Sunday, August 15, 2010

The Book of Abraham, a Prophet's Tale

For those of you who have never heard of the Book of Abraham, it is an additional book that was translated by Joseph Smith and is included in the back of almost every Book of Mormon (but not actually part of the Book of Mormon).  The following was taken directly by the church's FAIR site, a website set up to defend and explain the Mormon church:

In July 1835, Joseph Smith purchased a portion of a collection of papyri and mummies that had been discovered in Egypt and brought to the United States. Believing that one of the papyrus rolls contained, "the writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt," and "purportedly written by his own hand, upon papyrus,"[1] Joseph commenced a translation. The Book of Abraham was the result of his work.

So we've got a traveling salesman who just happens to have a few mummies and scrolls of papyri and what do you know, but it is the actual papyri that the ancient prophet Abraham wrote with his own hand (that Joseph Smith was one lucky sumbitch).  At the time of this purchase and "translation," the Rosetta Stone had been discovered but the ability to read it was not well developed until the 1850's.  Basically, no one could decipher hieroglyphics.  The years passed and the scrolls were thought to have been destroyed in the great Chicago fire of 1871.  Then in 1966, fragments of one of the papyri were discovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and donated to the church by 1967.  With the Rosetta Stone now developed, how exciting it must have been for the church to be able to show the world that Joseph Smith was indeed a TRUE prophet, having translated the actual work of the ancient prophet Abraham!  Not so.  What was agreed upon by the leading scientist and Egyptologists was that the portion of the papyri supposed to be part of the "Book of Abraham" was actually a [portion of the "Book of Breathings," an Egyptian religious text buried with mummies that instructed the dead on how to successfully reach the afterlife.]  *This last part was taken directly from the church's website, FARMS         

Instead of rejoicing for their new-found proof of the truthfulness of the church, no doubt the church leaders were sorely disappointed by the news.  Had they not given the papyri to actual scientists (who had no interest in whether the church was true or not, they were just doing their job), it is doubtful if we would even have this information.  Basically what I'm saying here is, if the church can cover up, glaze over, defend, and soothe its members into believing that "it must have been revelation given to him with the papyri only there as a stand-in." then they are able to have their members believe just about anything. 

Here you have science (the actual date of the age of the papyri conflicts with the time of Abraham), and the leading Egyptologists (who were able to easily decipher the scroll) saying there is no way this scroll matches up to what Joseph Smith translated it as, and yet today, the members take the church's word that it must be something divine that we just can't understand in this life.... but we will in the next (that's a favorite for soothing things over for the members). 

Here is a great documentary that was produced by PBS about this very subject.
http://www.bookofabraham.info/

Pretty interesting stuff!  

1 comment:

  1. Not to mention also the fact the the B of A very plainly states right on the front page that it was taken directly from the papyri and that it was written in Abraham's OWN hand. Not some cosmic meaning behind the document that he was able to tap into. If that really had been the case, he wouldn't have made the "Caracters" paper with the egyptian characters and their translated meanings, which of course now is known that what he wrote as their meaning is so far off it is not even funny. Grrrr!

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