The Book of Abraham

[Trodon]

When I was nineteen I was proselytized for six months by two Mormon missionaries. It may be difficult for convinced atheists to understand this, but I wanted Mormonism to be true, and I thought it was reasonably likely that it was true. However, I wanted to investigate Mormonism rationally.

During my study of Mormonism I learned of The Book of Abraham. During his ministry Joseph Smith found an English traveler who owned an Egyptian mummy and an Egyptian manuscript that had been found with the mummy.

The Egyptian traveler learned that there was a man in the area who was reputed to be able to translate ancient manuscripts. At this time the Rosetta Stone had been recently decyphered. There was no one in the United States who could read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Joseph Smith announced that the Egyptian manuscript had been written by Abraham "in his own hand," and bought it. He claimed to translate it into The Book of Abraham. This is a first hand account of Abraham's travels in Egypt.

Here was a manuscript, which unlike the golden plates, might still exist. I asked the missionaries about the manuscript. First they told me that the manuscript had been destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871. Then they told me it had been recently been rediscovered, and had been given to the Mormon Church, after being copied.

At this point I was about ready to convert to Mormonism. I thought this clinched it. All scholars needed to do was to translate the manuscript. If non Mormon translators confirmed Joseph Smith's miraculous translation, this was proof that Mormonism was true.

I asked the Mormon missionaries for more information about the manuscript. They gave me several articles written by Hugh Nimbley. Nimbly was a linguist and a professor at Brigham Young University.

I expected Professor Nimbley to triumphantly announce that here was the proof that Mormonism was true. Instead he wrote apprehensively of "the problem of the Book of Abraham."

What problem? I wondered. Here was the manuscript from which Joseph Smith translated The Book of Abraham. All the Mormons needed to do was to get several non Mormon Egyptianologists to translate the manuscript independently and announce that Joseph Smith's translation was valid.

The articles the Mormon missionaries gave me did have copies of parts of the manuscript. By now I began to suspect that the manuscript was the Egyptian Book of the Dead. This was a manuscript that was often interred with Egyptian mummies. I went to my local library and checked out a book that had the Egyptian writing of the Book of the Dead on one page, and the English writing on the other.

The writing in the library book was not identical to the writing in the copies given to the Mormon Church, but they were similar enough to reveal that The Book of Abraham was fraudulent.

When I brought this to the attention of the Mormon missionaries they had no response but appeals to emotion. It is to their credit that they did not become abusive.

Several years later I mentioned this to a prominent Mormon lawyer who had been educated at Brigham Young University and Yale Law School. He also had no answer. He was visibly disturbed, as though he had wondered about the Book of Abraham himself.

More recently I learned that the Book of Abraham manuscript is really the Book of Breathing. This is a less ancient revision of the Book of the Dead. Needless to say, it makes no mention of Abraham's travels in Egypt.

Mormon scholars have elaborate ways of explaining this away. They claim that the manuscript had two meanings: a literal meaning, and a spiritual meaning. Joseph Smith translated the spiritual meaning. Another explanation is that the manuscript that was found is only a partial manuscript, and that the part Joseph Smith translated has been lost.

The second explanation is obviously not true. The Book of Abraham contains a facsimile of the manuscript. It is clearly from the Book of Breathing.

 

[Sarpedon]

Hey, no worries, I know what its like to want a religion to be true. Most of us went through that.

Though how you had the patience to be proselytized for six months is astounding.

Cool story though, I'll keep that in mind for next time.

 

[Trodon]

Hugh Nimbley is a fascinating guy. He was fluent in about ten languages, including ancient Egyptian. With his intelligence he could have distinguished himself in an honorable line of work. He had to know that The Book of Abraham was a fraud. For reasons that can only be understood psychologically he choose to devote his intelligence to convincing those who want to believe Mormonism that it is true.

I have read books that try to argue rationally that the events recorded in The Book of Mormon really happened, and that The Book of Abraham really was written by Abraham. The books use lots of big words and complex sentences. My guess is that the Mormons who read them cannot understand them, but they think that something so complicated has to be profound.

The truth about The Book of Mormon and The Book of Abraham can be explained in a few simple sentences that anyone can understand.

Whenever I talk to Mormon missionaries they usually begin by asking, "Do you have any questions about Mormonism?"

I begin by asking, "What do you know about The Book of Abraham?"

It is usually the case that they know nothing about it. I begin politely to explain it to them.

Mormon missionaries attend classes before beginning their missions. I am surprised how little they learn about their faith, and the Bible. Most of the people they talk to are not interested in talking to them. Some people respond rudely to them. The few who are interested are usually looking for something to believe in, like I was, but they are not as analytical as I am.

I would have loved to have had the opportunity to talk personally to Hugh Nimbley.

 

[none]

so basically the book of Abraham has been deciphered and is identical to another transcript called "The book of Breathing"?

 

[Trodon]

so basically the book of Abraham has been deciphered and is identical to another transcript called "The book of Breathing"?

Yes.

 

[none]

Thanks, sometimes i get lost in long posts.

 

[Trodon]

Thanks, sometimes i get lost in long posts.

I try to keep my posts to one computer screen, but I am not always able to.

 

[ideologyhunter]

It's Nibley, not Nimbley. He was Mormonism's chief apologist for decades. Yes, the Book of Abraham is one devastating exhibit of Smith's grotesque con artistry. If the Book of Breathings had a 'secret meaning' discernible to Smith, then you could create scriptures from Betty Crocker's cookbook. But Smith claimed to be translating the papyri. Other problems for the LDS: the papyri text is not nearly long enough to cover the length of the document Smith called the Book of Abraham...there are places where he takes a single Egyptian symbol and creates paragraphs from it. All that, and you have the lunatic premise (also present in the BOM) of ancient Jews supposedly using the language of their longtime pagan enemy, the Egyptians, to preserve precious cultural documents. Mormonism was discernible as a fraud from the start; that there are 16? 18? 20 million Mormons today speaks volumes about the life of faith. One positive note: a year or two ago, a group of Swedish converts to LSD became aware through internet postings about problems with Mormonism, specifically with the Book of Abraham. When the answers they got from the church were Nibley's goodledegook restated, many of them had themselves disfellowshipped.

 

[Trodon]

It's Nibley, not Nimbley. He was Mormonism's chief apologist for decades. Yes, the Book of Abraham is one devastating exhibit of Smith's grotesque con artistry. If the Book of Breathings had a 'secret meaning' discernible to Smith, then you could create scriptures from Betty Crocker's cookbook. But Smith claimed to be translating the papyri. Other problems for the LDS: the papyri text is not nearly long enough to cover the length of the document Smith called the Book of Abraham...there are places where he takes a single Egyptian symbol and creates paragraphs from it. All that, and you have the lunatic premise (also present in the BOM) of ancient Jews supposedly using the language of their longtime pagan enemy, the Egyptians, to preserve precious cultural documents. Mormonism was discernible as a fraud from the start; that there are 16? 18? 20 million Mormons today speaks volumes about the life of faith. One positive note: a year or two ago, a group of Swedish converts to LSD became aware through internet postings about problems with Mormonism, specifically with the Book of Abraham. When the answers they got from the church were Nibley's goodledegook restated, many of them had themselves disfellowshipped.

I have difficulty believing in conspiracies lasting a long time and involving a large number of people. In "The Testimony of Three Witnesses," and "The Testimony of Eight Witnesses," eleven men who signed their names claim that they saw the golden plates from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate, and that they had ancient writings on them.

These men lied. I wonder how long the conspiracy lasted, and who else was involved. Brigham Young was not one of the witnesses. Did he know that Joseph Smith was a fraud? What about contemporary leaders of the Church of Latter Day Saints? Are they part of the conspiracy?

I do not expect you know the answers to these questions ideologyhunter. Have you given them thought?

The Church of Latter Day Saints fascinates me. It is an elaborate con operation that is believed in by a lot of very intelligent and well educated people who make considerable sacrifices to the Church.

When I look at websites of ex Mormons a lot of them left the faith because they got tired of the disciplines involved in sexual behavior, alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea. Those accounts do not interest me. Accounts that do interest me are accounts of those who like me wanted to believe, but who investigated the claims and the history of Mormonism.

 

[ideologyhunter]

There are so many reasons that people cling to an orthodoxy. I think deliberate deception is seldom a factor (except that in the case of Mormonism, it applies to the founding Prophet.) An absolute refusal to critically examine the shared or family faith looms large in the devout. Interesting thing about the Testimonies that Preface the B.O.M.: like many portions of Mormon scripture, they were actually reworded after the first edition. The church kept the 11 names but changed what they allegedly attested to! (I have forgotten what the changes were -- the Tanners documented this and pointed out that altered testimony, in this sense, has no integrity.) Also, the fact that a number of the 11 apostatized & were called all kinds of vile names by Smith, which shows, at least, that if they witnessed anything, it wasn't enough to make them lifelong believers, and more probably, that they were not stable, reflective men but instead were the kind of folks who are susceptible to emotional appeals and change churches based on shallow experience.
Also -- if they indeed swore to the first version of the Testimony -- did they lie? At least one of them (and I think it was David Witmer, if I'm spelling/remembering that right), who did indeed leave the church, wrote years later that the witnesses were given a vision of the golden plates; i.e., Smith talked them into believing they'd seen some mystical glimpse of the plates. And doesn't that tie into the suggestibility and wish fulfillment of true believers?
Having met fervent Mormons and heard their testimony (although it often sounds a bit rehearsed and cut-and-dried), I realize that The Faith has little to do with open enquiry and love of truth -- much more to do with community and enclave. And again, I find it utterly bewildering that millions and millions of people think there's real substance here.

 

[funinspace]

I have difficulty believing in conspiracies lasting a long time and involving a large number of people. In "The Testimony of Three Witnesses," and "The Testimony of Eight Witnesses," eleven men who signed their names claim that they saw the golden plates from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate, and that they had ancient writings on them.

These men lied. I wonder how long the conspiracy lasted, and who else was involved. Brigham Young was not one of the witnesses. Did he know that Joseph Smith was a fraud? What about contemporary leaders of the Church of Latter Day Saints? Are they part of the conspiracy?

I do not expect you know the answers to these questions ideologyhunter. Have you given them thought?

I know in our modern sensibilities, most people do consider this to have been people lying. However, weird things happen to people when it comes to becoming a follower of a charismatic leader (usually about faith/god(s)). They get drunk on the fervor and excitement of being part of something special or even new. Groups of people can become convinced that something special/miraculous happened, even when it didn’t. Or they convince themselves that what they are doing is actually helping bring others to the truth they know, so the end justifies the means.

I’m not trying to pick on your faith, but it is most probable that someone (or several people) adjusted the end of the Gospel of Mark as they possibly didn’t think the ending was appropriate. Some followers of this newer Christianity, also probably altered a few paragraphs of one of Joseph Flavius work, to make sure their special Jesus had an appropriate reference. Mainstream Christian theologians are pretty sure that a couple of the Pauline letters, are actually written by someone else. The actual writer evidently felt the need to ascribe it to Paul. These are some of the most obvious and probable “lies” from Christian history. This also isn’t an attempt to invalidate Christian theology. Humans have a pretty consistent habit of spinning the truth to help the cause along, sometimes not even recognizing their own deceit. The LDS is such an interesting example of just how easy it is to get people to believe the absurd under the right circumstance…

 

[Trodon]

I’m not trying to pick on your faith, but it is most probable that someone (or several people) adjusted the end of the Gospel of Mark as they possibly didn’t think the ending was appropriate. Some followers of this newer Christianity, also probably altered a few paragraphs of one of Joseph Flavius work, to make sure their special Jesus had an appropriate reference. Mainstream Christian theologians are pretty sure that a couple of the Pauline letters, are actually written by someone else. The actual writer evidently felt the need to ascribe it to Paul. These are some of the most obvious and probable “lies” from Christian history. This also isn’t an attempt to invalidate Christian theology. Humans have a pretty consistent habit of spinning the truth to help the cause along, sometimes not even recognizing their own deceit. The LDS is such an interesting example of just how easy it is to get people to believe the absurd under the right circumstance…

Mark 16:5,6 And entering into the sepulchre they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a log white garment; and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here; behold the place where they laid him.

At the end of the New English Bible translation of Mark there is this footnote: "At this point some of the most ancient witnesses bring the book to a close; other continue with verses 9 - 20, as printed here, or in some cases expanded with additional matter; yet others insert here the paragraph, And they delivered eternal salvation (here printed below verse 20), and in one of them this is the conclusion of the book; in the remainder, verses 9 - 20 follow it."

Mark 16:8 still leaves us with the Resurrection.

Roughly half of the New Testament is still attributed to St. Paul. Although he has little to say about most of the life and ministry of Jesus, he does emphasize the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. St. Paul lived and wrote when eye witnesses to the life and ministry of Jesus still lived, and claims that he talked to them.

 

[funinspace]

Yeah, like I already said (which sort of already implies I wasn't debating your belief in the Jesus resurrection):

This also isn’t an attempt to invalidate Christian theology.

 

[Sarpedon]

Wait a minute: you can see how easily Mormons can be manipulated into believing a blatant forgery in the glare of modern record keeping, but you accept biblical attributions and traditions at face value? Aren't you still 'wanting something to be true?'

 

[funinspace]

Roughly half of the New Testament is still attributed to St. Paul. Although he has little to say about most of the life and ministry of Jesus, he does emphasize the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. St. Paul lived and wrote when eye witnesses to the life and ministry of Jesus still lived, and claims that he talked to them.

Since you brought it up Yes, it seems most probable that Saul/Paul lived when there should have been still living witnesses to the claimed ministry and amazing activities of this Jesus. His letters are estimated to have been written 20 to 30 years after the purported crucifixion/resurrection. Now consider how much we know about Paul when compared to Joseph Smith’s life, lies, and activities; from which we have the ability to corroborate his claims or show how silly they are.

Paul/Saul: Paul doesn’t even have faked witnesses to his miraculous conversion. When was Paul born, oh somewhere between 5BC and 5CE. Paul said he was born in Tartus. Ok, I guess we can take his word on that. Andronicus and Junia might have been relatives, but the Bible passage is vauge. His mother was Rufus. One would think someone would have put a note in about when he died…nah. He probably died in 60 CE, probably in Rome.

Joseph Smith, Jr.: born December 23, 1805 in Sharon, Vermont; died June 27, 1844 (aged 38) Carthage, Illinois. His parents were Lucy and Joseph Smith. His father was a merchant and farmer. JS Jr. had 10 siblings. I would guess that the kids names are even known. We know he was shot in the Carthage, Ill Jail. We know that 5 men were tried for his murder, but were acquitted.

This points back to the difficulties of dealing with miraculous claims that are written about only decades after the claimed events. Never mind the details lost in the 2 millennia of fog that has swept over the mostly un-noticed events in a Roman backwater province. Paul gets a lot of slack, simply due to the reality that we know almost nothing about the cast of characters outside of what the True Believers really really wanted us to know.

 

[Trodon]

Wait a minute: you can see how easily Mormons can be manipulated into believing a blatant forgery in the glare of modern record keeping, but you accept biblical attributions and traditions at face value? Aren't you still 'wanting something to be true?'

I approach Christianity as one who wants to believe. I do not know if it is true or not.

I do believe that in the epistles of St. Paul he write a honest account of his life.

This is what St. Paul writes in II Corinthians 11:24 - 27 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods,, once was I stoned, thrisce I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false breathern. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

The History of Eusebius was written in the late third or early fourth centuries. It is from Eusebius that we are told that St. Paul and St. Peter were martyred in Rome shortly before the Jewish Uprising that happened from 66 to 73 AD.

St. Paul may have been deluded. I doubt he was a charlatan.

 

[Sarpedon]

Is there a single independent witness to the existence of St Paul? While someone obviously had to write the epistles, the question is whether or not they were written after the fact, under differing circumstances. Fake dialogues and letters are an old technique for philosophical writings.

 

[Trodon]

Is there a single independent witness to the existence of St Paul? While someone obviously had to write the epistles, the question is whether or not they were written after the fact, under differing circumstances. Fake dialogues and letters are an old technique for philosophical writings.

It has been awhile since I have read Eusebius' Church History. He lists his sources. Sources that continue to exist, like Josephus, agree with his excerpts. Eusebius wrote extensively about St. Paul. It is from his Church History that we learn that St. Paul and St. Peter were martyred together in Rome.

It is frequently the case that with a document written during the first century AD our oldest complete manuscript is many centuries more recent, perhaps a thousand years more recent. More ancient manuscripts of the Bible have been discovered, than any other ancient writings.

St. Paul lived in comparative obscurity, so it should not be surprising that a non Christian historian living in the first century did not write about him.

 

[Sarpedon]

Please respect the difference between 'it says,' and 'we learn.' I find it disturbing that you seem to take something written more than 200 years after the fact, by a bishop no less, as being unbiased. There were plenty of other historians at the time, for example, Seutonius' book about the lives of the Caesars covers the same period, and gives no mention of any of these things, though he does bother to describe various bizarre two headed animals being born because he thought that was significant.

Ancient or not, when we are talking about major events, like the founding of a religion, we expect people to notice. Older figures have multiple people writing about them: For example Socrates, most of what is written about him comes from Plato, but Thucydides and Xenophon (and others) both mention him also. While this establishes that the man existed, it nevertheless doesn't necessarily mean everything Plato wrote about him was true. One thing that should lead you to be suspicious of a source is if what it says changes according to the point of the discussion. Both Plato and Thucydides agree, for example that Socrates was a leader of Athenian forces during a particular, difficult campaign. When Christians talk about their early years, they alternately describe Christianity spreading through the Roman Empire 'like wildfire,' due to the 'signs and wonders' that the apostles and other missionaries were able to perform attracting wide scale persecution by the fearful authorities, but when confronted with the lack of any independent sources for these events, they talk about how the apostles were obscure characters, who lived in private and who's activities would have attracted little interest of historians.

So, which is it? Was St Paul a private individual, who's missionary work was unremarkable to the historian? Or was he a dangerous rebel, who spectacularly defied the roman law, who was arrested in Jerusalem, shipped all the way to Rome to be tried, and eventually martyred?

Also, in double checking a few things before posting, I noticed the assertion that Paul was beheaded because he was a citizen of rome, versus Peter, who was crucified. Can one of our Roman scholars verify that this was indeed a thing? In art, the beheading of Paul is depicted as taking place with a sword in a style which would not have existed at the time. This does not mean that he wasn't decapitated, but I don't know if that's a genuine part of Roman Law. I always associated (correctly or incorrectly) Roman honorable execution being through stabbing. I also seem to recall roman citizens getting crucified in cases of treason.

 

[Trodon]

Please respect the difference between 'it says,' and 'we learn.' I find it disturbing that you seem to take something written more than 200 years after the fact, by a bishop no less, as being unbiased. There were plenty of other historians at the time, for example, Seutonius' book about the lives of the Caesars covers the same period, and gives no mention of any of these things

The Roman historian Suetonius (c. AD 69 – c. AD 122) makes reference to early Christians and possible reference to their founder in his work Lives of the Twelve Caesars.[1][2][3][4]

A statement in Divus Claudius 25 involves the agitations in the Roman Jewish community which led to the expulsion of Jews from Rome by Claudius in AD 49, and may be the same event mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (18:2)...

The Nero 16 passage refers to a series of rulings by Nero for public order, one of which being the punishment of Christians.[9] These punishments are generally dated to around AD 64,[10] the year of the Great Fire of Rome. In this passage Suetonius describes Christianity as a superstition (superstitio) as do his contemporaries, Tacitus and Pliny.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suetonius_on_Christians

In our study of the Bible we should not expect to find certainty. I have explained why I have difficulty believing in a late date for Acts. Of course, I may be mistaken.