I’m not a Mormon. Here's why...

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Very interesting video. I knew the outlines of this story, but had not seen the images. The part about the picture of Anubis with his head torn off I found particularly interesting. It would be natural, if one didn’t know about Anubis having a jackal head, to “complete” the missing section with a figure with a normal human head.

A second thought: I’m also sort of surprised that the Mormon Church didn’t bury these scrolls in the archives in 1966. Maybe God did want people to look at them after all.
 
I finally had a chance to watch this is its entirety. While I was certainly not surprised to find that the Book of Abraham is a fraud, I am amazed at the silence on the part of the Mormon hierarchy to address this. The rationalization of those LDS members who have commented is very sad and unconvincing, indeed. But this is a common thread that runs throughout Mormon thought in that it is based upon the presupposition that Joseph Smith was a prophet regardless of the historical evidence, or lack thereof, disproving his most fundamental claims; i.e. The Great Apostacy, immense ancient American civilizations for which there is no archeological evidence, etc.

I also understand how difficult this must be for Mormons and I truly felt sadness for them. Nevertheless, anyone with the least bit of intellectual honesty must take this into consideration. There has not been a Mormon who has dared to post on this thread to date. I realize that since ParkerD has been banned Mormon posts have dropped dramatically anyway, but I cannot imagine that a member of the LDS church has not viewed this thread. If there is any defense against what has been presented here, why has there not been a Mormon post?
 
If there is any defense against what has been presented here, why has there not been a Mormon post?
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There is no Mormon defense. One reason why I advocate bumping this thread is to reduce participation of the more obnoxious sort of LDS debaters, who constantly re-reroute the discussion into matters of belief, rather than concrete truth.
 
Jerusha said:
There is no Mormon defense. One reason why I advocate bumping this thread is to reduce participation of the more obnoxious sort of LDS debaters, who constantly re-reroute the discussion into matters of belief, rather than concrete truth.
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I understand what you are saying, however if something of this importance was revealed concerning my faith I would have no choice but either defend it or leave my faith completely. It is the silence that I don’t understand. How can this just be left to float out there and be ignored by any Mormon continuing to post on this forum. :confused:
 
How can this just be left to float out there and be ignored by any Mormon continuing to post on this forum. :confused:
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Because they have too much to lose by leaving. Jobs, family, prestige and friends in the community, reputation, the list of possible consequences goes on and on.
 
Jerusha said:
Because they have too much to lose by leaving. Jobs, family, prestige and friends in the community, reputation, the list of possible consequences goes on and on.
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I’m aware of this. I’d just like to get a Mormon’s take on how they reconcile this evidence with a continued belief in the credibility of Joseph Snith.
 
SteveVH said:
But this is a common thread that runs throughout Mormon thought in that it is based upon the presupposition that Joseph Smith was a prophet regardless of the historical evidence, or lack thereof,
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You have given the response. Joseph Smith was a prophet and the intellectual bits that don’t make sense, are only there because either a)Smith was so far ahead of everyone spiritually it is difficult for everyone else to understand or b)It appears flawed to you, but to God all is clear and eventually it will be revealed clearly to Mormons.

That’s pretty much the answer to anything that doesn’t make sense in Mormonism, especially in regards to anything Joseph Smith did or said.
 
RebeccaJ said:
You have given the response. Joseph Smith was a prophet and the intellectual bits that don’t make sense, are only there because either a)Smith was so far ahead of everyone spiritually it is difficult for everyone else to understand or b)It appears flawed to you, but to God all is clear and eventually it will be revealed clearly to Mormons.

That’s pretty much the answer to anything that doesn’t make sense in Mormonism, especially in regards to anything Joseph Smith did or said.
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How right you are. I’ve heard these very responses on other threads. Plus the fact that I am not on my way to becoming a god and therefore am not as enlightened. I’m sure that if they pray about it they will receive a testimony. How could I have ever thought that reason and rationality my play a part here? Still, I’d like to see a response.
 
I think the easiest Mormon explanation would rest on the fact that when Smith uses the term “translation”, he is not talking about the academic process of rendering what is said in one language into a second language, but rather he is recording divine inspiration. Nothing about Smith’s accounts of “translating” the BOM relates to translation in any scholarly way, for example. So, when he says he “translated” the papyri in his diary, he really means something along the lines of “worked on an inspired story”. Voila. The story is inspired. The papyri you are looking at are something else, so their scholarly translation is immaterial. You just really didn’t understand Smith and how he uses language. And besides, the real papyri are probably still undiscovered or lost.
 
JHow said:
And besides, the real papyri are probably still undiscovered or lost.
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They exist. The Mormon apologetic response is that what people use today to debunk the BoA are just fragments of a larger scroll. IF you had the whole scroll, it would make perfect sense! :juggle:
 
RebeccaJ said:
They exist. The Mormon apologetic response is that what people use today to debunk the BoA are just fragments of a larger scroll. IF you had the whole scroll, it would make perfect sense! :juggle:
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“At this point the narrator interrupts his prayer to the heathen gods of Egypt for the soul of the lately departed Egyptian priest and starts a new account of the life of Abraham and the creation of the world by the Gods…”
 
I have watched this video a number of times over the years (it is not a new production). For those that are interested in one Latter-day Saint’s view of the video, please see:

A Response to the Video “The Lost Book of Abraham: Investigating a Remarkable Mormon Claim”, by Michael D. Rhodes, Associate Research Professor, Department of Ancient Scripture, Brigham Young University.

Rhodes also presented on the same topic at an LDS apologetics conference in 2003. The videos of the presentation can be seen here.

There is also a response published by Ben McGuire through FAIR (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research), which can be read here: Responding To Errors in An Anti-Mormon Film: “The Lost Book of Abraham: Investigating a Remarkable Mormon Claim”.

A few other articles that I find particularly helpful in understanding Latter-day Saint perspective on this issue, and provide fascinating insights into not only the translation of the Book of Abraham, but also insights into the actual text of the scripture, including fascinating parallels with other ancient writings on Abraham that Joseph Smith was of course not aware of in the 1800s include:
  1. “The Jewish Origin of the Book of Abraham” by Jonathan Moyer
  2. “New Light On the Joseph Smith Papyri” by John Gee (Research Professor at Brigham Young University, PhD in Egyptology, Yale University)
  3. A Critical Analysis of The Book of Abraham In Light of Extra-Canonical Jewish Writings by Rabbi Nissim Wernick (PhD Dissertation, Department of Graduate Studies in Religious Instruction, Brigham Young University)
LDS apologist Jeff Lindsay has a series of articles on the Book of Abraham that provide brief summaries of the issues commonly brought up by critics, as well as issues not commonly brought up by critics:
  1. Questions About the Book of Abraham Part 1: Sources of the BoA
  2. Part 2: Evidences For Plausibility
  3. Part 3 (my favorite): Ancient Records Offer New Support For the Book of Abraham
From these articles and videos, we see that the issue of the translation of the Book of Abraham is not as clear cut as the video in the OP would have us believe (and as we see from the reviews of the video, there are quite a number of problems with the arguments it makes and the evidences it presents), and for a book that many critics would have us believe Joseph Smith and/or his associates simply made up in the 1800s, there are many fascinating parallels with other ancient Judeo-Christian extra-canonical works on Abraham, including aspects of Abraham and his life that are not found within the Old Testament record.

I hope this helps for those interested in Latter-day Saint perspectives on the Book of Abraham.
 
LivingWaters7 said:
I have watched this video a number of times over the years (it is not a new production). For those that are interested in one Latter-day Saint’s view of the video, please see:

A Response to the Video “The Lost Book of Abraham: Investigating a Remarkable Mormon Claim”, by Michael D. Rhodes, Associate Research Professor, Department of Ancient Scripture, Brigham Young University.

Rhodes also presented on the same topic at an LDS apologetics conference in 2003. The videos of the presentation can be seen here.

There is also a response published by Ben McGuire through FAIR (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research), which can be read here: Responding To Errors in An Anti-Mormon Film: “The Lost Book of Abraham: Investigating a Remarkable Mormon Claim”.

A few other articles that I find particularly helpful in understanding Latter-day Saint perspective on this issue, and provide fascinating insights into not only the translation of the Book of Abraham, but also insights into the actual text of the scripture, including fascinating parallels with other ancient writings on Abraham that Joseph Smith was of course not aware of in the 1800s include:
  1. “The Jewish Origin of the Book of Abraham” by Jonathan Moyer
  2. “New Light On the Joseph Smith Papyri” by John Gee (Research Professor at Brigham Young University, PhD in Egyptology, Yale University)
  3. A Critical Analysis of The Book of Abraham In Light of Extra-Canonical Jewish Writings by Rabbi Nissim Wernick (PhD Dissertation, Department of Graduate Studies in Religious Instruction, Brigham Young University)
LDS apologist Jeff Lindsay has a series of articles on the Book of Abraham that provide brief summaries of the issues commonly brought up by critics, as well as issues not commonly brought up by critics:
  1. Questions About the Book of Abraham Part 1: Sources of the BoA
  2. Part 2: Evidences For Plausibility
  3. Part 3 (my favorite): Ancient Records Offer New Support For the Book of Abraham
From these articles and videos, we see that the issue of the translation of the Book of Abraham is not as clear cut as the video in the OP would have us believe (and as we see from the reviews of the video, there are quite a number of problems with the arguments it makes and the evidences it presents), and for a book that many critics would have us believe Joseph Smith and/or his associates simply made up in the 1800s, there are many fascinating parallels with other ancient Judeo-Christian extra-canonical works on Abraham, including aspects of Abraham and his life that are not found within the Old Testament record.

I hope this helps for those interested in Latter-day Saint perspectives on the Book of Abraham.
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Translation: No Non-LDS Scholar agrees with the LDS Church. No non-LDS expert on Egyptians agree with the LDS Church. Instead, the only people to refute the video are…wait for it…wait for it…LDS Apologists.

THAT should tell you all you need to know.
 
The Mormons interviewed in this video simply repeated what they had been taught via church authorities.
But what about those authorities, 4 or 5 top executives in SLC? Are they scrambling to re-phrase the teaching re: BoA? Have any top executives ever bailed out of Mormonism?
 
The top 15 are too invested $$$$ to bail. The top 15 are too enmeshed in LDS culture and isolated from mainstream culture to bail.

What they will do is just neglect to teach about it. “O hmmmm I’ve never heard about that we don’t teach it anymore.” They try to focus on the stuff that sounds like Christianity, and frequently mention some of the other weird stuff that hasn’t been addressed.

No top members have ever willingly left Mormonism in recent years. However, there are some outspoken people who are well-liked among Mormons, and popular among non-Mormons who would leave if they could. They can’t get ex’s, because that would be bad publicity. They choose to stay in, in order to present their open-minded thinking to members who close their minds to anyone who has left.
 
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