); among the Nephites he called for the records and personally inspected them for errors and omissions, admonishing the people to spend their days reading the words of a prophet who had been dead for seven hundred years, "... for great are the words of Isaiah!" (3 Nephi 23:1.) If the Holy Ghost brings all things to our remembrance, one may well ask, why do we need to record anything at all? Because God has so commanded "for our profit and learning." (1 Nephi 19:23.)

We must not think that the Lord in giving his servants special devices to assist them was letting them off easy. He did not hand them the answer-book but only a slide rule. It takes far more formidable qualifications and far more intense concentration and cerebration to use a seerstone than it does to use a dictionary; the existence in our midst of computers does not mean, as some fondly suppose, that mathematicians and translators and genealogists no longer have to think—they have to think harder than ever. A Urim and Thummim, like a dictionary, is only an aid to the translator who knows how to work it, and may be gradually dispensed with as he becomes more proficient in his spiritual exercise. Admittedly, translating with a Urim and Thummim is not the normal way; it does not require philological training, but training of a far more exacting sort, since like the seer-stone it shows "things which are not visible to the natural eye" (Moses 6:35-36); it operates, as Buckminster Fuller would say, by the mind and not by the brain. 31 That requires even greater effort and discipline: "... when a man works by faith," said the Prophet, "he works by mental exertion, instead of exerting his physical powers." 32 It is the exertion of the mind, and it is the most strenuous and exacting work of all. Certainly the documents with which Joseph Smith was dealing could be translated in no other way than by the Spirit. How can any mortal ever know what the original first writer of Genesis had in mind save by the power of revelation? And without that knowledge no translation is possible. It was Brother Joseph's calling to interpret the minds of other dispensations to our own, and during the short time in which he worked at it he covered an astonishing lot of ground, handling huge masses of material which could only be rightly understood and explained by the power of revelation. In fulfilling his formidable mission he was never bound to any particular method or text or vocabulary or rules of grammar, since they are merely aids to any translator's ignorance. Every good translator will tell you that after all the aids and implements at his disposal, including his own long training, have been brought under contribution, it is in the last analysis his own feeling for things that makes a convincing translation—without intuition he could never make it. If truly scientific translation were possible, machine translation would have been perfected long ago; but where wide gaps of time and culture exist such a thing as a perfect translation is out of the question: in the end it is the translator's own imponderable intuition that is his claim to distinction. The most learned linguists do not make the best translators, and the uncanny skill of a Scaliger, Hicks, George Smith, or Ll. Griffith could divine the meaning of texts before which science and scholarship were helpless.

Even while they deplore anything that smacks of the mysterious or defies cold logic, no scholars are more keenly aware of the intuitive nature of translation than the Egyptologists. They constantly mention it. No man ever worked harder to achieve a foolproof scientific method of rendering Egyptian texts than Sir Alan Gardiner, yet his final verdict was that "the only basis we can have for preferring one rendering to another, when once the exigencies of grammar and dictionary have been satisfied—and these leave a large margin for divergency—is an intuitive appreciation of the trend of the ancient writer's mind. A very precarious basis, all will admit." 33 Note that this most conservative of Egyptologists leads us right to Willamowitz's concept of a translation. Long before, Naville pointed out that the assumption of a perfectly correct translation on scholarly scientific principles could only lead to frustration: "... we have perhaps missed the meaning because we have always broken the expression down into component elements and then translated each of those elements literally, which has led us on the wrong path. Analysis can be destructive," and this sets a definite limit on the claims of scholarship. 34 The key to Egyptian is not to be found in a grammar book or dictionary, but depends on knowing the Denkart of the Ancient East, according to Junker, which still eludes us. 35 How can we be expected to know what the Egyptians had in mind when even "the Egyptian scribes had difficulty in understanding what they were writing"? 36

How can we escape the absurd conclusion of many an Egyptologist, that the Egyptians took a willful delight in the incomprehensible? 37 The only hope is to follow Professor Bonnet's advice: "Every student should get the feeling for the complex reality of the textual content." 38 Yes, but how? By cultivating "an infinite naiveté, a massive shedding of one's own intellectual habits," is Professor Derchain's answer. 39 After learning everything that can be known about the Egyptians, he suggests, one then learns to "think Egyptian" by "imagining to one's self how an Egyptian would react," taking care to be "sensible to the finest nuances" of a text. 40

Very well, but if there is anything that cannot be acquired by study it is an "infinite naiveté," and the only way one becomes an Egyptologist in this world is not to shed one's own intellectual habits but to conform in all things to the most conventional and regimented forms of departmental behavior on earth. The Egyptologist is the last person in the world to meet Professor Derchain's requirements; but even if one were to succeed, who could judge whether he was really thinking like an Egyptian or not? If "the problem for the translator is, how to give the reader the feeling that he 'was there,' " 41 how is he to do it if he was never there himself? It is more than a vast gulf of time that lies between us and the Egyptians—it is an insuperable wall of religion. "Religion is the Schmerzkind of Egyptology," wrote the great Erman at the end of his life. "For half a century I have wrestled with it, and how little certainty has come out of it all! Everyone still invents his own Egyptian religion. One might say that whatever we come up with is wrong; because the task is simply insoluble. I have never been able to escape from this verdict." 42 G. Santillana notes that the Berlin Dictionary gives thirty-seven different terms for "heaven," "whose nuances are left to the translator and used according to his lights. So elaborate instructions in the Book of the Dead, referring to the soul's celestial voyage, translate into 'mystical talk,' and must be treated as holy mumbo jumbo." 43

To this day no Egyptologist can do more than pretend to understand the Book of Breathings or the Facsimilies to the Book of Abraham. Though by departmental courtesy we credit them with knowledge they do not possess, it is safe to say that they are still without a foothold in reality. Fortunately for us, the most forthright statement on the subject of translating Egyptian has been made by B. H. Stricker in a specific reference to the Book of Breathings: "The text is so pregnant," he writes, "that well-nigh every word, whether substantive, verb, or even preposition possesses a hidden [mystieke] content. The mere business of translating, under such circumstances, becomes virtually impossible. A translation can here be nothing more than a caricature." 44 Such is the predicament of any scholar who undertakes to translate the Joseph Smith Papyri.

METHOD VERSUS RESULTS

It is first and last on the grounds of method that Egyptologists have weighed Joseph Smith in the balance and found him wanting. Once the method has been discredited, it has been considered unnecessary to look further into the results of that method. But the Prophet has saved us the trouble of faulting his method by announcing in no uncertain terms that it is a method unique to himself depending entirely on divine revelation. That places the whole thing beyond the reach of direct examination and criticism, but leaves wide open the really effective means of testing any method, which is by the results it produces. The results in this case are a formidable corpus of purportedly ancient records which can be readily tested as such. Yet to this day the critics insist on confining their efforts strictly to an exposé of Joseph Smith's method, while avoiding any discussion of the results with almost hysterical touchiness. The case of Joseph Smith versus the scholars thus presents a remarkable parallel to the more recent experience of Michael Ventris with his critics.

Some years ago a young English architect by the name of Michael Ventris announced that he had decoded the so-called Minoan Script B, which had baffled scholars for almost a century, and invited all to put his findings to the test. Instead of welcoming his contribution with open arms, the most eminent authorities condemned it outright, for Ventris had presumed to aver that Minoan B was related to Greek, whereas Sir Arthur Evans, though he could not read it, had announced 80 years before that it was not Greek; moreover, Mr. Ventris was very young and, worst of all, he who presumed to question the most eminent scholars was himself a mere amateur. To justify the out-and-out rejection of Ventris's findings was simply a matter of showing that his method was completely at variance with the practice of the experts: if he didn't use the correct scientific method, he couldn't possibly arrive at the right results, could he?

In the young man's defense, Professor L. R. Palmer of Oxford pointed out that the objections of the experts were really quite irrelevant, "... criticism of his basic assumptions, his methods, the inadequacy of the script is beside the point." 45 How so? These were the very things the authorities pounced on in order to demolish Ventris; if the man's basic assumptions are wrong, his methods unacceptable, and his evidence inadequate, what more witness do we need? Why is all that "beside the point"? Because, Professor Palmer explains, in producing his translations, Ventris has "committed himself irrevocably to a precise set of predictions of great complexity," which can only be verified or refuted by the discovery of texts unknown to Ventris when he made his predictions, texts "which did not enter into the original calculation." 46 Once such texts are available, the test of Ventris is "simply the verification of a set of predictions, regardless of the way in which they were arrived at." 47 Given such a perfect "control," long syllogistic arguments based on method are a waste of time. When texts unknown at the time Ventris laid down his rules were duly discovered and confirmed his position on point after point, the critics, as might be expected, were prompt "to ascribe any 'successes' to pure chance," pointing out that since all sorts of sound combinations were possible "some sort of meaning could be wrung out of any such text." 48 Such an argument, Palmer observes, impresses only those who have not "wrestled with these texts," and who conveniently ignore the possibility of checking the probabilities mathematically in each specific case. True, each language disposes of countless phonemes, but only uses a few of them, so that if Ventris uses a shotgun he is not shooting at a solid target, but at "space thinly peopled by patterned constellations," and if each pellet connects, that can hardly be pure chance. 49

The case of Joseph Smith and the Book of Abraham provides a striking parallel to this. He, too, offended basic assumptions of scholarship—what possible relationship could there be between the religions of the polytheistic Egyptians and the monotheistic Hebrews? the indignant Professor Breasted asked in 1912. Joseph Smith too was a youthful amateur, totally unacquainted to the bargain with the methods and materials of scholarship: his methods were simply outrageous—no need to look any farther for evidence to damn him. And they never did look any farther. But in publishing the Book of Abraham the Prophet, even more than Ventris, had "committed himself irrevocably to a precise set of predictions of great complexity"; he told a story of Abraham that nobody knew anything about in his day, and threw in books of Enoch and Moses for good measure. Within the past hundred years hundreds of ancient documents "which did not enter into the original calculation" of Joseph Smith have come to light—all vindicating the strange stories and teachings he has given us about the ancient patriarchs. Like young Mr. Ventris, Joseph let loose with his shotgun, and his critics were quick to protest that with so many guesses some were bound to be right by pure coincidence and common-sense; but in his case also, when hundreds of buckshot hit their distant and illusive targets, mere chance is ruled out. With the sources now available, but unknown in the Prophet's time, to check his stories of Abraham, Enoch, and Moses, criticism of his basic assumptions, methods, and documents as unscientific and inadequate is indeed "beside the point."

Over the signatures of Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff, and George Albert Smith there appeared in the Times and Seasons for October 8, 1840, a statement which "breathes that spirit of liberty in the pursuit of knowledge characteristic of the work of God in the last days," according to the editor. "We consider it perfectly consistent with our calling, with reason and revelation," the brethren wrote, "that we should form a knowledge of kingdoms and countries whether at home or abroad, whether ancient or modern, whether of things past or present or to come; whether it be in heaven, earth or hell, air or seas; or whether we obtain this knowledge by being local or travelling, by study or by faith, by dreams or by visions, by revelation or by prophecy, it mattereth not unto us; if we can but obtain a correct [view of] principles, and knowledge of things as they are, in their true light, past, present and to come." 50 Here is a clear statement of the principle enunciated by Professor Palmer: it "mattereth not" what method is used as long as one finds the way to demonstrably valid and correct information. The coming forth of some of the Joseph Smith Papyri in our time is a reminder that many channels of light and truth are open to us and that the Spirit chooses its own methods. Latter-day Saints are constantly asking, How did Joseph Smith translate this or that? Do we still have a seer-stone? Will we ever get the Urim and Thummim back? What about the sealed parts of the plates? Do we have the original text of the Book of Abraham? Where is the Book of Joseph?—etc., etc. With Professor Palmer, this writer views all such questions as totally irrelevant to establishing the bona fides of the Prophet. They do not even make sense as expressions of normal human curiosity, since Joseph Smith made it perfectly clear that the vital ingredient in every transmission of ancient or heavenly knowledge is always the Spirit, which places his experiences beyond the comprehension and analysis of ordinary mortals.

But if the Prophet can never be pinned down in matters of sources and method, it is from the nature of the thing and not from any desire on his part to escape examination. Far from it; he was always inviting his critics to put the inspired writings to all such valid and established tests as may be applied to any purportedly ancient document, and he gave them a hundred times more evidence than they would need to determine the measure of their authenticity. If it mattereth not by what imponderable method Joseph Smith produced his translations, as long as he came up with the right answers, it matters even less from what particular edition of what particular text he was translating. It is enough at present to know that the Prophet was translating from real books of Abraham, Moses, Enoch, Mosiah, and Zenos, whose teachings now reach us in a huge and growing corpus of newly discovered writings. But instead of matching Joseph Smith's bold and explicit images of the past, "regardless of the way in which they were arrived at," with what is now being found, his critics can still think of no better attack than to go on chanting their monotonous and forlorn refrain: "He was no scholar, he was not one of us, he did not use our methods!"

FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER III

Footnotes

1. G. Santillana, Hamlet's Mill, p. 120.

2. W. Schenkel, Chron. d'Eg. 43:51, 58f.

3. K. Baer, Dialogue 3:119.

4. A.H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, p. 410. Italics added.

5. W.J. Entwhistle, Aspects of Language (Oxford, 1953), p. 4.

6. Cit. C. Capart, Religion of Egypt, p. 33.

7. E. Naville, Das aeg. Todtenbuch I (Intd.), pp. 2-3.

8. G. Maspero, Bibliotheque Egyptologique I, 22.

9. A. Erman, Aus meinem Leben u. Wirken, pp. 271, 281.

10. Erman, op. cit., p. 254.

11. Of the second, Naville after years of toil regrets that he has "so far been unable to translate these three Egyptian words in a satisfactory manner" (op. cit. I, 23-24). "The idea of Ma-Hrou has exhausted the efforts of Egyptologist from the beginning," A. Moret, Mystés Egyptiennes, p. 136.

12. R. Anthes, Artibus Asiae 20:92.

13. A. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, p. 24.

14. J. Breasted, Religion & Thought, p. 90.

15. A. De Buck, JEA 38:87.

16. Anthes, op. cit., p. 92.

17. T.E. Peet, The Present Position of Egyptian Studies (Oxford, 1934), p. 14.

18. T.E. Peet, JEA 10:116.

19. G. Santillana, The Origins of Scientific Thought (N.Y.: Mentor Books, 1961), pp. 11f.

20. B.Y. Academy Review, I (March 1885).

21. New York Times, May 2, 1970.

22. See our long discussion in the Improvement Era, 72-73 (Jan. 1969-May 1970).

23. N.L. Nelson, The Mormon Point of View (Provo, 1904), pp. 124-25.

24. Quoted in the Improvement Era, 42:631.

25. Q. Reynolds, Myth of the Manuscript Found (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor, 1883), p. 71.

26. F.W. Kirkham, New Witness for Christ in America (Salt Lake City: BYU, Utah Printing Co., 1960), pp. 220-27.

27. B.H. Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church, 1:128. 51

8. E.W. Tullidge, Life of Joseph the Prophet (Plano, Illinois: Reorganized LDS Church, 1880), p. 793.

29. Interview in the Kansas City Journal, June 5, 1881.

30. B. Fuller, Intuition (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972), pp. 77-99.

31. Joseph Smith, Lectures on Faith, No. VII, Sect. 3.

32. A.H. Gardiner, in JEA, 9:6. Italics added.

33. E. Naville, Totenbuch, Intd. 22-23.

34. Cit. W. Kaiser, in OLZ, 58 (1963), pp. 340-43; Naville, in Bibliotheque Egyptologique, 1:26f.

35. E.A.W. Budge, Religion of Eg., pp. 41ff, and in Archaeologia, 52:45, and Book of the Dead, Pap. of Ani, II, 469.

36. H. Schack-Schackenburg, Zweiwegebuch, p. 9.

37. H. Bonnet, in OLZ, 1957, p. 403.

38. P. Derchain, in Chronique d'Egypte, 44:79, 82.

39. F.P. Connor, in The Listener, 67 (1962), p. 175.

40. A. Erman, Mein Werden u. Wirken, pp. 279, 285.

41. G. Santillana, Hamlet's Mill, p. 73.

42. B.H. Stricker, O.M.R.A., 31:54.

43. L.R. Palmer, in OLZ, 53:106.

44. Ibid., pp. 102-103.

45. Ibid., p. 104.

46. Ibid., pp. 106, 109.

47. Ibid., p. 111.

48. Times and Seasons, October 28, 1840: DHC IV:234.

[Heather]

It always interests me that all of the scriptures are full of examples where God makes us meet him halfway. In First Nephi, God could've had Laban drop dead. He could've had the plates appear in Lehi's tent, so why all of the tests? He could've given Nephi the tools to build the boat, or even made the boat appear out of thin air. Surely that would've been just as much of a miracle as it was for Nephi to know how to build a boat when he has never before. It makes me realize that nothing is going to be handed to us on a silver plater. I'm sure we've all seen what happens to children who are raised, never having to do anything for themselves. Is Heavenly Father the ultimate Love and Logic Master?

[Guest ApostleKnight]

Wow, now I know what people feel like reading my posts...sleepy, hahahahaha Seriously though, that's cool. I'm always up for a lil' light and truth, thanks.

[Jason]

I believe that the answer on how the scrolls were translated is answered by the question: "How were the Kinderhook plates translated?"

The answer to that question will answer both.

[Ray]

Originally posted by Jason@Sep 21 2005, 10:50 AM

I believe that the answer on how the scrolls were translated is answered by the question: "How were the Kinderhook plates translated?" 

The answer to that question will answer both.

←

And I think a description of the Kinderhook plates would help other people understand what you are saying. And then, whether or not we can know whether or not what you are saying is true depends on whether or not we can know the truth.

[Jason]

Originally posted by Ray+Sep 21 2005, 12:16 PM-->

<!--QuoteBegin-Jason@Sep 21 2005, 10:50 AM

I believe that the answer on how the scrolls were translated is answered by the question: "How were the Kinderhook plates translated?" 

The answer to that question will answer both.

←

And I think a description of the Kinderhook plates would help other people understand what you are saying. And then, whether or not we can know whether or not what you are saying is true depends on whether or not we can know the truth.

←

Ok...a little background on the Kinderhook plates:

http://www.xmission.com/~country/reason/kinder.htm ("Anti")

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/respons.../kinderhook.htm ("Apologists")

[Guest Member_Deleted]

Thank you Harrypotter. This is exactly what I needed to read. I am not totally finished reading it all, but over the next week, I will find time to put all the good information somewhere in my brain.

[Paul Osborne]

I’ve read quite a bit of Dr. Nibley’s stuff and strongly disagree on important issues. Let’s not forget that Dr. Nibley was just a school teacher – he was NOT a prophet. I’ve read through his argument against the Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar and find his paradigm to be faulty. I think Nibley was a dishonest scholar at best. His crafty articles are peppered with deception. Thank God he was never called to be a general authority because I would not have sustained him.

Now that he is gone maybe the LDS Nibley cult will settle down some. I'm so sick of hearing about Nibley. You'd think he was the President of the church the way people rave about him and call attention to his writings. The man was wrong about a great many things.

Paul O

[Guest Member_Deleted]

Originally posted by Paul Osborne@Sep 21 2005, 01:01 PM

I’ve read quite a bit of Dr. Nibley’s stuff and strongly disagree on important issues. Let’s not forget that Dr. Nibley was just a school teacher – he was NOT a prophet. I’ve read through his argument against the Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar and find his paradigm to be faulty. I think Nibley was a dishonest scholar at best. His crafty articles are peppered with deception. Thank God he was never called to be a general authority because I would not have sustained him.

Now that he is gone maybe the LDS Nibley cult will settle down some. I'm so sick of hearing about Nibley. You'd think he was the President of the church the way people rave about him and call attention to his writings. The man was wrong about a great many things.

Paul O

←

Well I do disagree to some extent. But then I can only go by my own experience.

[harrypotter]

Originally posted by Paul Osborne@Sep 21 2005, 01:01 PM

I’ve read quite a bit of Dr. Nibley’s stuff and strongly disagree on important issues. Let’s not forget that Dr. Nibley was just a school teacher – he was NOT a prophet. I’ve read through his argument against the Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar and find his paradigm to be faulty. I think Nibley was a dishonest scholar at best. His crafty articles are peppered with deception. Thank God he was never called to be a general authority because I would not have sustained him.

Now that he is gone maybe the LDS Nibley cult will settle down some. I'm so sick of hearing about Nibley. You'd think he was the President of the church the way people rave about him and call attention to his writings. The man was wrong about a great many things.

Paul O

←

You'r right Nibley was not a prophet but for me he seemed to put up a good arguement and he defends the truth kinda like B H Roberts.

I think it is harsh to call somebody dishonest when they were only trying to find the bottom of a mystery just the same as you are, the fact they he created a fan base i don't beleive to be his fault.

We are right though to take every thing we hear about this subject with a pinch of salt. It is given to us to know truth from error good from evil through the Holy Ghost which cleanses us and teaches us all that is true, we have it's companionship when we live the gospel and follow the teachings of Christ sometimes we can get so caught up in wanting to know we forget that, The quickest way to find out anything is actually to get out and do missionary work go hometeaching vist the sick go to the temple.

Knowledge is secondary to becoming scholarahip is secondary to disipleship, we are here to use the challenges of mortality to open our spiritual eyes we can then percieve the world as heavenly father sees it and be able to understand things on his level such as the Abrham writing it is one of the basics of studying any novel to see the view piont of it's author.

[Paul Osborne]

harrypotter,

Your points are well taken and I can’t argue with good sense. My dissatisfaction with Nibley grew as I made what I thought was an honest attempt to look at honesty. Here are a couple of links where I analyzed some of his suggestive reasoning. I thought I was being pretty FAIR about it.

Hugh Nibley

Hugh Nibley strikes again!

Paul O

[Paul Osborne]

Please,

Well, there are some important issues that I disagree with Nibley, largely the value of the Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar which he coined as the “Kirtland Papers”, moreoever, the idea the real papyrus is missing. The fact is, Nibley was only a school teacher and never obtained the level of a general authority, or perhaps his works would have taken even a greater cult following within the church. Apparently you haven’t been able to target any deception from his writings? His tactics are pretty obvious to me. Nonmembers of the church can spot them really easy because they have no special allegiance to him or consider him to be inspired, or honest. I don’t blame the antis, because in my book, trust is something that is earned, not just handed out. Nibley never earned my trust. There are too many red flags and red fishes in his work.

Paul O

[Guest Member_Deleted]

Originally posted by Paul Osborne@Sep 22 2005, 07:11 AM

Please,

Well, there are some important issues that I disagree with Nibley, largely the value of the Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar which he coined as the “Kirtland Papers”, moreoever, the idea the real papyrus is missing. The fact is, Nibley was only a school teacher and never obtained the level of a general authority, or perhaps his works would have taken even a greater cult following within the church. Apparently you haven’t been able to target any deception from his writings? His tactics are pretty obvious to me. Nonmembers of the church can spot them really easy because they have no special allegiance to him or consider him to be inspired, or honest. I don’t blame the antis, because in my book, trust is something that is earned, not just handed out. Nibley never earned my trust. There are too many red flags and red fishes in his work. 

Paul O

←

I believe that when we understand one thing clearly .. that being important and unobtainable information surrounding the works of the Prophet JS are necessary to know without the spirit of revelation.. of its truthfulness.. and if God had wanted that absolute proof... it would be there... but apparently HE doesn't. Would you thwart the work of God in your personal ambition?

[Paul Osborne]

Please,

I think our brains are more powerful than we give credit. Revelation is important in comprehending the things of God but there is no reason to throw our hands up and say, “We can’t fathom these things because there is no revelation to do so”. We have to try, regardless of our shortcomings and inability to comprehend higher things.

My personal ambition is to learn as much as I can and understand it in the process. If that somehow thwarts God’s plan then he can take a stick and beat me with it. I’m not going to let the mysteries scare me away into trying to get to the bottom of things. I’ve got a brain and I intend to use it. I encourage other brains to help me out. Of course, some brains will not want to get involved because they think these things are unattainable without a revelation. Gathering evidence and information is vital in building a case. If this is against God’s plan, then he will just have to smite me with a stick. But I don’t think it is against his plan. I’m not afraid. Are you afraid? Obviously you have to build your own faith based plan to carry you through the unexplained mysteries and apparent contradictions. I don't fault you for that but I do fault you for not making an effort to search the mysteries or to hold someone else back who is trying to search the mysteries.

I don't care if the whole world is against me. I will continue to search the mysteries of the Joseph Smith papyri, come hell or high water. Truth is what makes us free and I want more truth, not just back burners to simmer faith in pots and pans.

Give me anwers or give me death. I'll never be satisfied with the silly answers that BYU offeres. That's why I set my own little shop up and went out on my own limb.

Paul O

[Guest Member_Deleted]

Originally posted by Paul Osborne@Sep 22 2005, 08:39 PM

Please,

I think our brains are more powerful than we give credit. Revelation is important in comprehending the things of God but there is no reason to throw our hands up and say, “We can’t fathom these things because there is no revelation to do so”. We have to try, regardless of our shortcomings and inability to comprehend higher things.

My personal ambition is to learn as much as I can and understand it in the process. If that somehow thwarts God’s plan then he can take a stick and beat me with it. I’m not going to let the mysteries scare me away into trying to get to the bottom of things. I’ve got a brain and I intend to use it. I encourage other brains to help me out. Of course, some brains will not want to get involved because they think these things are unattainable without a revelation. Gathering evidence and information is vital in building a case. If this is against God’s plan, then he will just have to smite me with a stick. But I don’t think it is against his plan. I’m not afraid. Are you afraid? Obviously you have to build your own faith based plan to carry you through the unexplained mysteries and apparent contradictions. I don't fault you for that but I do fault you for not making an effort to search the mysteries or to hold someone else back who is trying to search the mysteries.

I don't care if the whole world is against me. I will continue to search the mysteries of the Joseph Smith papyri, come hell or high water. Truth is what makes us free and I want more truth, not just back burners to simmer faith in pots and pans.

Give me anwers or give me death. I'll never be satisfied with the silly answers that BYU offeres. That's why I set my own little shop up and went out on my own limb.

Paul O

←

I think you misunderstood what I was saying... I was saying that if God wants it revealed... it will be in His own good time and in His own way...

Do you not remember JS and the 116 pages?

[harrypotter]

Originally posted by Please+Sep 22 2005, 09:06 PM-->

<!--QuoteBegin-Paul Osborne@Sep 22 2005, 08:39 PM

Please,

I think our brains are more powerful than we give credit. Revelation is important in comprehending the things of God but there is no reason to throw our hands up and say, “We can’t fathom these things because there is no revelation to do so”. We have to try, regardless of our shortcomings and inability to comprehend higher things.

My personal ambition is to learn as much as I can and understand it in the process. If that somehow thwarts God’s plan then he can take a stick and beat me with it. I’m not going to let the mysteries scare me away into trying to get to the bottom of things. I’ve got a brain and I intend to use it. I encourage other brains to help me out. Of course, some brains will not want to get involved because they think these things are unattainable without a revelation. Gathering evidence and information is vital in building a case. If this is against God’s plan, then he will just have to smite me with a stick. But I don’t think it is against his plan. I’m not afraid. Are you afraid? Obviously you have to build your own faith based plan to carry you through the unexplained mysteries and apparent contradictions. I don't fault you for that but I do fault you for not making an effort to search the mysteries or to hold someone else back who is trying to search the mysteries.

I don't care if the whole world is against me. I will continue to search the mysteries of the Joseph Smith papyri, come hell or high water. Truth is what makes us free and I want more truth, not just back burners to simmer faith in pots and pans.

Give me anwers or give me death. I'll never be satisfied with the silly answers that BYU offeres. That's why I set my own little shop up and went out on my own limb.

Paul O

←

I think you misunderstood what I was saying... I was saying that if God wants it revealed... it will be in His own good time and in His own way...

Do you not remember JS and the 116 pages?

←

When are the mysteries of God and the Joseph Smith papryus not that mysterious.I've been thinking quite a bit and a certain scripture comes to mind quite often;

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the one true living God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent."

The mysteries of God is Eternal life. How do we comprehend that, and is that what we desire and are willing to live for.

I think we should take time to read the hymn "if i could hie to kolob"

The mystery is there was no beginning there will be no end we have always been in existence all matter has been in existence it is Gnaulom (unsure spelling check Abr) or (eternal)

I think the greatest mystery is the fact that we are children of God and as a right heirs of all that he has how grateful we should be that he wants to share that with us.

In order to comprehend it though we must learn line upon line there is no piont sending a 3 year old to university before he has gone to playschool. The mysteries of God will be unfolded to us when we belive in Christ because in him is eternal life we can comprehend eternal life in him if we live the gospel.

And as he grew from grace to grace so shall we for light cleaveth to light.

I must admit i am more of a philosopher than a scholar i don't know much about the papyrus

But i know that the mysteries of God are centered in Jesus christ and the way he lived his life and that through a study of his life and applying it's principles we can be reconiled to God through the atonement so that we will one day comprehend God and understand what he is trying to bring to pass.

[Guest Member_Deleted]

Originally posted by harrypotter+Sep 23 2005, 01:15 AM-->

Originally posted by Please@Sep 22 2005, 09:06 PM

<!--QuoteBegin-Paul Osborne@Sep 22 2005, 08:39 PM

Please,

I think our brains are more powerful than we give credit. Revelation is important in comprehending the things of God but there is no reason to throw our hands up and say, “We can’t fathom these things because there is no revelation to do so”. We have to try, regardless of our shortcomings and inability to comprehend higher things.

My personal ambition is to learn as much as I can and understand it in the process. If that somehow thwarts God’s plan then he can take a stick and beat me with it. I’m not going to let the mysteries scare me away into trying to get to the bottom of things. I’ve got a brain and I intend to use it. I encourage other brains to help me out. Of course, some brains will not want to get involved because they think these things are unattainable without a revelation. Gathering evidence and information is vital in building a case. If this is against God’s plan, then he will just have to smite me with a stick. But I don’t think it is against his plan. I’m not afraid. Are you afraid? Obviously you have to build your own faith based plan to carry you through the unexplained mysteries and apparent contradictions. I don't fault you for that but I do fault you for not making an effort to search the mysteries or to hold someone else back who is trying to search the mysteries.

I don't care if the whole world is against me. I will continue to search the mysteries of the Joseph Smith papyri, come hell or high water. Truth is what makes us free and I want more truth, not just back burners to simmer faith in pots and pans.

Give me anwers or give me death. I'll never be satisfied with the silly answers that BYU offeres. That's why I set my own little shop up and went out on my own limb.

Paul O

←

I think you misunderstood what I was saying... I was saying that if God wants it revealed... it will be in His own good time and in His own way...

Do you not remember JS and the 116 pages?

←

When are the mysteries of God and the Joseph Smith papryus not that mysterious.I've been thinking quite a bit and a certain scripture comes to mind quite often;

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the one true living God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent."

The mysteries of God is Eternal life. How do we comprehend that, and is that what we desire and are willing to live for.

I think we should take time to read the hymn "if i could hie to kolob"

The mystery is there was no beginning there will be no end we have always been in existence all matter has been in existence it is Gnaulom (unsure spelling check Abr) or (eternal)

I think the greatest mystery is the fact that we are children of God and as a right heirs of all that he has how grateful we should be that he wants to share that with us.

In order to comprehend it though we must learn line upon line there is no piont sending a 3 year old to university before he has gone to playschool. The mysteries of God will be unfolded to us when we belive in Christ because in him is eternal life we can comprehend eternal life in him if we live the gospel.

And as he grew from grace to grace so shall we for light cleaveth to light.

I must admit i am more of a philosopher than a scholar i don't know much about the papyrus

But i know that the mysteries of God are centered in Jesus christ and the way he lived his life and that through a study of his life and applying it's principles we can be reconiled to God through the atonement so that we will one day comprehend God and understand what he is trying to bring to pass.

←

This is so true... thank you.

[Paul Osborne]

I think you misunderstood what I was saying... I was saying that if God wants it revealed... it will be in His own good time and in His own way...

Do you not remember JS and the 116 pages?

Please,

Sure, I understand that. The 116 pages are GONE. But in the case of the BofA we have lots of evidence at hand that can be widely discussed and analyzed.

“Were I an Egyptian, I would exclaim Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is; [O earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun.]” (Joseph Smith, Times & Seasons; November 1, 1843)

Paul O

[Guest Member_Deleted]

  O earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun."  

What do you suppose this phrase means?

[Jason]

"O earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun."

The earth is Man. The Moon is the Mother Goddess. The Sun is the Father God.

At least that's how the Egyptians would have looked at things.

[Guest Member_Deleted]

Originally posted by Jason@Sep 23 2005, 02:20 PM

"O earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun."

The earth is Man.  The Moon is the Mother Goddess.  The Sun is the Father God. 

At least that's how the Egyptians would have looked at things.

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Well that gives the symbols identity... but not meaning to the phrase... which is interesting because it sort of demonstrates the problem with trying to analyze the work of JS on the BofA...

[Snow]

Originally posted by Paul Osborne@Sep 21 2005, 11:01 AM

I’ve read quite a bit of Dr. Nibley’s stuff and strongly disagree on important issues. Let’s not forget that Dr. Nibley was just a school teacher – he was NOT a prophet. I’ve read through his argument against the Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar and find his paradigm to be faulty. I think Nibley was a dishonest scholar at best. His crafty articles are peppered with deception. Thank God he was never called to be a general authority because I would not have sustained him.

Now that he is gone maybe the LDS Nibley cult will settle down some. I'm so sick of hearing about Nibley. You'd think he was the President of the church the way people rave about him and call attention to his writings. The man was wrong about a great many things.

Paul O

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Blah, blah, blah...

Nibley was THE foremost LDS scholar of his era, bar none and is universally recognized as such. When the Church needed articles for its Church magazines on the BoA it called on Nibley - not the likes of Paul O. When the Church needed apologetic defenses of the faith, it called upon Nibley, not the likes of Paul O. When the Church needed advice on purchasing antiquities, it called on Nibley not the likes of Paul O.

It's Nibley who was published over and over again in numerous elite scholarly publications. It was Nibley who the Church published over and over again on the BoA and many other topics. It's Nibley around who the Church's top scholars rallied. It was Nibley who wrote the Church Priesthood manual on the Book of Mormon. It was Nibley who was responsible for getting the BYU library (currently the Church's second most valuable asset) off the ground and rolling.

Who translated the JS Papyri for the Church? It wasn't Paul O.

Heck - when the JS Papyri were discovered, how did the they come to the possesion of the Church? Through Paul O? No, it was Nibley.

Who was a close personal friend and co-scholar of the world's foremost expert on Egyptian and with whom he worked of the BoA? Take a guess.

Who was it that discovered that the sensen fragments were not from the Book of the Dead? It wasn't the Egyptologists. They missed it.

It's a joke of no consequence when a nobody calls the Church's premier expert wrong. However when said nobody calls that scholar dishonest - at best - its a sad crock and that nobody is full of crapola.

And as to whether Nibley was a prophet - no less a figure than Eugene England called Nibley "the finest lay prophet of the Latter-day Saint people.

[Jason]

Originally posted by Snow@Sep 24 2005, 12:28 AM

And as to whether Nibley was a prophet - no less a figure than Eugene England called Nibley "the finest lay prophet of the Latter-day Saint people.

England said that!??

Wow. But I guess England had more problems with McConkie than anyone.

[Paul Osborne]

Originally posted by Snow@Sep 23 2005, 11:28 PM

Blah, blah, blah...

Snow,

If you take a close look at Nibley’s approach from a certain angle you will find deception in his presentations. Deception is something that is common to many a man, including Paul H. Dunn who lied to the whole church in effort to promote his idea of faith.

I posted some threads on the FAIR Board (now in the archives) demonstrating how Nibley uses deception to lead his flock. No one countered them. I’m like rain coming down on the Nibley party but my conscience tells me to speak out and offer better advice. Take it or leave it. Trust me, I’m not crying just because YOU think I’m a crackpot. Later, when you come to terms with Nibley’s deception you’ll have a hard enough time then and won’t need me to rub it in. I’ll try not to do that. But then again, I’m unpredictable.

Oh, and your argument above is silly, so much so, I'll not even bother with it!

Paul O

[Paul Osborne]

Originally posted by Please@Sep 23 2005, 05:58 PM

but not meaning to the phrase... which is interesting because it sort of demonstrates the problem with trying to analyze the work of JS on the BofA...

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Please,

Use the tools that have been given to us and find some meaning!

FACSIMILE NO. 2

Fig. 5. Is called in Egyptian Enish-go-on-dosh; this is one of the governing planets also, and is said by the Egyptians to be the Sun, and to borrow its light from Kolob through the medium of Kae-e-vanrash, which is the grand Key, or, in other words, the governing power, which governs fifteen other fixed planets or stars, as also Floeese or the Moon, the Earth and the Sun in their annual revolutions. This planet receives its power through the medium of Kli-flos-is-es, or Hah-ko-kau-beam, the stars represented by numbers 22 and 23, receiving light from the revolutions of Kolob.

Jah-oh-eh

Flo-ees

Flosisis

Kliflosisis

VehKliflosisis

Paul O