RFM and Bill sit down once again with Dan Vogel and Brent Metcalfe to examine the problems with the Book of Abraham as a translation of an ancient document in a sacred text for Mormonism generally and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints specifically. Dan and Brent share their scholarship and help us grasp some of the messiness around this issue.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Were the writers of the constitution believers in a pre mortal world where people in spirit form show valiancy or lack thereof?
Oh man. Listening to Brent was tough. Smith was a vile, disgusting, terrible fraudster out for himself. Sorry, Brent, your argument is much weaker than Dan’s.
Years ago as a high school student, I looked upon the “book of abraham” in my quad and thought to myself, “What a load of sh!t”. I think 99.9999% of the world’s population would come to the same conclusion after a cursory glance at the “book of abraham”.
Re: 070 BOA continues
I would like to suggest some discussion on Joseph Smith identifing the BOA mummies as Pararoh and a daughter Katumin.
It’s one thing to talk about possible explanations for the translation of BOA text which I found facinating.
But how about the fact JS made fantastic claims about the mummies that were purchased with the papyrus.
I’d love to hear a focused discussion with Brent and Dan on this topic.
JS was so far off on there identity. Where they were dug up was no place a pharoah and his daughters would possibly be buried. And the mummies are from a completely different time period as well. JS seemed to have no clue at all…
Wikipedia says.
The accounts from eyewitnesses consistently maintain that Smith presented the mummies as those of a Pharaoh and his royal household.[119][120] Most commonly, Smith and his mother Lucy Mack Smith referred to them as Pharaoh Onitas, his wife, and their two daughters, one of whom was named Katumin. They claimed these names were obtained through revelation.[121][122] Mack Smith would sometimes refer to the one of the mummies as “pharoah’s daughter, the one who saved Moses.” One eyewitness wrote that he was told the Pharaoh’s name was “Necho”.[123]
Based on where they were found, and the writings found on them, the mummies are not believed to have been Pharoahs, but priests and nobles from the Ptolemaic era of Egypt (323-30 BCE). No known Pharaohs or their family members have names that resemble “Onitus” or “Katumin”.[124] A Pharaoh Necho is known to have existed; however, but he was buried in Sais, near the Nile Delta, far from where the mummies were excavated.[