Radio Free Mormon: 92: Going Down to Kwaku Town

There seems to be an issue with the upload of this podcast. Good luck trying to figure it out, also thank your for your excellent podcasts!

Will you do a followup to his video today?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLvQ-iMOJGg

Hey RFM, I love your podcasts and your attention to detail and the way you present the facts. Kwaku has chosen to resort to mocking and disparaging rather than to reply with critical thought and facts.

I replied on his youtube comments section and neither of my two responses show up unless I am logged in. Not sure if he is controlling that somehow or what. Said nothing dispariging. Simply pointed to Adam Clarke’s commentary as well as Thomas Taylor’s 1816 book called The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato that contains a lot of the same “astronomy” as the Book of Abraham. He has decided to hide comments from viewers that hurt his argument.

this was my post:
“kwaku while I doubt you are actually trying to deceive anyone, the whole argument is still rather incomplete.

You stated that the book of Abraham has stories not found in the Bible but instead in ancient writings not available to Joseph. However, that is still inaccurate, but probably not intentionally. Joseph did have access to Josephus regarding the information about astronomy, as you point out, as well as Thomas Taylor’s 1816 book called The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato. Volume 2 (pp. 140-146) contains phrases and ideas similar to the astronomical concepts in Abraham 3 and Facsimile No. 2. In these six pages, Taylor calls the planets “governors” and uses the terms “fixed stars and planets” and “grand key.” Both works refer to the sun as a planet receiving its light and power from a higher sphere rather than generating its own light through hydrogen-helium fusion. Had Joseph been receiving his information from an all knowing god rather than common lacking understanding of the time, he probably would have come up with a more accurate astronomical presentation. If you were to pour years into attempting to create a believable translation of ancient documents, and knowing the wide assortment of books Joseph and others had in his library, it would only make sense to research as much as possible to get a believable story for the people of his time. The issue is, that is why so many of his writings reflect early 19th century thought instead of more sophisticated philosophical and scientific advancement now available.

Furthermore, Haley Wilson and Thomas Wayment of BYU recently published a paper detailing the many plagiarisms used from Adam Clarke’s bible commentary. Joseph was intimately familiar with this book as he copied large sections, whole sentences, word for word for the JST. Adam Clarke’s commentary does discuss the story of Abraham being thrown into the fire for not worshipping idols and also states this was a common punishment in Chaldea. Since Joseph clearly used this commentary for his JST, he clearly would have had no issue for using it for his basis of some stories of Abraham. His use of the altar and knife instead of the fire was clearly Joseph needing to make that sacrifice story fit his lacking interpretation of the funerary facsimile.

This is at the whole heart of the issue. We have facsimiles that simply do not line up with a real translation. We have stories that are lifted from other sources in his possession. They are not unique ideas at all. And apologists would like to argue out of both sides that these ancient scripts back up Joseph so that is amazing, while wanting to ignore the fact that these stories and ideas were already known and accessible to Joseph and in some cases he demonstrates their use in direct borrowings.

Having said all that, I do commend you for standing by and living what you believe. I have no issue there whatsoever but believe it’s important to have the argument where inconsistencies can be pointed to.”