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Re: Book of Abraham

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:59 pm
by Palerider
Continued:

As to where Joseph might have gotten the idea for Abraham teaching astronomy to the Egyptians....

From Josephus:

"On page 83 of Josephus_4 we find at Antiquities 1:166-168, “For, seeing that the Egyptians were addicted to a variety of different customs and disparaged one another’s practices and were consequently at enmity with one another, Abraham conferred with each party and, exposing the arguments which they adduced in favour of their particular views, demonstrated that they were idle and contained nothing true. Thus gaining their admiration at these meetings as a man of extreme sagacity, gifted not only with high intelligence but with power to convince his hearers on any subject which he undertook to teach, he introduced them to arithmetic and transmitted to them the laws of astronomy. For before the coming of Abraham the Egyptians were ignorant of these sciences, which thus traveled from the Chaldaeans into Egypt, whence they passed to the Greeks."

Someone here probably knows better than me, but didn't Joseph have access to Josephus?

Re: Book of Abraham

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:04 pm
by Palerider
Sorry, even more:

"The previous conclusions that were attained from archaeology with the help of computers and the modern knowledge of mathematical astronomy are now restated. The Babylonians were able to predict lunar eclipses by about 750 BCE with a time error of about one hour, and the Babylonians were able to predict possible solar eclipses about 360 BCE with a time error of about three hours. The Babylonians started the practice of predicting the sighting of the new crescent about 450 BCE. But Abraham lived c. 2000 BCE, over 1000 years before the great achievements of Babylonian mathematical astronomy occurred. Furthermore, ancient Egypt did not possess mathematical astronomy until the Greeks emigrated there and brought it with them after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE. We therefore conclude that Josephus did not know the history of the acquisition of mathematical astronomy by the Egyptians, and it does not make sense to believe that Abraham knew any significant mathematical astronomy himself.

Furthermore, the Egyptians did not use the Babylonian positional base 60 number system, which they would have used it if Abraham had convinced them of its superiority. About a century before Josephus, other Jews bragged about Abraham’s achievements, even in astrology! The interested reader may consult pages 146-151 of Gruen."

https://www.613commandments.com/node/46

Re: Book of Abraham

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 7:35 am
by Just This Guy
Palerider wrote:
Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:59 pm
Someone here probably knows better than me, but didn't Joseph have access to Josephus?
Oh yes!

It is known he had access to it at the time he was writing the BoA. JSjr is printed quoting from it as early as 1832. It is known that Oliver Cowdry had a copy in 1835. They would start translating the Papri early the next year.

He could have had access to it MUCH earlier. Local pubic and church libraries in the area had copies of it when he was a kid. He could have read it as early as 1815 or 1817. Local book shops in Palmyra in the 1820's and 1830's commonly advertised they had copies for sale. There were numerous copies is in private collections throughout Navoo. It was considered one of the most popular books outside of the bible.

So not only did he have ready access to it, he was known to be very familiar with it long before the BoA was dreamed up.

I got than from from a BYU publication.:
https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/approachin ... ph-smith-s

Re: Book of Abraham

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:32 am
by Hagoth
Random wrote:
Tue Sep 10, 2019 4:05 pm
I looked up the essay and found this just after the Olishem explanation and just before the conclusion, which I didn't recall you addressing.
Yes, Random, I did address those issues, beginning around page 23. There are good answers, some of them refreshingly straight-forward, to all of these questions, which the apologists are overlooking or avoiding.

Re: Book of Abraham

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:34 pm
by Keewon
4- Olishem is clearly one of Joseph Smith's made up words that he contrived while he was learning Hebrew. It's a conflation of the Hebrew words olah and shem, which means basically "name of a place of sacrifice."
Thanks for this, Hagoth. You're amazing. :)

My knowledge of Hebrew came from a 2 week period in college where I thought I would teach myself Hebrew from a textbook. I got to the point that the book started dropping the vowel markings (used for just beginners like myself) and couldn't make any headway, so I stopped.

Before I stopped, however, I learned quite a few words that seemed to match names in the BofA. For instance, "kokob" seems to simply mean "star", "ko ka beem" is simply the plural "stars", and "hah ko kau beem" is just the definite noun phrase, "the stars". The appeal of the exotic names in the BofA kind of wears off once you realize they were mostly just Hebrew words JS was learning at the time.

It reminds one (me at least) of the line in Wordsworth's poem:
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest...
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
That's me. It's all gone, faded into the light of common day. Very sad, I suppose.

Re: Book of Abraham

Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 5:10 pm
by Random
Thanks, palerider and Just This Guy.

Re: Book of Abraham

Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 5:10 pm
by Random
Thank you. I'll need to reread it, probably several times.
Hagoth wrote:
Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:32 am
Random wrote:
Tue Sep 10, 2019 4:05 pm
I looked up the essay and found this just after the Olishem explanation and just before the conclusion, which I didn't recall you addressing.
Yes, Random, I did address those issues, beginning around page 23. There are good answers, some of them refreshingly straight-forward, to all of these questions, which the apologists are overlooking or avoiding.

Re: Book of Abraham

Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 5:13 pm
by Random
Keewon, that's what I noticed-Joseph was using Hebrew words and calling them Egyptian.

Re: Book of Abraham

Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:56 pm
by Hagoth
Palerider wrote:
Tue Sep 10, 2019 9:35 pm
This is also analogous to what apologists try to do with the Masonic rituals they claim have come down since the time of Solomon's temple. There is nothing....zero....nada concrete to support anything of the sort. A few stupid Masonic legends and we're supposed to hang our entire belief system on them. Scholars who have no agenda have verified that the Masonic rituals date back only to what......the 15th or 16th century?
Which the masons now recognize and have abandoned any claims of origins in Solomon's temple. But Mormons are stuck with their masonry. Hilarious.