Posted by:
david dim-whitmer
(
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Date: July 24, 2014 12:16AM
As a youngster, in the 8-10 age range, I remember vividly, sitting in Sacrament meetings each week with my scriptures opened to the Book of Abraham. I loved looking at the facsimiles. I thought they were so interesting. I loved reading the explanations of the pictures. And I would read the introduction to the book, that it came to us from the catacombs of Egypt, that it was written by Abraham, in his own hand, and I was fascinated by that. For me, a young simple kid, there was no mystery to what Joseph claimed the papyrus to be: an actual document handled by and written by Abraham and translated by Joseph Smith. The introduction COULD NOT BE MORE CLEAR. Never did my young, unintellectual, unsophistocated self imagine that words don't really mean what they mean. I should have known better. Silly me. The adults understood the nuance in those words that I could never hope to understand until I grew up and became smart and educated. I should have known that "translated" didn't really mean translated. Or that "by his own hand upon papyrus" didn't really mean that Abraham really wrote it on that actual piece of papyrus that came into Joseph Smith's possession.
Oh happy man that I am, to be older and wiser now and to know the mysteries of seemingly simple language!!
It was so simple of me to have ever believed that simple language could simply be, simple!