"Scholar Says Mormon Scripture Not an Egyptian Translation" 'The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition'"
"Chicago: In 1835 a traveling curiosity peddler of Egyptian mummies arrived in the small town of Kirtland, Ohio. He caught the attention of Joseph Smith (1805-44), the controversial founder of the Mormon religion. Smith secured a large sum of money from his followers ($2,400, or $60,000 in today’s dollars) to purchase four Egyptian mummies with scrolls of papyri. Smith announced that he could do what no one else could do: translate the ancient hieroglyphics. Smith asserted that the papyri contained the writings of the biblical prophets Abraham and Joseph. He titled his translation of the papyri the 'Book of Abraham.' Smith’s translation contained several images from the papyri and in 1851 was published as part of the Mormon scripture called “The Pearl of Great Price.”
"Now, for the first time, the surviving papyri have been translated into English in their entirety. In analyzing and translating the ancient texts, Robert K. Ritner, foremost American scholar of Egyptology, has determined that they were prepared for deceased men and women in Thebes during the Greco-Roman period. They have nothing to do with Abraham, Joseph, or a planet called Kolob, as Smith had claimed.
“'Except for those willfully blind,' writes Professor Ritner of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, 'the case is closed.' In his new book, 'The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition,' he also accuses two scholars of Egyptology at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University of borrowing and distorting his own writings in trying to defend Smith’s interpretations as authentically translated Egyptian. Smith’s translation narrative tells of a young Abraham who is about to become a human sacrifice at the request of his father. It also tells of a human pre-mortal existence and teaches that the Egyptian pharaohs were cursed by God (leading to the Mormon priesthood restrictions on African Americans). It also established the Mormon theology for multiple gods.
"The Mormon Church restricts access to the original papyri, which it owns. Ritner gained access to high resolution scans through a third party. He concluded that the papyri are ordinary Egyptian funeral texts, with possibly a few interesting side notes. For example, one of the Smith papyri is the 'Document of Breathing Made by Isis' and is the oldest known datable copy (pre-150 BCE). Otherwise, Ritner states, anyone investigating claims of ancient evidence for Smith’s translation should not 'waste his time,' although he does admit 'that the study of the Mormon period of Egyptomania is interesting by itself.'
"Concerning the charges of uncredited borrowing, Ritner draws attention to the 'striking resemblance' to his own work in later publications by Michael D. Rhodes, an Associate Research Professor of Egyptology with BYU’s religion faculty. 'One can legitimately raise the question of plagiarism,' says Ritner. In some cases, Rhodes 'tacitly adopted my reading, but failed to remove his punctuation from an earlier attempt to translate the artifacts.'
"A fragment from the original Joseph Smith papyri, now 'Facsimi'e No. 1' in the Mormon scripture, 'The Pearl of Great Price.” Because of the incomplete nature of the fragment, a contemporary of Joseph Smith filled in the missing portions. Joseph Smith’s text begins, 'The Book of Abraham. Translated from the papyrus, by Joseph Smith.' Ritner is equally critical of the work of Associate Research Professor of Egyptology John Gee, of BYU’s Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, and the late Hugh Nibley, a BYU religion professor (BYU does not have a department of Egyptology).
"For members of the Mormon religion, Smith’s 'translation' remains a product of their faith.
"'The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition,' by Robert K. Ritner with contributions by Marc Coenen, H. Michael Marquardt, and Christopher Woods, is published by the Smith-Pettit Foundation of Salt Lake City, and distributed by Signature Books, also of Salt Lake City. The type was set by the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
"About the authors and their essays: Robert K. Ritner, Professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, has published over 100 books and articles on Egyptian religion, magic, medicine, language, and literature, as well as social and political history. Christopher Woods is an Associate Professor of Sumerology, University of Chicago ('The Practice of Egyptian Religion at "Ur of the Chaldees'), Marc Coenen has an Egyptian Studies PhD., University of Leuven, Belgium ('The Ownership and Dating of Certain Joseph Smith Papyri'), and H. Michael Marquardt, is author of 'The Revelations of Joseph Smith: Text and Commentary' ('Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Papers: A History')."
http://signaturebooks.com/2012/02/scholar-says-mormon-scripture-not-an-egyptian-translation/_____
In a Rhodes-the-Plagiarizer related note, in September 1993 I twice met privately (at my personal request and through the assistance of my father, Mark A. Benson--R.I.P.--who helped arrange the encounters), with Mormon apostles Neal A. Maxwell and Dallin H. Oaks in the offices of the LDS Church Administration Office building in Salt Lake City, Utah.
There (among other vain attempts at defending the Mormon Church) Maxwell and Oaks made a futile effort to legitimize the alleged "translation" of Joseph Smith's scriptural hoax--otherwise known as the Book of Abraham. (Before commencing this impossible task, Maxwell and Oaks were apparently worried that I might be taping our conversations and, in fact, asked me if that was the case. I wasn't but I took notes during our discussions and when back home in Arizona recorded my personal recollections on a tape recorder while still fresh in my mind).
Maxwell was much more energetic than Oaks in their jointly-unsuccessful exercise to defend the Book of Abraham. He first appealed to other LDS scripture--in this case, the Doctrine and Covenants, Section 7--to argue that the Book of Abraham was translated by Smith in "catalystic fashion." Maxwell told me that Smith had in a vision seen parchments from the writings of John the Revelator. Maxwell also told me that Smith may have had revealed to him Egyptian parchments which he did not touch, physically hold or from which he did not directly translate. In other words, Maxwell said, Smith may have been "accessing" ancient parchments that were not actually with him. Instead, Maxwell proposed, he may have had revealed to him "in some kind of vision" the source from which he then translated the Book of Abraham.
While acknowledging that Smith's former scribe Warren Parrish and Mormon hymn composer W. W. Phelps (of 'The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning' fame) were at one point about ready to leave the LDS Church, Maxwell told me, 'Don't pounce on Joseph Smith.' Maxwell said that the work of Parrish and Phelps on the Book of Abraham manuscript helped bolster the argument that the Egyptian funerary texts were not the actual parchments used by Smith in his translation of the Book of Abraham--or, for that matter, that Smith was even the author of the four extant manuscripts of the Book of Abraham.
In support of that position, Maxwell handed me a FARMS review, written by, yes, MICHAEL D. RHODES, of Charles M. Larson's book, '. . . By His Own Hand upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri' (Grand Rapids: Institute for Religious Research, 1992, p. 240 pp., illustrated).
On closer examination of the paper on which Rhodes' review was photocopied, I determined that the review, in fact, had originated with FARMS. It was printed on fax paper bearing the acronym "F.A.R.M.S," along with the "FAX" date of '09/09/93.' It also bore a dispatch time of "1:55" and a BYU-area phone number of "378 3724."
FARMS, at Maxwell's request, was riding to the rescue in his effort to help sell the Book of Abraham during our discussions.
Maxwell had highlighted in yellow the following excerpt from Rhodes' article (broken out below in paragraphs for easier reading):
"First of all, none of these manuscripts of the [B]ook of Abraham is in Joseph Smith's handwriting. They are mostly in the handwriting of William W. Phelps, with a few short sections written by Warren Parrish. Nowhere in the documents is Joseph Smith designated as the author.
"Moreover, the Egyptian characters in the left-hand margin were clearly written in after the English text had been written. These cannot be the working papers of a translation process. Instead, Phelps and Parrish seemed to have copied down the text of the [B]ook of Abraham and were then attempting to correlate that translation with some of the scrolls in the Church's possession.
"These documents are most likely that preliminary stage of investigation and exploration the Lord prescribed in DandC 9:8 to 'study it out in your mind.' The Lord expects us to first do all we can to understand something (and in the process discover our own limitations) before we seek for direct revelation from him. This is what Phelps and Parrish were apparently doing, although their efforts were short-lived and unsuccessful.
"In fact these same men shortly after this began to turn away from the Prophet Joseph and fell into apostasy. If they had been parties to some fraudulent process of producing the [B]ook of Abraham, they would surely have denounced Joseph Smith for this, but they never did."
Rhodes' apologetics were apparently good enough for Maxwell, since he heaped glowing praise on FARMS, telling me, "We're grateful for FARMS because they protect us on the flank." In fact, Maxwell confided to me that FARMS had been given the express mission of not allowing the Mormon Church to become outflanked. In relaying to me his sincere gratitude to FARMS, it was obvious what Maxwell meant: FARMS' job was to prevent the Mormon Church from being defeated through end-arounds by its critics and, in that quest, was keeping the Mormon apostles themselves from finding themselves outflanked and outgunned.
In the end, Maxwell--reacting to criticism of the Book of Abraham's authenticity--sweepingly declared to me, "We will not twist or oscillate every time we come across new evidence. The Church is not a jerkwater organization."
Earth to Maxwell: The Mormon Church is not only jerkwater, it's in way over its head--and all you floundering fakers can do is plagiarize non-Mormon scholars who actually don't even agree with you in the first place.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fexmormon.org%2Fphorum%2Fread.php%3F2%2C809696&ei=77OCU_fvOdDhoAT914K4BQ&usg=AFQjCNHc-BCgs6q3aym6JBWtqlzOhUGb1w&bvm=bv.67720277,d.cGUFor a related, fuller RfM post (which includes a description of Oaks' attempts to help Maxwell in rescuing the phony Book of Abraham from itself), see also:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,809696Edited 19 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2014 03:29AM by steve benson.