Mormon Stories Podcast

Nemo [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. It is an LDS Discussions edition. This is not the voice you normally hear. It is the voice of Nemo the Mormon, the most British categorically member of the LDS discussions team. I am not alone. Today I am joined by Julia, who we will introduce in a moment. But first, what is LDS Discussions? If you're new here, stop, go back, watch all of the episodes. This series is best consumed in sequence. That's what we found. And we're. I know 70 odd episodes in at this point, and so there's a lot to catch up on. So maybe stick around, enjoy this, then go back and watch the rest. It's entirely up to you. You have your free will. But LDS discussion started as the work of a man named Mike. Mike was a wonderful researcher. He put together a wonderful website full of wonderful essays about church history topics. And they became a series here on Mormon Stories. They got their own podcast series, LDS Discussions, so you can consume it in. In its own feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, whatever it is you use. Mike retired. He ran off to lands far greener and far more. I don't know, tasty maybe. He ran away. He's retired. He's run off into the sunset. And we are here to continue his legacy. And that legacy is to try and deal with matters of LDS history, LDS doctrine, these sorts of discussions in as dispassionate and unbiased away as is possible for people to do so. We come here with another brilliant researcher, Julia, who now can reveal herself.

LDS Discussions

Julia on Analyzing Mormonism

Julia [00:01:37] Hi.

Nemo [00:01:38] Hey, Julia.

Julia [00:01:39] Hi. How's it going?

Nemo [00:01:40] It's very well. Julia has a wonderful channel of her own analyzing Mormonism. Julia is a great researcher. She does all the research for these episodes along with Colby. I then join in and help put them in some sort of order and try and, you know, tighten it all up. And then we get on here and we discuss it. So should we do that?

Return to the Book of Abraham

Julia [00:01:59] Yes. So I just want to recap. So this is, I think, episode 79, if I'm not mistaken. So we had been talking about the Book of Abraham and then we took a break and talked about the Jasmine's video about the sin next to murder. And we're responding again to Jasmine's claims about the Book of Abraham. And then we had had episodes on the William Clayton journals. So we're going back to. So after all that, we're going back to the Book of Abraham to talk more about that. Because it's a great topic.

Nemo [00:02:22] It is, yeah.

Guest [00:02:23] Yeah.

Nemo [00:02:23] So if you hadn't got Enough of the Book of Abraham. Fear not. There is more.

Julia [00:02:28] I really just genuinely don't know how people can. Members of the church can see this as a real translation. I just, I'm confused by that.

Nemo [00:02:38] But for me, it's up there with Book of Mormon geography, which I've just been doing a series of videos on myself, which is the idea of if this is a historical record, why are we having such difficulty just pinning down where it happened? Yeah, it's another one of those. Feels quite obvious, but is worth discussing because there are people who have questions about this. There are people who have this as valid concerns. And so we, as always, try and treat these concerns and these discussions with respect and give them the time and attention they deserve. And there's a lot of time and attention going to this one. There's a lot of slides. So let's get through it.

Julia [00:03:13] Yes. Okay. So here. So I'm just recapping. So we are responding to a specific video. It's a. It's from the channel. Hello Saints. And this is his name is the guy hosting this channel. His name is Jeff McCullough, and he's a Christian pastor. He's not Mormon, but he frequently has members of the church on, if I'm not mistaken. And he had Jasmine on. And Jasmine is a. An LDS apologist. I don't think she's paid by the church. She was working for Scripture Plus, Scripture Central. Yeah, so she was on. This is the episode was on. An evangelical and Latter Day Saint expose each other's biggest myths. And it's a 50. It's just an hour long. So before we get into that, I wanted to recap on some of what the. Of the. The scrolls of the Book of Abraham or the scrolls that were given to Joseph in Nauvoo in 1843. Sorry, excuse me. 1835. Excuse me. In July 1835, antiquities dealer Michael Chandler sold Joseph Smith two papyrus rolls, or scrolls along with several smaller fragments and four mummies at the cost of $2,400, which was a lot of money back then. Upon acquiring them, Smith stated that the two main scroll rolls contained the writing of the biblical patriarchs Abraham and Joseph of Egypt. And he never translated the one with Joseph in Egypt. The purchase also included two or three other smaller pieces of papyrus. And modern Egyptologists and historians analyzed the surviving documents, indicate the collection actually contained at least four distinct scrolls or fragments. And these. This is what they actually are, the scrolls of the scroll of Hor, or. And that's the Book of Breathings that's the Book of Abraham, the Book of the Dead, which he thought was the scroll of Joseph in Egypt. And that text belonged to a woman named. I don't know how to say this name.

Hello Saints

The Scrolls of the Book of Abraham

Nemo [00:04:53] Shenmin.

Julia [00:04:54] To Shenmin. And then a fragment belonging to. And I can't say any of these names. Yep. And then another fragment. And then another fragment belonging to Amenhotep. Okay. So that's what they really are. And then this is another slide. We've already showed some of these before, but I just wanted to like put it into perspective that Joseph Smith translated the golden plates in 1828 and 1829. We have gone through, we've done episodes about the witnesses and how they didn't. There were several sources, I think at least 13, if not a few more that say that this was a spiritual experience that didn't actually witness the golden plates. And then Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham in 1835 and it was shown to be false in 1912. And what I mean by that is there was a New York Times newspaper that published the. How that. How they found out that they. These were not correct, this translation. And then Joseph Smith translated a portion of the Kinderhook plates which we've talked about before on LDS discussions. And I can put those in the show notes. And he translated those in 1843 and they were exposed as a hoax in 1879. So I just kind of wanted to put down these. He had. He translated more things like he. Or I mean by translate, I mean like the book of the. John the Beloved. John the Beloved, where he looked in the seer stone and he saw a scroll. So he's not really translating from anything. And then same with the book of Moses, I guess is the same revelatory experience.

Nemo [00:06:11] But these were ones who were incident that we could get into another time.

Julia [00:06:14] True. That is true.

Nemo [00:06:15] Yeah, that's contentious one. But yeah, he was constantly engaging in the work of translating things and that was one of his listed gifts within the Doctrine and Covenants, as is his position as head of the church.

Julia [00:06:28] I think originally it said that was his only gift. And then later they changed it to

Nemo [00:06:33] they gave him a little bit of other stuff.

Julia [00:06:35] Yeah, they gave him some other things. Okay, so now we're gonna. We're just gonna recap some of these theories about the Book of Abraham. So. So there's. There's three main ones that I know of. And then I just was. As I was doing this research, I realized there was a fourth one.

4 Ahmologian Theories About the Book of Abraham

Nemo [00:06:48] Just jump in for a sec. I think it's important to lay the groundwork here real quick is why are there apologistic theories? Well, because of what you've just said, because Egyptologists have looked at the remaining surviving fragments, because Egyptology is a well studied field. They know what you would expect these scrolls to contain and these writings to contain. What they've done is they've looked and go, well, that doesn't say what Joseph Smith said. It said it's really quite as clear cut as that. And so now apologists, for some reason are the ones stepping up, providing theories or offering ideas as to how you can square that circle of the text that Joseph Smith gave out isn't reflective of what an actual translation of the text he had in front of him would have been. So why do we have something that's different? Because the admittance can't be Joseph just got it wrong or made it up. Because that undermines so much of. Regardless of what Jasmine said in the last episode we did on this, where she went, hey, look, it's not that important. Book of Abraham is not the keystone of our religion. So whatever you can put it to one side, it is very significant if it is the case that Joseph Smith did not translate these correctly because he claimed to translate other things that are the keystone of the religion, the LDS faith. And we'll do some comparative stuff on that later.

Julia [00:08:03] Yeah. Okay, so we're going through some of these. No, that was great. That was great. Because they have a need for one of these theories to be true. And I think a lot of apologists, I've just seen them accept all four of these. And that seems to be what Jasmine's doing in that video is like, oh, one of these is true.

Nemo [00:08:18] Whichever one resonates. Right. Just right. Could be any of them.

Julia [00:08:22] Right. So the first one is the missing scroll theory. So this, the theory is that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from a portion of the papyri that no longer exists, meaning that it was destroyed in the Chicago fire. And then there's the long scroll theory, since the text itself points us to the facsimiles that are. That are on the existing Book of Breathings. The scroll connected to the surviving fragments was originally much longer than. And modern reconstruction underestimate the original length, so that there's. There's more of it than what we have. And then there's the catalyst theory. Joseph Smith did not translate Egyptian characters into the Book of Abraham text, but rather the papyri acted as a catalyst to trigger revelation. So, so maybe he thought he was and he was getting direct revelation from God, but not. Not necessarily from the text or from the scrolls. And these are what we've gone over already in the. Our past episode. So the missing scroll theory. According to Robert Rittner, there are only two columns and possibly one small vignette that are missing from the scrolls. And I. That's not enough to make up. And also he points out that if you have Book of Abraham in the beginning, Book of Abraham at the end, why on. Why on earth would you have. Or no, no, sorry, Book of The Book of Breathing is at the beginning. Book of Breathing is at the end. About this man named Hor. Why on earth would you have this random text of the Book of Abraham in the middle? It doesn't make any sense. Long scroll theory. There is no good evidence for the existence of a long scroll. I don't know what else to say that. And we've covered that thoroughly on our last episode. And then the catalyst theory. Joseph Smith had translated other texts by way of catalysts, meaning the Book of Moses or the Book of John or from the scroll of John, and knew how to describe the process. Okay, yeah. Based on the grammar in Egyptian papers, he seems to believe that he is truly translating. He also translated incorrectly each of the facsimiles of the Book of Abraham scrolls, which we have pictures of those, and we know that those are incorrect.

The Book of Abraham

Nemo [00:10:08] So the facsimiles are the smoking gun there in that he looked at those pictures and wrote down, this is what each of these things means. And Egyptologists have come along and gone, no, they don't mean that. And we covered this in the last episode, like you said.

Julia [00:10:22] Yeah. Okay, so this is the clip I wanted to show about Jazan on this new. Well, this theory that the Book of Abraham came from, like, a Jewish tradition, so sort of thing. Yeah.

Jazan on the Book of Abraham

Nemo [00:10:33] All right, I'll read the Book of Abraham.

Julia [00:10:35] Thanks.

Guest [00:10:36] I think it's fascinating and fun. And the other thing to note about the Book of Abraham is sometimes people have misconceptions about, like, what it's supposed to be. Certainly, like, the earliest saints probably assume that, like, oh, this is Abraham's writing and that this is like, from Abraham himself, you know, Bronze Age Israelite writing. But the papyri itself dates to the 3rd century ish BC and Ptolemaic Egypt. And so the context that we can surmise is perhaps potentially like a Jewish community passing down traditions from Abraham around this time. And. And I think Latter Day Saints can accept that, like, there's nothing inherently wrong about, like. Well, yeah, this isn't like Abraham's words as he spoke them in 2000 or 1200 BC whatever it might have been. This is. These are traditions that could have been passed down through transmission and editing and redacting, whatever that might be. And what we've got is some kind of text that's ancient in some third century BC contexts that we believe contains revelation in the word of God.

Julia [00:11:31] Now, can you summarize what she's trying to say?

Nemo [00:11:35] She's trying. She's trying to say. Well, early saints assumed that these were the actual words written by Abraham's own hand on papyrus. Almost like that's what the introduction of the book says about itself, that these are the words of Abraham written upon papyrus by his.

Julia [00:11:51] By his own hand. Yeah, yeah.

Nemo [00:11:53] So sorry, I'm going to get really bugged by that because I hate when apologists try and blame other people for assuming things that they are just directly told. Like, oh, they made the assumption that, no, no, the text claims this. I don't know what else to tell you. Anyway, she's then trying to say, well, you know, it doesn't have to actually be that old. The papyrus we have, we know date from the third century ish BC and so maybe these are just tales that were passed down over time and, and edited and redacted in some way. But even if so, why would a community and people probably get into this? But why would a community pass along this information in such a way as to put these facsimiles together, knowing how they would be understood in the third century BCE is how modern Egyptologists understand them today, and yet somehow expect Joseph Smith to get something completely different from it. And that's what we end up with in the Book of Abraham.

Julia [00:12:47] Right?

Nemo [00:12:47] If this information of the Book of Abraham was passed down, was passed down really poorly because it was passed down in a way that would have been understood by people at the time to mean something entirely different? It makes no sense. Jasmine?

Julia [00:12:58] Yeah, that's. I was thinking about. Yeah, that makes me think of the Bible where the. I think in the LDS perspective is that the Bible has been changed so often and it's been, you know, transmission, editing, redacting. I think you can fit those same words that she used into the Bible and that's why Joseph Smith reworked that translation to fix some of those errors. But, like, if it was what's being preserved, if things are being changed so much.

Nemo [00:13:20] Well, yeah, transitioning, editing and redacting are just. They're like LDS speak for the text is problematic. But Revelation will fix it. Yeah, that's like, it's like this LDS idea that, well, if we have an old text, if it doesn't say exactly what we think it ought to, then it was edited or transmitted badly or redacted and we, because that's such a big part of the Book of Mormon's purpose and a big part of Joseph Smith's original story is like the Bible's corrupted, we need to fix it. Yeah. It is just this almost like go to of like, oh well, you know, it was probably messed with in some way.

Julia [00:13:52] Yeah. I also think the reason she hesitates on the third century ish BC is because I think Robert Ridner in his episode on Mormon stories and I can link that in the show notes, I think he specifically says 100 B.C. so I think there's just a little bit of difference. Not that it's a huge difference, but

Nemo [00:14:07] it's not the thousands that it would need to be for it to be Abraham.

Julia [00:14:10] Certainly not.

Nemo [00:14:12] And again, to just put a real fine point on that, it makes no sense. Imagine for a moment that you're trying to pass down something and you write it, you know, like I, I, it would be like me writing A Tale of Two Cities down over and over and over again and being like, I did that so that one day a man would open A Tale of Two Cities translated from the English that I wrote it in into German. And in German it's actually the works of Goethe, the famous German poet. But I did that somehow knowingly translate like transmitting this so it would be preserved so we would get the words of Goethe. That makes no sense to anyone.

Julia [00:14:53] Yeah, I don't, I don't.

Nemo [00:14:54] And that's, that's her theory. And I think it just, it needs a fine point on how ridiculous that idea is because the, the passing down by this Jewish community was done in such a way, if that's what it was even done, that it was written to, to be something that wasn't. What we ended up with in the resultant text because we know what's on the papyri isn't what Joseph wrote.

Julia [00:15:15] Yeah. So, yeah. Just to summarize what I took from this Jewish tradition or having it have an ancient core theory is that the Book of Abraham was not written by Abraham, even though it says it was, but may still preserve authentic ancient traditions about Abraham. There are parallels between the Book of Abraham and the later ancient Jewish or Egyptian texts. So there's just a lot of similarities. It follows right along with all the other traditions is what I'm taking from that. And it's not theory. It's been a theory that's been postulated by many Mormon apologists for decades. So.

Nemo [00:15:51] Yeah, and it's a real big shifting of the goalposts.

Julia [00:15:54] Yes, it is. So where I'm taking a lot of this research is from Dan Vogel's the Book of Abraham apologetics to review and critique and super great book, if you want. If you have any questions about it. He. He hits what he. What Stanville was really good about is he steel man's people's arguments and then he just. He still takes him down. Yeah, yeah, that's a great. Yeah, so this is a great book. It was published in 2021. You can buy it anywhere. It's a great book. Okay, so this. So this is what I've broken down in these main arguments of this episode. So, ancient literature. Ancient literature contains thousands of reoccurring motifs. If enough texts are compared, similarities are inevitable. The real question then becomes, are the similarities unique, significant, and unlikely to arise independently? Most Book of Abraham parallels are broad themes rather than distinctive narratives such as Abraham rejecting idolatry, being persecuted, receiving revelations, learning astronomy. One of the biggest things we will argue today is that many supposed ancient ideas were already circulating in Joseph Smith's environment. And then what would count as evidence against this theory? If every similarity is evidence for authenticity and every difference is explained as lost traditions, corrupted manuscript, independent revelation and expansion, or as Jasmine says, through transmission, editing and redacting, then the theory becomes difficult to falsify.

The Book of Abraham: Unfalsifiable Claims

Nemo [00:17:17] And I think unfalsifiable arguments are something that apologists have to kind of try and develop and create because it's the way in which they can stop people from falsifying so that people don't leave.

Julia [00:17:32] Essentially, yes. And I think if it's a huge problem when you're realizing that your arguments are unfalsifiable, I think you have stopped looking. In my opinion, it seems like you've stopped looking at the evidence because if

Nemo [00:17:45] it descends ad absurdium into, well, God made it so at that point, well, then I guess he did, maybe, sure. But that's all pure belief and faith. We're not engaging with the evidence anymore. We're just engaging with a sort of special pleading that allows you to say, well, any problem gets fixed because I say so.

Julia [00:18:05] Yeah, yeah, okay. So one thing I want to remind people of is that the Book of Abraham twice refers to the accompanying vignette depicting Abraham upon an altar and an idolatrous priest, in his opinion, attempting to sacrifice him. So it happens in Abraham 1 and it says that, and we've talked about this before, that you may have a knowledge of this altar. I will refer to refer you to the representation at the commencement of this record. And then referring to the lion couch. And then the second One is Abraham 1:14 that reads that you may have an understanding of these gods. I have given you the fashion of them and the figures at the beginning. And so what he's mean is he means the Canopic jars. So they're both, both of those times are pointing to that vignette specifically.

Nemo [00:18:44] And again, really important there is the text that you may have an understanding of these gods and Joseph then does not correctly identify them in the text. So people are not left with an understanding of the gods that those jars do depict. Because people might try and say, well, it's a hit. You know, the heads on those jars are gods. Yeah. But the text said that this is where a hit is only a hit if it's specific to the thing that it's meant to be a hit for. It's so that you might have an understanding of these gods. So if Joseph incorrectly identifies them or if the text incorrectly identifies them, then that does not give you an understanding of those gods. Therefore it doesn't work.

Julia [00:19:24] Yeah. And I don't know how this would work with the ancient Jewish tradition part because these are incorrect. So I don't know also then that

Nemo [00:19:31] you may have a knowledge of this altar. Again, it just wasn't an altar.

Julia [00:19:34] Right.

Nemo [00:19:35] In a sacrificial sense, as Robert Rittner would be first to point out.

Julia [00:19:40] Yeah. Okay. So just a reminder, it does say in the translation that it was written upon. The translation of the book of Abraham, written by his own hand upon the papyrus and found in the catacombs of Egypt. So it's. I don't like that they're trying to change what was spoken by Joseph.

Nemo [00:19:57] Yeah. And try to say, oh, members assumed. No, they didn't.

Julia [00:20:00] Yeah, we were told. Right. Okay. So this is one of the main books that Dan Vogel is combating because this is where they published this book in 2001. The Foundations for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies or FARMS. Based at Mormon owned Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, published a 553 page tome titled Traditions about the early life of Abraham. A compilation of late Jewish, Christian and Muslim sources said to support the antiquity of the Book of Abraham. So this is where a lot of these arguments are coming from. So and then Dan Vogel takes them and he breaks them down and he, he argues against them. Nima, do you want to read this one?

Nemo [00:20:39] Sure. At the beginning of the volume, it reads, because the Book of Abraham parallels so many non biblical stories, it is clearly of the same tradition. One might dismiss a single element found in a non biblical tradition that parallels the Book of Abraham as mere coincidence. However, when a large number of such elements come together from diverse times and places, they overwhelmingly support the Book of Abraham as an ancient text. There are far too many references to Terah as an idolater, Abraham as a sacrificial victim, Abraham as an astronomer, and Abraham as a missionary to lightly dismiss their antiquity. The majority of these non biblical traditions were not available to the prophet Joseph Smith during his lifetime. While we think these traditions provide substantial evidence that the Book of Abraham is an ancient text, we realize that others may not find the evidence convincing.

Julia [00:21:28] Thank you. So one thing I noticed too is when you're reading that, so some of these things are true, but they're not specific. So here it says Terah as an idolater, Abraham as a sacrificial victim. So, and then Abraham as astronomers. So some of the things you'll see that like broadly that's true, that Abraham was going to be killed for specific things, but he's killed in different ways. So it's not really following ancient tradition. So just keep in mind about those things that. How if, in order for these, I think to be accurate, they have to be specific. Because if they're just. If it's just vaguely similar, then I don't see that as a hit.

Nemo [00:22:02] It would be like saying, you know, Abraham as a guy, you're like, cool, yeah, we're all agreeing Abraham was male.

Julia [00:22:08] Yeah.

Nemo [00:22:09] But the Book of Mormon made specific claims, or the Book of Abraham made specific claims about him as a man. Maybe we get to that, you know.

Julia [00:22:17] Yeah, yeah.

11 Sources used in the Book of Genesis

Nemo [00:22:18] Okay, next slide.

Julia [00:22:19] So the, in this volume, they primarily use 11 sources. And what I've done is in this next slide, I have this timeline of these 11 sources. So you have, you have the life of Abraham down here, and this is in 2000 B.C. roughly, that's where the LDS tradition places him. And then you have Genesis, the final form of Genesis, which was published in the 6th or 5th century BCE. And then I give this timeline of these other sources that were used in this book with these LDS apologists. And so just to kind of put it into perspective, you have like the Jubilees, the Genesis, apocrypha, they're all right here. Just because I. Because that scroll, I don't know if we need to talk about that. But the scroll would have happened 100 BC. 100. We're right there. It would have fallen, taken place right there. But it's not. It's the Book of Breathings. It's the Book of the scroll of Horror. So it's nothing to do with Abraham. Anyway, I just wanted to show this perspective because I think it's interesting.

Nemo [00:23:11] Well, I think, yeah. Showing it as an authentic ancient text again is such a broad title to give it. Right. Because Jasmine talks about it as being ancient in the idea that it's from 100 BC. It's not ancient in terms of 2000 BC.

Julia [00:23:25] Right.

Nemo [00:23:27] But then what we're looking at here as farm's evidence for it being a text of antiquity goes all the way up to the 14th century. And to put that in perspective, by the. Or there's the 13th century, the 14th century there. The next century, the printing press would be invented.

Julia [00:23:46] Mm, yeah.

Nemo [00:23:47] Right. So that's not really that ancient anymore. Maybe I'm looking at this as a Brit, where I walk past houses older than some of the points on these timelines. But, you know, it's such. My point is it's such a wide span that of course over time you can find different things that might link into it. But you really should be looking for stuff from the time of Abraham if it's purporting to be a text from that time.

Julia [00:24:16] Yeah, yeah. Okay. So this is another one I want to talk about really briefly. This is in 1981, Hugh Nibley made similar claims as these apologists in that 2001 book. So he says going through a list of Abraham's sources with their dates of publication is one way of showing how recent most of the stuff is and how highly improbable it is that Joseph Smith could have made use of any of it. And what he's meaning is the stuff that we're learning about Abraham, it's coming to light now, whereas Joseph would not have known about that in 1835. And then Andrew Hedges as published in 2005. The book titled is called Astronomy, Papyrus and Covenant, and it was edited by John Gee and Brian Hauglid. BOA Professor Andrew H. Hedges wrote a chapter titled A Wander in a Strange Land. And this is. This is Hedges. He says the critics charges that Joseph Smith borrowed and adapted adapted popular ideas in the production of Latter Day Saint scripture and doctrine are unfolded in the case of the Book of Abraham.

Andrew H. Hedges on the Book of Abraham

Nemo [00:25:18] The unfounded in the case of the

Julia [00:25:19] Book of Abraham and are. Excuse me. Yeah. Are unfounded in the case of the Book of Abraham. So he's saying that's not the case. People are saying that he adapted popular ideas, but that is unfounded. Which.

Nemo [00:25:28] Do we perhaps have some evidence that there were popular ideas in Joseph's time?

Julia [00:25:31] Yes.

Nemo [00:25:34] Okay.

Julia [00:25:34] We are going to show that that is not true. And this one I just wanted to point out, because this is a, this is a fair. This is a. An article from Fair. And the question is, what evidence does the Book of Abraham show to support its antiquity? And one thing that they mentioned, and I have this little red arrow to it where he says, this is Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith could only have received this information through revelation, since there were no resources available to him on this subject at the time. So again, they're saying there's no resources about the Book of Abraham at all. So he would have had to rely on revelation. So, which I find interesting just because he's getting. If so, there's translation, there's revelation, and I guess people are a lot of apologists try to blur those lines. And if he's getting a revelation, I feel like a revelation from God would be a more direct, Would be a more correct answer, I guess, coming from God. So there's no reason why these things should be wrong. But I don't know if you have any other thoughts on this idea.

Nemo [00:26:27] No, I think you're right. I think if he's getting revelation, it's an interesting position you have to take to look at this situation and say, right, God revealed this text to Joseph Smith, but he didn't prevent Joseph Smith from claiming it to be a translation of the papyri that he bought, Meaning, he allowed Joseph Smith to create massive confusion by allowing him to claim that what he had written was a translation of what was on the papyrus, even though we now know it was, wasn't. What does that do for confusion for people? God is not the author of confusion. I'm pretty sure that was the, you know, that was what I was taught. But that seems like a massive way to engender confusion amongst people is to do that.

Julia [00:27:14] Yeah.

Nemo [00:27:16] So the revelation argument doesn't really work because it doesn't. It doesn't coalesce with what Joseph was claiming about what he was doing.

Julia [00:27:23] Yeah.

Nemo [00:27:24] And I don't get why we get to ignore Joseph Smith's own thoughts and opinions on what it was he was engaged in. When you're whoever you are, Hedges, in 2005, looking back and going, well, the prophet of the Restoration, the originator of all this, didn't really understand what he was doing. It was clearly a revelation. Or if you're fair, Mormon, it was clearly a revelation. I find it quite hubristic that they claim to know better what Joseph Smith thought he was engaged in than Joseph Smith himself.

Julia [00:27:52] Right. And this is the man who spoke to God and Jesus, I guess, supposedly.

Nemo [00:27:56] It's an old hubris.

Julia [00:27:58] Yeah, isn't it? Yeah, I think. Okay, so this next part, I want to compare the timeline for the Book of Mormon to the timeline or the timeline timeline of the translation of the Book of Mormon to the timeline of the translation of the Book of Abraham.

Timeline of the Translation of the Book of Mormon vs. Translation

Nemo [00:28:09] Two translations, yes.

Julia [00:28:11] So here. So Joseph attains the golden plates in 1827. He begins translating in 1828 because he has them for some time without. Without translating them. And then Martin Harris works on the translation with him. And then In June of 1828, he loses the 116 pages. And then there's this break from July to March, which I think is. What is that, nine months or something? Yeah, it's a long break, Very long break. And then Joseph and Oliver begin translating again in 1829, in April. And then the title page is copyrighted in June 11th. And then the translation is complete sometime around June 30th of 1829. And so, and then we, we. I think we've done this. Episodes on this before. I know I've done episodes on this before as well. Joseph. Joseph's mother says that he was telling stories from the Book of Mormon and telling his family members not to tell anyone outside the family as early as 1823. So that gives a lot more time. But I'm just keeping it simple for us. But this timeline here, from 1827 to 1829, he spent one year, nine months and eight days on the translation of the Book of Mormon. And so when people say, oh, it was only 65 working days, I think they need to step back and actually look at the timeline. Because it was not, in my opinion, because like, as a writer, I got my degree in literature, you need time to brainstorm things. You need time to. This nine month break could have been a very good opportunity for Joseph Smith to come up with other. Especially after losing 116 pages.

Nemo [00:29:28] But anyway, agreed. I think it's often the proclivity of the church to try and condense the length of time this took to make it seem more miraculous.

Julia [00:29:38] Right.

Nemo [00:29:40] When in actuality that's a perfect reasonable amount of time to write a book like that.

Julia [00:29:44] Yeah. And then now we're going to the Book of Abraham. So Joseph obtains the Scrolls in July of 1835. He begins translating on July 6th and 8th. And then these, this timeline comes from Dan Vogel's book about the Book of Abraham apologetics. And so he's translates Abraham 1 through 3 during that time in the beginning of July and then the translation stops and then it resumes again in November. And then I've got these three little time stamps. November 19, 20th, 24 and 25. And then he, he translates just a little bit at a time of the Book of Abraham. Like sometimes it's just as many as just a few verses. The Book of Abraham is only five chapters long. It's not a big book. Like it's so tiny. But then there's this huge break from the 35. And then you jump to March of 1841 where he, where these appear in the times and seasons. And so that's when you can we understand that that's whenever he was able to finish the, the Book of Abraham. And then so I guess timeline wise he would be done by, with it by March 15th of 1842. And that's when it released in the times and seasons.

Joseph Smith Transliterated the Book of Abraham in 6 Years

Nemo [00:30:43] So six and a half years. Ish.

Julia [00:30:45] Yeah. So it, yeah. So down at the bottom of this timeline, if, and again, if you're just listening to this, I encourage you to watch it on Spotify or wherever you can, like YouTube or whatever to see what's on the screen. But it took Joseph Smith six years, eight months and 13 days to translate five chapter, the five chapters that make up the Book of Abraham.

Nemo [00:31:02] Okay, so go back to the Book of Mormon slide. How long did it take him to translate the Book of Mormon? Which is much longer.

Julia [00:31:07] Yes, much longer. What 500 something pages? 1 year, 9 months and 8 days compared to the 6 years, 8 months and 13 days. So notice nobody ever uses the timeline of the Book of Abraham to support its truthfulness. No, but yeah, anyway, I just wanted to point that out. Okay, so yeah, one of the things that Dan Vogel notes in his book is he says Joseph Smith began translating the Book of Abraham in July 1832. And he says in November of 1835, Joseph returned to the Book of Abraham. Thus there was a delay of four plus months during this dictation of Abraham, during which Smith was able to brainstorm some of the material which he used in his subsequent dictation of the Book of Abraham. So what he means is this, this gap here, he's just using that to brainstorm. And I think again, the same thing with this, this nine month break of the Book of Mormon. But.

Nemo [00:31:56] And go back for a second, because he obtains the scrolls in July 1835 and then between July 6th and 8th. So there's five days there in which he obtained those scrolls. We don't know exactly on what day from this timeline, we know that within five or six days he was at it, translating them.

Julia [00:32:15] Yeah.

Nemo [00:32:16] Really got to it. So this wasn't a thing that he was kind of lackadaisical about. In a sense, he really started to engage with the work, and I think the work took a long time because as we see from the documentation, he was trying to translate it. This wasn't revelatory in the way the Book of Mormon was. The Book of Mormon or revelatory? I don't know. It depends on your view, trying to hold space for everyone here. But the Book of Mormon, the way that we understand the translation to have happened is that he would reveal the words from a stone in a hat. Right. So whether that's him dictating a story that he's developed or whether that's him receiving revelation from God, either way, that is a quicker process. That's a form of translation, divine translation. What we see, if you believe the divine version of it, there's a form of divine translation there where, you know, the characters are being translated in front of his eyes spiritually, and then he dictates them, and it's not until they're written down properly that they move on. That's him literally translating the text from the gold plates through the Seer stone. That's that version of translation there. What we see here is very clearly from the documentation, Joseph Smith looking and examining each character, believing that they contain paragraphs of text, which we've gone over and we've done to death, but translating this stuff that's in front of him very literally, very seriously. And I think that's why it took so much longer, because there actually wasn't a revelatory element to it that he could claim. Or there wasn't just an sort of a story that he'd already concocted that he then let out, depending on your view of what happened. This was him genuinely. I think at this point, he was trying to translate ancient languages. He believed he could try and do that. And so this is what's going on here. This is why I think it takes much longer, which is why I think the timelines are important.

Julia [00:34:01] Yeah. And I will say that's the way

Nemo [00:34:02] with the Catalyst theory.

Julia [00:34:03] Particularly true. Yeah. And I will say that certainly this wasn't just number one priority between 35 and 42. He certainly had other things going on. The saints were moving around. And so like I won't say that this was his top priority and that he, he might just have not had time. Although six years and eight months is a really long time to translate only five chapters of this small book.

Nemo [00:34:24] But anyway, I think we see it was a much more effortful, more literal version of a translation, right? I think, yeah.

Julia [00:34:33] Okay, so not only does Jasmine make this argument, but in the church's own Gospel Topics essay, they also discuss this as well. Nima, do you want to just read this whole paragraph from the essay?

Nemo [00:34:42] Other details in the Book of Abraham are found in ancient traditions located across the Near East. These include terror, Abraham's father being an idolater, a famine striking Abraham's homeland, Abraham's familiarity with Egyptian idols, and Abraham's being younger than 75 years old when he left Haran. As the biblical account states, some of these extra biblical elements were available in apocryphal books or biblical commentaries in Joseph Smith's lifetime, but others were confined to non biblical traditions, inaccessible or unknown to 19th century Americas. So already the church is giving a little bit of ground there, saying, okay, he could have had access to some of these things, but not all of them. And then also just. I don't know if we have pointed this out yet or we point it out later, but I'm going to say it now. Abraham's familiarity with Egyptian idols is such a bad evidence for the Book of Abraham being true. Because what we see again in the same way I said about it was his familiar to help you understand the gods of Egypt. And he gets all the gods wrong. He gets all the idols wrong. So Abraham in the text of the Book of Abraham shows no actual familiarity with Egyptian idols in that he doesn't know the correct names of any of them. He thinks Pharaoh is a, is a given name, not an honorific title. For a start, he thinks that the jackal headed God Anubis is some slave. He thinks like there's so much wrong about what the Book of Abraham says about Egyptian idols that an argument that Abraham's familiarity with Egyptian idols is evidence of its truthfulness is just ridiculous.

Julia [00:36:20] Yeah, I don't know why they would even say that. Because like, I mean, I guess, is that tipping their hand too much to say this is not a real. I don't know, I just don't understand why they would even say that.

Nemo [00:36:28] It's a weird justification, isn't it?

Virtues of the Israel story

Julia [00:36:30] Yeah, but again, you'll notice Some of these things are not specific, like Terah being an idolater, famine striking Abraham's homeland. And we'll talk about. That's probably the first thing we're talking about is where specifically did it. Did that famine take place? These are just kind of vague things that they're saying, like, oh, you know,

Nemo [00:36:46] I don't know, they're just stuff happened around him and.

Julia [00:36:48] Yeah, and when you're looking at traditions, you. You should probably look at the specific story. Like if he was killed on an altar, if he was thrown into a fire or killed on an altar with a knife, those are very different things. Even though the end point is the same, that he would have died. So, like, the church is trying to stay in this vague area.

Nemo [00:37:04] It's like saying, you know, yeah, it is like saying someone died. And you're like, well, okay, but how.

Julia [00:37:09] Right. And you'll see that throughout is that the church is trying to stay vague. Okay, so I've made a contents page for this episode and we can. And I'll put these in the, in the timestamps so that we can. People can jump to what they want because there's a lot to cover. So we're going to talk about the, the famine. This is the first one, the famine, whether it takes or. No. Wait, so hang on, sorry. This is the missions that he went on to to preach the gospel, I guess, in Ur and Heron. And then we're going to talk about a famine in Chaldea, then Heron's death. And that Heron is. There's a place Heron. And then there's Abraham's brother, Heron. And then his death. And then so Tara, his father, and then converts in Heron. The age of Abraham, sacrifice of Abraham, death of the priests, Egyptian idols, human sacrifice, terror behind the attempt to kill Abraham, and Terah's worshiped worshiping of idols.

The Book of Abraham: An Ancient Text

Nemo [00:37:57] So these are all the things that the church thinks are hits or that farms think are hits with traditional or with Jewish tradition that are described in the Book of Abraham, inaccessible to Joseph Smith, and therefore proof of its ancientness as a text. Even if. Even if it doesn't match any of the characters on the papyri.

Julia [00:38:23] Yeah.

Nemo [00:38:24] The resulting text, however it came about, is genuinely ancient in nature because it contains these specific themes that Joseph couldn't have known about any other way. Is that the sum up of the argument?

Julia [00:38:35] Yes, that is the summary. And then I will just point out. So these are again from Dan Vogel's book, and these are the ones he says. There's more things that they postulate are from Jewish tradition. But he says these are the main ones that he wanted to focus on and probably the biggest ones of them of all the ones listed. So I won't say this is a. This is a full list. Yeah, it's not exhaustive, but this is what we're going to talk about today. Okay, so the first one is Uran Haran. So Abraham 2 parallels. Genesis 11:12. Abraham receives two revelations in which God commands him to depart. One he's commanded apart from Ur and Chaldea, the other from Haran in northern Mesopotamia. So he's got these two calls out of where he. Where he is.

Adam Clark and Abraham 2 parallels

Nemo [00:39:16] Okay.

Julia [00:39:17] Gen, Genesis mentions only Heron. And this is from Genesis 12:1.

Nemo [00:39:21] Yeah.

Julia [00:39:21] And then here on the side, I'm comparing the text with these little arrows, if you wanted to look at them. So Uran Heron. So, however, according to Stephen, in Acts 7, God's appearance to Abraham and the command to depart occurred in Ur, not Haran. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in and Charon or Heron, and said unto him, get thee out of thy country and from thy. Thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee. And this is from. That's from Acts 7, verses 2 and 3. So we're seeing. So Stephen says he was committed to depart from Heron, not Ur, which is what is mentioned here in Abraham. So, okay, so already there's some differences here, but I guess that's.

Nemo [00:40:07] That's in the book of Abraham and in Genesis.

Julia [00:40:10] So. Because they parallel each other. So Genesis, I guess, is arguing against Acts 7, and then you have Abraham.

Nemo [00:40:15] So, yeah, if they're both mentioned in chapter two, what you've got there is Joseph Smith, rather than trying to reconcile which one it was, just saying it was both. Right. So he draws one from Genesis and one from Acts.

Julia [00:40:30] Yes. So that's a great point. So the difference between Genesis and Acts evidently caused a controversy in Smith's day over whether Abraham received one or two calls. And I find this fascinating. According to Adam Clark, who publishes Commentary on the Holy Bible in 1825, which Joseph Smith, which, because he's going to these camp meetings, he's going to different churches, he's trying things out. Like it would make sense for me not to. For him to maybe even read Adam Clark's book, but for him to even come up with these. Come across these ideas from other pastors or other churches.

Nemo [00:41:02] There's a lot of evidence out there that Joseph Smith engaged with the ideas of The Adam Clark commentary to the point where it's. It's beyond coincidence that he uses so many of them in his translation of the Bible.

Julia [00:41:12] That's true. He. Yes, I should have started on with that. But yeah. So Adam Clark says there is a great dissension between commentators concerning the call of Abram. Some supposing he had two distinct calls, others said he had but one. Clark conjectured that when Tara, Abraham, Lot and their new wives left Ur, he quote, this was no doubt in consequence of some divine admonition.

Nemo [00:41:37] Okay.

Julia [00:41:38] And then under Acts 7. 7, verse 2, Clark says it seems most probable that Abraham had two calls, one in Ur and the other in Haran. Vogel pointed out that Abraham's use of Genesis is a little different from Smith's Bible revision, which clearly responded to problems in the English translation of the KJV rather than to restoring original or ancient texts. So in Joseph's book of Abraham, he's just. He's just making this. Okay. He's like giving an answer to this concern that was happening in 1825.

Nemo [00:42:08] He's just saying, hey, look, he did both. Because he sides with Clark on almost all of these issues.

Julia [00:42:13] Yeah, yeah, I don't think that. I don't know if we have anything more to add on this one.

Nemo [00:42:18] Just to add on Clark real quick. Like, I'm not just pulling that out of nowhere. There are papers that have been done analyzing Adam Clark's commentary on the Bible and Joseph Smith's Bible translation, and they show the overlap is astounding, overwhelming.

Julia [00:42:32] Yeah, yeah, you can't ignore that.

Nemo [00:42:34] We could link that in the show notes, probably.

Julia [00:42:35] That's good for sure. Yeah. So this next one that we're going to talk about is the famine in Chaldea. And if you'll remember, the church itself in their essay used the famine, the famine in Abraham's homeland as part of this holding up of Jewish tradition. And so there is a famine in Abraham's homeland of Chaldea. And this happens in Abraham 1:29 through 30. And then as well, it's in the beginning of chapter two as well, from in verse one and five. Um, and then this is from that book, the traditions about the early life of Abraham. And they say this is from. This is Vogel's take on this book. He says of the 11 sources. And I have a hard time with these people's names. Tvet, Tvet. How do you say that? Vetanist, Hauglid and Ghee offer as parallels to the book of Abraham all but one date between the 1st and 14th century cell one, the Book of Jubilees, dated to the 2nd century BCE. One has nothing to do with Abraham and another only mentions the famine in Canaan. Two sources deal with a problematic legend about Abraham and Nimrod competing to feed the people during a lifetime, with Nimrod drawing on his many storehouses and Abraham providing grain by a miracle. So it's only one of them says Canaan. They don't talk about the one in Chaldea. So. So already it's sort of a weak hit, I guess, for the, for the

The Famine in Chaldea

Nemo [00:44:01] apologist, because it's a famine, but it's not specifically in the right place.

Julia [00:44:05] Right. Which would make a big deal, especially if you're, you know, if this was accurate, why would that not. If this is historical, why would we not get the place? Right?

Nemo [00:44:14] Yeah.

Julia [00:44:15] So this is Dan Vogel. He's breaking these down. And this is my summary of them. So in the book of Jubilees, the famine occurs in Canaan, not Chaldea. And the Genesis Rabba, it follows the biblical tradition of the famine in Canaan. In the Apocalypse of Abraham text, it says there's no Chaldean famine. Josephus Antiquities text, it follows Genesis. If the book of Abraham preserved authentic Abrahamic tradition, why does it contradict the major Jewish traditions to this point? On this point?

Nemo [00:44:44] So this is one of those, like broad hits where they're trying to say, hey, look, there was a famine mentioned in the Book of Abraham and there's famines in ancient Jewish tradition. Like, cool, but where were they? They're in the wrong place.

Julia [00:44:55] Right, Exactly. Yeah.

Nemo [00:44:58] Okay, next one.

Julia [00:44:59] Okay, so that's on that one. And then this one's Heron's death. This is Abraham's brother. So in Abraham 2:1, Abraham's brother Haran dies in the famine. So we can read that text now. The Lord caused the famine to wax sore in the land of Urban insomuch that Heron, my brother, died. But Terah, my father, lived in the land of Ur of the Chaldees. So he dies by the famine, her in famine.

Nemo [00:45:20] That's in the wrong place.

Julia [00:45:21] Yeah. And then this is from Vogel, Vednas et al, meaning all the authors give only one source for Abraham's brother dying in the famine. But it is actually a 14th century CE source about Haran dying in a fire.

Nemo [00:45:36] So again, it's like, well, Haron died. And we're like, okay, but how, right?

Julia [00:45:41] Dying in a fire and dying in famine.

Nemo [00:45:43] The book of Abraham correctly identified that his brother died. That's a hit. And you're like, yeah, but he got the details of his death wrong, so it's not right.

Julia [00:45:50] And that seems to be the main thing for all of these is like, oh, sure. But not really like, yeah, yeah. And then going along with these different. Some of these different sources. The Book of Jubilees, Heron accidentally burns to death in a fire set by Abram, who is seeking to destroy the family's idols. And Genesis Rava. Heron perishes in a fiery furnace. Again, Apocalypse of Abram. Heron dies by burning Joseph's Josephus Antiquities text. No mention of a fiery furnace. He notes that Heron died in his native city. So just a place where he died, not how he died. These apologists have provided no support for Abraham's account of Heron dying in a famine. So, again, this would be. I would say this death of Heron is against the Jewish tradition because it's fiery furnace or it's not mentioned. And then Joseph Smith has him dying in the famine. So.

Nemo [00:46:38] Yeah, I can't think of a. I mean, think of someone who died famously. Right. And how they died. You know, someone who famously died of cancer. And you say, well, I've. I've preserved their traditions, but in your version of things, yes, they did die, but they died in a car crash or something. Right?

Julia [00:46:55] Yeah.

Nemo [00:46:55] You're not preserving the tradition because the method of death is important, not just the fact that they died.

Julia [00:47:00] Yeah, it's the specific. It's in the details, I think, in this. To combat this theory. Yeah. Okay, so the next one is Tara turning from idols. So I guess his repentance. So in Joseph Smith's Abraham, Abraham's father, Terah, turns from his idolatry for a short time because of the famine. And the following chapter, however, Terah turns again to his idols. Do you want to read Abraham 130?

Abraham's Father Turning From Idolatry

Nemo [00:47:24] Yeah. Abraham 130. Accordingly, a famine prevailed throughout all the land of Chaldea. And my father was sorely tormented because of the famine. And he repented of the evil which he had determined against me to take away my life. But then Abraham 2. 5 and the famine dated, and my father tarried in Haran and dwelt there, as there were many flocks in Haran. And my father turned again unto his idolatry, therefore he continued in Haran.

Julia [00:47:52] Yeah. So he repents for a minute, I suppose, and then he goes right back to it after.

Nemo [00:47:56] Yeah, we've all done it. Yeah, we've all repented of something and then ended up doing it again. Human nature. But what does that tell us about the tradition that's being preserved? Julia.

Julia [00:48:07] Yeah. Well, so this. So this is the. It was the famine that caused him to turn away, and then he quickly turns back. So in these sources listed, in the 11 sources listed only to clearly state Abraham's father Tara turned from idolatry, but for different reasons than giving than the one given in the book of Abraham. Instead of Terah being humbled by the famine, as Abraham130 states that Nemo just read it is because in one source he sees Abraham miraculously delivered from Nimrod's furnace, and in another, because Noah and Shem chronically, chronologically impossible, persuade him to do so. So he turns from his idolatry, but in the traditions, he does it for different reasons. He miraculously sees Abraham being saved and then. Or he's convinced by Noah and Shem. So again, this thing happens. It doesn't actually happen specifically for those same reasons.

Nemo [00:48:57] And again, just I feel like the need on each of these is to kind of provide a slight metaphor, a slight example, just to make it really clear to people. If you've got the revelatory experience or the conversion experience of Saul into Paul on the road to Damascus. Right. Very well known story. That's how he becomes Paul. He becomes disciple of Jesus Christ. He sees this vision. Imagine if you were trying to say, look, see, we've accurately reported that. But you don't report that you saw a vision. Instead you report he was bitten by a snake and that caused him to change or whatever. It might be some different reason. Right. Or his friend convinced him, or whatever it might be. That would be a different telling of the story. And those details matter.

Julia [00:49:35] Yeah. And I have another slide on this where these authors, these apologists, Tevedness, et al, show two different reasons for Tara repenting. One from the Chronicles of Jerem. How do you say that? Jeremiel.

Noah and Shem in the Book of Abraham

Nemo [00:49:49] Jeremiel, yeah.

Julia [00:49:51] Was because Terah witnessed Abraham's miraculous deliverance from Nimrod's furnace. And this is, quote, when Terah saw the God delivered, that God delivered Abram, he deserted his former faith and went forth with him Abram to dwell in the foreign city. So again, a totally different reason than the famine. And the second from the book of Jasher is because Noah and Shem persuaded him to repent, quote. And Abraham and Abram ceased to speak when Noah and his son Shem answered Terah saying, true is the word which Abraham hath said unto thee. And Terah hearkened to the voice of his son Abram. And Terah did all that Abram said. For this was from the Lord, that the king should not cause Abram's death. So he's persuaded by no and Shem.

Nemo [00:50:35] And so those are two different reasons, and they are not the same as the reason given in the Book of Abraham.

Julia [00:50:41] Right. Yeah. I don't. Yeah.

Nemo [00:50:43] So how is the Book of Abraham? And this is where. Again, so this is where Jasmine is playing with the wiggle room of saying, well, through redaction and transmission and editing. Right. She's like, oh, well, you know, they've broadly preserved the sense of Jewish tradition, but there's been changes. And it's. Again, it's that idea of, like, the Bible wasn't translated correctly, and it's more about the sense of the things that are kept. But the Book of Abraham is exactly right. So they would have to be arguing here that these things they're relying upon to prove Jewish tradition is present in the Book of Abraham are also slightly wrong in their reporting of Jewish tradition. And the Book of Abraham is right. That would have to be their position there. And that feels untenable to me.

Julia [00:51:25] Yeah. And with all these things that we're showing you so far, everything's been. I mean, just of the couple things we've gone over so far, these are the opposite, or they just don't follow at all. Maybe opposites too strong. Because he is like, he is turning from idolatry, but for different reasons. Heron is dying, but for different reasons,

Nemo [00:51:42] they're all just wrong in the details.

Julia [00:51:44] Right.

Nemo [00:51:45] And so they would have to argue that those details are wrong, but they're right enough to prove the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

Julia [00:51:52] Yeah. Unfalsifiable is coming to mind.

Nemo [00:51:55] Yeah. And also just, you know, having your cake and eating it too. Right. It's like you get to say, well, these are. These are Jewish traditions that prove the authenticity of the Book of Abraham, but they're slightly wrong because the Book of Abraham is ultimately right. And you're like, well, then I don't know how you get to square that circle.

Julia [00:52:12] Yeah.

Nemo [00:52:12] Okay.

Julia [00:52:13] Okay. So this next one is converts in haran. So Genesis 12:5 reads and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, while Abraham 2:15 reads and the souls that we had won in Haran. This changes the meaning. And the passages in Genesis caused some confusion in Joseph Smith's day. So then I'm just showing them here Genesis 5, and they. And the souls that they had gone in heron, and then Abraham 2:15, the souls that they won.

Abraham 2:15

Nemo [00:52:38] Can we just point out the fact that these are very similar as well?

Julia [00:52:42] Yeah.

Nemo [00:52:42] And if people ask, where did Joseph Smith get the text? The Book of Abraham, Genesis.

Julia [00:52:48] Yeah.

Nemo [00:52:50] There's a bit of copying going on there.

Julia [00:52:52] Yeah. The texts are very similar. Yeah. Because I have them on the screen. I'm comparing them Genesis with Abraham and a lot of the text is the same, so. And then there's the call that the Ur in Chaldea and. Or I guess that's a different part, but.

Nemo [00:53:05] Well, Joseph likes to add that detail and he seems to really like to press home the idea of things being in Ur in Chaldea.

Julia [00:53:12] Yeah.

Nemo [00:53:13] Which creates problems for him.

Julia [00:53:14] But. Yeah, yeah. So like I mentioned, this was discussed in Joseph Smith's day. Anybody want to just read this slide?

Nemo [00:53:20] According to Adam Clark. Adam Clarke's back, everyone. According to Adam Clark, who published his commentary on the Holy Bible in 1825, this may apply either to persons who were employed in the service of Abraham or to the persons he had been the instrument of converting to the knowledge of the true God. And in this latter sense, the Chaldee paraphras understood the passage translating it. The souls of them who they. Those whom they proselyted in Haran.

Julia [00:53:49] Yeah. So that to me, it's just like Joseph's. It's being discussed in his day. People are wondering what that means. What does it mean to have souls gotten. And Adam Clark said, well, he means converts, he means missionary work and Joseph's kind of souls one in Heron. Yeah. So Joseph's like just picking that up and running with it.

Nemo [00:54:09] Kind of the idea that they were won over.

Julia [00:54:12] Yeah, yeah. And I think they. Joseph, I think, uses those phrase in the Ammon, the story of Ammon the missionary in the Book of Mormon one.

Nemo [00:54:21] Yeah.

Julia [00:54:22] Or maybe. Maybe it was Helaman, I can't remember. But I know that phrase appears in the Book of Mormon, so I don't know if there's anything more to add on that one. It just seems like not really.

Nemo [00:54:32] Is it the preservation of ancient Jewish tradition or is it just the opinion of Adam Clarke?

Julia [00:54:38] Yeah, I mean, it's a good guess. I mean, like, I like. What does it mean to have souls? God inherent from Genesis 12. So.

Nemo [00:54:44] Well, but the fact that in Joseph Smith's day there was some confusion then a lot of Joseph Smith's thing was about. Yeah. The entire start of the Mormon religion is the idea that there's too much confusion and contention and we're right. So if Joseph feels he can at any point weigh in on an issue and create clarity, then that's what he's going to do because that's kind of his mandate.

Julia [00:55:03] Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so this next one. And the church has, as we read earlier, that they use the age of Abraham as. As backing for this. Oh, the book of Abraham follows this. The. These ancient traditions.

The Age of Abraham in the Book of Abraham

Nemo [00:55:17] Yeah.

Julia [00:55:18] So in Genesis 12:4, it states that Abraham was 65 years old when he departed heron. But the Book of Abraham says that Abraham was 62 years old, which is not a huge difference. But here I'm comparing the two texts where he's 65 in Genesis and 62 in Joseph.

Nemo [00:55:33] Again, looks like he copied Genesis.

Julia [00:55:36] Yeah, he's just changing it to make it first person. You'll notice that he says, so I. Abraham. Abraham rather than. So Abraham or Abram. And then Teved, Nis, et al. This is from. Dan Vogel stressed the change as important, but it is surprisingly unremarkable as Smith also changed the ages of the patriarchs in his Bible revision without any reason. None of the sources Tibetanists at all cite say Abraham was 62 when he left Haran, but rather gave ages that vary from 37 to 80.

Nemo [00:56:06] Yeah.

Julia [00:56:07] So none of the. So I guess the church does say in their essay he was like younger than 75 or something like that.

Nemo [00:56:15] Oh, he was several months shy of his 75th birthday, I guess.

Julia [00:56:20] But nothing. There's no specific sources that say 62. So nothing really supports that. So I don't. It seems silly.

Nemo [00:56:27] So there's no ancient tradition that he's affirming with his text of the Book of Abraham. He's just changed the age. But.

Julia [00:56:34] But the church is like. But they keep it in the gray area. Oh, he's younger than 75. Or he's younger, whatever.

Nemo [00:56:38] But then, see, he was right. He got the age of Abraham as younger than 75. Well, he could have got that from the Bible where it says he was 65.

Julia [00:56:45] Right.

Nemo [00:56:45] And then he chose to change it and gives no justification. So yeah, again, a miss big old mission.

Julia [00:56:52] Also the age of somebody. I don't know. This seems like a very, like, minor thing to say that this is ancient tradition. I don't know to use that as an evidence that the Book of Abraham is true or a true translation is just kind of weak already. But anyway. Okay, so this is probably my favorite because of the facsimile. So this is the sacrifice of Abraham. So this is from the Book of Abraham. So. And it came to pass that the priests laid violence upon me. This is 1:12. That they might slay me also, as they did those virgins upon this altar. And that you may have A knowledge of this altar. I will refer you to the representation at the commencement of this record. So Joseph has this picture, what he thinks is a man being sacrificed by a slave. And then he creates. It seems like a story. Yeah. An adulterous priest. So he seems to create this story based on this facsimile. And the story itself is not anything like the Jewish, the ancient tradition of Abraham.

The Sacrificial Sacrifice of Abraham

Nemo [00:57:52] Yeah. It's certainly not what would have happened in Egyptian times. We've already established that from Robert. No human sacrifice like this, according to Robert Ritter.

Julia [00:58:01] Yeah. So this is from Dan Vogel again, regarding the possible sacrifice of Abraham. Tvetness et al pointed to 58 early Jewish, Christian and Muslim sources where Abraham is thrown into a furnace or onto a pyre, most often at the order of Nimrod. Their index subheading reads, abraham was brought to be killed or sacrificed because he would not worship idols. So even in their sources, he says 58 of them point to him being burned. None of them point to him being sacrificed with his knife on an altar. Yeah.

Nemo [00:58:39] So again, their argument is. Well, look, see, ancient Jewish tradition was that Abraham was sacrificed in some way. Yeah, sure. But how?

Julia [00:58:47] Or brought to be sacrificed.

Nemo [00:58:48] Or brought to be sacrificed. Right. Because we heard earlier that one of the potential reasons his father was converted was he escaped the fire of Nimrod.

Julia [00:58:56] Yeah, yeah.

Nemo [00:58:58] So at least they're consistent.

Julia [00:59:02] Yeah. Okay, so this is from Muhlstein. Do you want to read this one? This is from his.

Nemo [00:59:05] I love reading Muelstein. Yes. Muelstein observes that most non canonical ancient traditions held that Abraham was to be burned, while the Book of Abraham spoke of an altar, though it never specifies how he was to be killed on the altar, facsimile 1 indicates a knife was being used. What I found in the few cases of Egyptian sacrifice, human or not, that's important, about which we have details, is that typically the sacrificial victim was struck with a blade and then burned. This is likely what was intended for Abraham as well.

Julia [00:59:40] That's super interesting. So that's from his paper, Egyptian Papyri in the Book of Abraham. And I can put that in the

Nemo [00:59:44] show notes gymnastics involved here. So he's like, look, okay, fine, yeah, all the traditions say that he was going to be burned. And so the Book of Abraham points to him being on an altar. It even shows a knife, but it didn't say what was going to go down. And then when he talks about the few cases of Egyptian sacrifice, human or not. Well, again, how societies and how religious groups and all that how they treat animals versus how they treat people, often hugely different. A lot of religion is about trying to show that human beings are not actually animals. And that's why some of the things we do when we're our most animal in nature are things that are prohibited by religious groups and are shunned and are put away as dirty and unclean because it reminds us of how we're actually just kind of animals in the end. We're trying to create this narrative in religious groups that we are something more, something higher. And so how these groups treat animals in terms of sacrifice versus how they treat humans is just going to be very different anyway, so that matters.

Julia [01:00:45] Well, then, Robert Ridner with the cases of Egyptian sacrifice, what time period is Muelstein talking about? Robert Rittner says that this wasn't happening in ancient Egypt. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I don't know if you had.

Nemo [01:00:57] No, no, no, no, no, perfect. That's fine. I was just going to carry on through it, which I think you've made that point. His argument is then like, well, we see a blade in the altar depiction and a blade was used in what I found and then they were burnt. So the burning still gets to make sense.

Julia [01:01:13] Yeah, like, well, isn't that a story in the Bible of one of the apostles gets killed and there's different accounts of him, like being hanged or I can't remember, but they, in Mormonism, it seems like they just, let's just make them all true. They just happen different, you know, one after the other.

Nemo [01:01:29] This is just another one of those. It's like, you know, rather than there being, you know, Abraham having a call in one place or another, let's just give him both.

Julia [01:01:38] Yeah, he was stabbed, he was killed with a knife. And then he'll, he'll. Even though the account does the same thing about him being burned, like maybe. We don't know. We don't know.

Nemo [01:01:47] And that's the point. The account then doesn't mention the fact that he was burned. So again, they missed that detail. And Kerry Muelstyn is having to go to very unidentified spurious sources for the idea of a blade sacrifice with burning. When you have, or you had one of the leading experts in Egyptology, Robert Rittner, saying that's just not what happened. Yeah, I would be more inclined to trust Rittner on that one person.

Julia [01:02:14] Yes, for sure. Okay, so this is going. Continuing on. Dan Vogel pushes against Muelstein's conclusions, stating in fact none of the non canonical sources has Abraham stabbed or slashed with a knife before being thrown into the fire. He is simply thrown into the fire alive, and a miraculous power preserves him until he emerges. More importantly, in these sources, Abraham is literally thrown into the fire. This does not happen in the book of Abraham. Like you said, none of these sources provide support for the account in the book of Abraham.

Abraham Was Cast Into a Burning Furnace

Nemo [01:02:45] There. They do not.

Julia [01:02:47] Yeah. So it's.

Nemo [01:02:47] I think we've made that quite clear.

Julia [01:02:49] Yeah. It is the opposite. So the church will say, oh, it's an attempted sacrifice of Abraham. But was he supposed to be stabbed? Was he supposed to be thrown into a fire? It's. It doesn't follow tradition. Like, I guess if you squint, you squint your eyes and close one of them. Sure. But anyway, do you want to read this one from Adam Clark again?

Nemo [01:03:08] In his fourth volume, Adam Clarke commented that the furnace was, quote, an ancient mode of punishment among the Chaldeans. If we may credit the tradition that Abraham was cast into such a fire by this idolatrous people because he would not worship their idols. Even Clark is talking about him being thrown into fire.

Julia [01:03:27] Yeah. And yeah, Joseph. Joseph picks up other things from Clark, but he didn't. But I think he's. I think he does this because he's married. Yeah, he has to. He has to give that picture a story of this sacrifice. Okay, so there's another source here. 18th century English poet and scholar Abraham Cowley noted, some of the Jews tell a ridiculous fable that Abraham and Haran, his brother, were cast by the Chaldeans into a burning furnace for opposing their idolatry, in which Heron was consumed, but Abraham was preserved. So again, it's giving a different version of Heron dying than the famine from Joseph. But this is just like people in Joseph Smith's time were under. Like, of course, Abraham was cast into the fire. That was just what people understood. And Joseph's story is. Is opposite of that. Yeah. This one I also found interesting. Do you want to read this slide?

Nemo [01:04:17] A new complete English dictionary published in London in 1760. Happy birthday, America. This dictionary is older than your country. For example. That dictionary, for example, recounted the story of Abraham destroying his father's idols and continued that terror, being angry threat, brought Abraham before Nimrod to be punished. That Nimrod, who was one of the magi, commanded Abraham to worship the fire and upon his refusal, ordered him to be thrown into a burning furnace. But that Abraham came out unhurt. So there's nothing here about him being stabbed first or put on an altar first or sacrificed in any way. First he was just kicked into the fire because he refused to worship it.

Julia [01:04:58] Yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah. Okay. So going on, Andrew Hedges is mistaken when he asserts that none of these Bible commentators mention the available traditions concerning attempts to sacrifice Abraham himself. Dan Vogel states, and the legends that supposedly support the book of Abraham. Abraham is the one who is either. Who either throws the idols into the fire or smashes them, which is why he's being executed. Other so called parallels are likewise irrelevant or misrepresented. So yeah, these are just not, they just aren't following along. And I really just think that it's because of facsimile one where he's telling the story because he has to.

Nemo [01:05:43] He has to. And he's connected it in the text to the facsimile said like here's how the sacrifice went down. Here's. Here it is. And then when that shows what could be a feather, could be a knife.

Julia [01:05:54] Oh yeah.

Nemo [01:05:55] To Joseph's eye, he looks at it and goes, well if I'm, if I'm saying that this is the sacrifice of Abraham, then that's got to be a knife held above him.

Julia [01:06:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if there's anything more to.

Nemo [01:06:06] There's nothing more.

The Death of the Priest

Julia [01:06:08] Okay, so the death of the priest is the next one. Yeah. So in Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham it states that the Lord not only destroyed the altar in the gods, but also quote, smote the priest that he died. And I guess there's. And there's in the traditions there's more than one priest. There could be because sometimes I see them referred to as priests. But in the book of Abraham I think there's just one. And then I have the verses here and I've pointing these arrows pointing to these specific parts. The priests of Elkanah were smitten by the Lord.

Nemo [01:06:39] Yeah.

Julia [01:06:40] And the. So this is going on with Vogel. He says the legends to which Tvetness et al refer either describe the flames of the furnace or pyre rising up into the face of the executioner. Sometimes Nimrod or subsequently a bug flying up Nimrod's nose and slowly eating his brain.

Nemo [01:06:58] That is so much more fun.

Julia [01:07:00] Yes. Causing madness. Until someone splits Nimrod's head open and the bug flies out. In the book of Abraham, it is the priest of Pharaoh who dies. Not Pharaoh. And not from the flames, not from the fires of the furnace. And there is no mention of Nimrod and a bug. None of tevedness at all. Sources support the book of Abraham's. Account. And I don't know what else to say on that one.

Nemo [01:07:20] Again, they just show someone dying, but it's the wrong person, right?

Julia [01:07:25] Yep. Again, I don't. I really just don't.

Nemo [01:07:30] Go back to that last slide. It states that not only the Lord destroyed the altar, but he also smote the priest that he died. And there's just no mention of smiting the priest. God didn't smite the priest to death in any of the accounts that they give. So the fact that someone in the vicinity of this incident died is not evidence that the Book of Abraham has preserved that tradition. Yes, because the Book of Abraham describes something that's not described in the tradition.

Julia [01:07:54] Yeah.

Joseph Smith's familiarity with Egyptian idols

Nemo [01:07:55] Next.

Julia [01:07:56] Okay, this is your favorite one, I would say the one I mentioned earlier.

Nemo [01:08:01] Yeah.

Julia [01:08:02] Okay, so again, highlighting that Abrahams has a familiarity with Egyptian idols as what is claimed from the Gospel Topics essay.

Nemo [01:08:10] Yeah.

Julia [01:08:10] So in the first chapter of the Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith lists out six Egyptian idols. He lists Elkanah, Libnah. I don't know how to say any of these names.

Nemo [01:08:20] Okay. Elkanah, Libna, Mamakra, Korash, Pharaoh and Shagriel.

Julia [01:08:25] Yes. And if you look these up, they don't exist. They don't. Just. They aren't in any Egyptian tradition. And next to Pharaoh, I wrote what

Nemo [01:08:35] because I think you wrote what because why is he an idol?

Julia [01:08:39] Yeah, I don't understand why he's listing them out. And I think Joseph thought Pharaoh was the man's name rather than his highlight.

Nemo [01:08:46] Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. He thought it was a given name.

Julia [01:08:49] Yeah. So anyway, I just put what instead of does not exist just because I don't understand why Joseph and the God

Nemo [01:08:55] of Pharaoh, King of Egypt.

Julia [01:08:57] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So in his translation and historicity of the Book of Abraham, a response, Robert Ridner made this statement. He says, finally, whether or not the idolatrous God Elkanah can be conflated with the known Canaanite God El, because I guess that's how people are trying to make sense of that or trying to make that a hit or changing who the God is. He says it is absolutely impossible to identify that God with the Egyptian Canopic jar deity. And I don't know how to say this person's name as Smith did in his explanation of facsimile 1, figure 5. Far too often, the LDS approach has been defined in individual minor identifications or remote possibilities that cannot in some either explain or justify the Book of Abraham. The new LDS citations of sources that are of minor relevance Misleading or false does not advance the cause of the church and its disputed scripture.

Nemo [01:09:51] Yeah, he tells it like it is. But yeah, basically he's saying, right, that on the Canopic Jar, there's the deity Kebasenoev, and Smith did not correctly identify him. He called him Elkanah, which, even if it's a hit, that it's actually the Canaanite God El still isn't Kevisenoweth.

Julia [01:10:09] That's true. So the fact that the church is saying this at all really confuses me.

Nemo [01:10:15] His familiarity with Egyptian idols. He has no familiarity with them. They're all named incorrectly, like I said earlier.

Julia [01:10:24] That's totally unfounded.

Nemo [01:10:24] 75. When he left Haran, as the biblical account states. Well, cool. That's a big old age range. You've given yourself there. You've given yourself 75 years for a hit. Look, it said he was 62. Great. Well, the Bible actually said he was 65, so it disagrees with the biblical account.

Julia [01:10:40] Right.

Nemo [01:10:40] So they're implying there that it, it holds up to the biblical account. And actually it doesn't. Sorry, that's going back to another.

Julia [01:10:46] No, no, that's great.

Nemo [01:10:47] Yeah, but just.

Julia [01:10:48] Yeah, I just. I just don't know why they are talking about the Egyptian idols. It's just. I don't know. Yeah. Okay, so human sacrifice is the next topic in the book of Abraham or. The book of Abraham explicitly describes human sacrifices as being performed after the manner of the Egyptians in the land of the Chaldeans, specifically in the land of Ur of the Chaldeans by the priests of Elkanah, who was also the priest of Pharaoh. And then I've given the verse next to those, and I can put this in the show notes, but on this topic, Egyptologist Robert Rittner noted whenever one locates Ur of the Chaldees, human sacrifice dictated there by priests of Pharaoh is unbelievable to credible scholars of the ancient Near East. I kind of hear him saying, getting on to John G. One of his students who purports. Who postulates these theories. You know, it's. It is unbelievable to credible scholars of the ancient Near East. This is not a thing that the ancient Egyptians did. We don't. We.

Book of Abraham: Human Sacrifice

Nemo [01:11:50] Yeah, it's just not a credible take.

Julia [01:11:54] Yeah. And actually I have a clip from Robert Rittner and I'm just gonna. Yes, we'll just play that one. Okay.

Nemo [01:12:01] In Ur. Wherever you put Ur. Never would happen. And if the Egyptians didn't do human sacrifice anyway. And the picture isn't of a sacrifice. So everything about that, as we will eventually get to, is just a fantasy built on a fantasy built on a misunderstanding built on ignorance, built on not understanding anything whatsoever. Nothing built on a misunderstood and wrongly reconstructed drawing on a torn papyrus which they didn't understand how to restore. So the drawing is ultimately a fabrication and everything spun off of it is a lie on a lie on ignorance. That's how you really feel, Robert, that's. But can you imagine being someone like him who has dedicated his life to understanding these ancient texts and understanding these ancient cultures and to then come across this kind of stuff that just seemingly almost makes a mockery of it when taken seriously?

Julia [01:13:04] Yeah, I just love that clip from Rainer. So there's another Egyptologist. This is Christopher Woods. Do you want to read this quote from him?

Nemo [01:13:13] Yeah, he's in Chicago too. So Christopher woods, associate professor of Sumerology in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, responded to the Book of Abraham's assertions, saying one of the most remarkable claims encountered in the Book of Abraham is the attestation of Egyptian religious cultic practices at Ur. If we are correct in identifying Abraham's Ur, this poses grave difficulties for the account given in the Book of Abraham as there is no evidence whatsoever for the cults of the purported Egyptian gods described in the narrative or for established Egyptian religious practices more generally in the city. If we assume a northern location for Abraham's Ur, the prospects hardly improve. There is no evidence for the regular worship of Egyptian gods at Haran or for that matter, at any other location in northern Mesopotamia. And that's before you get to the fact that the gods that Joseph Smith names are incorrect and not real Egyptian gods. And that's before you get to all the other problems with it. Just in and of itself, human sacrifice is not going down, no matter where you put or.

Julia [01:14:16] Yeah, so he's just. Yes, the thing that he's married to and he has to make. The story of this human sacrifice wasn't even happening in ancient Egypt anyway.

Nemo [01:14:26] Yeah.

Julia [01:14:26] So. Yeah. Okay, so this next one is terror behind the attempt to kill Abraham. If you're. If you are ready to move on.

The Reasons Behind the Attempt to Kill Abraham

Nemo [01:14:33] We are.

Julia [01:14:34] Okay. Tibetanus. I'm hoping I'm saying that. Right.

Nemo [01:14:38] That's fine. We've committed to that pronunciation at this point now, so I just run with it.

Julia [01:14:41] Tvetness et al cites seven sources to support Teres wanting to kill Abraham for destroying his gods. The Book of Abraham does not say that Abraham destroyed Terah's idols. So again, against the tradition only that Abraham's life was sought because he preached against idolatry, adding that his father, Terah was among those who hearkened unto the voice. Unto my voice, but endeavored. Who hearkened not unto my voice, but endeavored to take away my life by the hand of the priest of Elkanah. There is no account of Teres dragging Abraham before Pharaoh and demanding his execution for destroying his idols. Penalty for such an act. Rather, in the book of Abraham, Abraham is silenced by his own family by being offered up as a sacrifice, not executed.

Nemo [01:15:26] There we go. The details are wrong.

Julia [01:15:28] Yes, the details are. Are all wrong.

Nemo [01:15:31] Yeah.

Julia [01:15:31] And I don't know what else to add.

Nemo [01:15:33] There's. There is no. There's nothing else to say there. The details are just wrong.

Joseph Smith: Terah, Abraham's Father

Julia [01:15:38] Okay, so, Tara. Worshipping. Worshiping idols or worshiped idols. Do you want to read this slide?

Nemo [01:15:46] The story of Terah, Abraham's father, was well known in Joseph Smith's day. For example, a new complete English dictionary published in London in 1760 under Abram reads, he spent the first years of his life in his father's house, where they adored idols. Many are of opinion that he himself was at first engaged in this way of worship, but that God giving him better understanding, he renounced it. And for this reason, as some believe, suffered a severe persecution from the Chaldeans, who threw him into a fiery furnace from which God miraculously rescued him. Jewish writers tell us that Terah, Abraham's father, made and sold images or representations of sun, moon and stars to worship. And that Abraham, being well skilled in the astronomy of those times, learned from thence that the heavenly bodies can neither make nor move themselves by their own power, but that there was only one God who created, preserved and governed all things, and that therefore they ought to worship him alone.

Julia [01:16:48] Thank you. So Terah, Abraham's father. This is the. From that dictionary in 1760, he made and sold these idols.

Nemo [01:16:55] Yeah.

Julia [01:16:56] And then the. We're going. Moving on. Additionally, the minutes published of an anti Masonic convention held in Massachusetts in 1829 also included a statement about Abraham and his father.

Nemo [01:17:07] Yeah, because that 1760 source Joseph wouldn't have had access to.

Julia [01:17:11] Right, right, right. But this one, this one, this is an anti Masonic one. And the book More Mormon itself is anti Masonic. Joseph Smith later becomes a Mason. Not that Joseph Smith could have run into these minutes, but just that this was being. This could have been discussed during his time.

Nemo [01:17:24] And to be clear, I was being glib. 1760 is a long time before Joseph Smith's time. He absolutely could have come across that potentially. Well, yeah, but being, you know.

Julia [01:17:33] Yeah, but not that he has to come across these sources, but these could other people.

Nemo [01:17:36] But these ideas then percolate amongst people and are discussed.

Julia [01:17:39] And so from these minutes, it says those who did not emigrate with their venerable ancestor Shem fell under the tyranny and idolatry of Nimrod. For the Bible informs us that Noah, Terah, and perhaps Serag bowed to idols. Indeed, ancient story informs us Terah was a manufacturer of idols. This gave offense to Abraham. And in the absence of Terah, one day Abraham broke up his father's idols. This so enraged Tara that he accused Abraham before Nimrod to have him punished for condemning his gods. And then. And then, of course, the story would go on that he was thrown into the furnace.

Nemo [01:18:17] Yeah.

Julia [01:18:19] But Dan Vogel says Terah's idolatry has long been assumed based on Joshua 24:2, which states that Terah, the father of Abraham, served other gods. This passage, along with the Jewish legends available to Smith and his contemporaries, render evidence for the uniquely ancient, ancient history of Abraham very weak. So, like, it's everything says that he was. So the book of Abraham says that he was an idolater. He worshiped idols. And there's no reason for us to think that this is. That this is.

Nemo [01:18:49] That's not new information. That's not novel to Joseph. That's not proof that Joseph had somehow translated a text that, though written in. In hieroglyphics that have nothing to do with Abraham, somehow transmits a story that purports and stays true to ancient Jewish tradition.

Julia [01:19:07] Yeah, and the Church says there's no

Nemo [01:19:08] reason to think that.

Julia [01:19:09] Yeah, the Church says that some of these could be available in Joseph's time through other means, but some of them were not. Some of them were so unique that Joseph Smith, how could he have known except that he was.

Nemo [01:19:18] So far, we've not seen any that are either unavailable to him, where he couldn't have got the idea from like this or that he is actually true to the tradition.

Julia [01:19:28] Right. So what are those stories that the Church is talking about? Because I haven't seen. I don't.

Nemo [01:19:35] I've not seen any that were either. Yeah, I've not seen any that were either unavailable to him or that were just accurately holding on to Jewish traditions.

Julia [01:19:44] Right. Yeah. Okay, so astronomy. This part I had a lot of fun putting together because it's just very, very interesting. So this is from the same Gospel Topics essay. And I don't know if we should read this whole section or just maybe

Abraham Teaches Astronomy to the Egyptians

Nemo [01:20:01] somewhere down here I'll read It. In the Book of Abraham, God teaches Abraham about the sun, the moon and the stars. I show these things unto thee before you go into Egypt. The Lord says that you may declare all these words. Ancient texts repeatedly refer to Abraham instructing the Egyptians in knowledge of the heavens. For example, Eupolemus, who lived under Egyptian rule in the second century bce, wrote that Abraham taught astronomy and other sciences to the Egyptian priests. A third century papyrus from the Egyptian temple library connects Abraham with an illustration similar to facsimile one in the Book of Abraham. A later Egyptian text discovered in the 20th century tells how Pharaoh tried to sacrifice Abraham, only to be foiled when Abraham was delivered by an angel later. According to this text, Abraham taught members of the Pharaoh's court through astronomy. All these details are found in the Book of Abraham. And again, you go through those and you find that actually the details don't line up and whatever. Right. So again, we've already covered the attempted sacrifice of Abraham only to be foiled by an angel. They're going to try and say, look, see, so he was on the couch and then there's an angel above him. But if you look into that, you'll see that the attempted sacrifice is him being kicked into a furnace.

Julia [01:21:10] Right, right. Yeah, yeah.

Nemo [01:21:13] So anyway, so we got John G. Who I believe that Robert Rittner is always deeply frustrated with as one of his former students.

Julia [01:21:24] Yeah, so that's. That's who they. Their footnote points to with the teaching Ferris Core through astronomy. I just wanted to point that out because I don't. I. I don't think that's a very good footnote. These are the. These. I don't know. I don't know if I had anything more to say on that. I don't want to be rude to Jungi. I just. The church. I wish that they would point to other sources besides their own. Apologists who don't agree with the mainstream Egyptologists take on things. But, yeah, anyway, so this is Abraham 3 where he talks about astronomy, and it says, this is verse two and three. And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God. And there were many great ones which were near unto it. And the Lord said unto me, these are the governing ones. And the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me. For I am the Lord thy God. I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as set upon which thou standest. And my first thought is, we don't know. So the church says that, you know, he has this knowledge of astronomy. We don't know this. We don't know that there's a cola. We don't know. We don't know God's governing time. This is. This is one of those claims that we cannot test from Joseph Smith.

Nemo [01:22:38] So more importantly, I think. Which we might get to in a moment. These are names that are given to genuine Egyptian images in a hypocephalus that shows that actually, in this sense, Abraham has no understanding of astronomy because he's connecting astronomic bodies to things that aren't that.

Julia [01:23:04] Yeah.

Nemo [01:23:04] Is that where we're going?

Julia [01:23:06] Yeah, because I've got slides on that, too. Or the language that he's using for these. So this is Abraham 3. This is continuing on with verse 9. And thus there shall be a reckoning of the time of one planet of another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord's time, which Kolob is set nigh unto the throne of God to govern all those planets which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest. Again, we don't. He's just. I think this is a whole. A thousand years is one day. I think that's where the idea comes from. This is. This is Abraham 3. 16. If two things exist and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them. Therefore, Kolob is the greatest of all the kokubim that thou hast seen, because it is nearest unto me.

Nemo [01:23:53] What's interesting here is that there's essentially this is there. There's always a bigger fish. Right. Is what he's essentially saying. If there's two things and one of them is bigger than the other one, then there'll be something bigger than that. Ultimately.

Julia [01:24:06] Well, that kind of reminds me of the. I was just. Reminds me of the One symbol can have, like, multiple layers of meaning where, like, things can get like. I don't know, like setting things in a hierarchy seems to be one of his patterns. But.

Nemo [01:24:21] Yes.

Julia [01:24:22] Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Nemo [01:24:23] No, that's fine. But let's get into what a cocoa beam is.

Joseph Smith on Kolob and His Hebrew Connection

Julia [01:24:28] Yeah. So the Hebrew word coqovim, I guess, is how you say it. It just means stars. So I just think. And I think Kolob is somewhat similar to that.

Nemo [01:24:39] It's a star because he talks about it as governing Earth, like planets or planetary bodies. So it's the idea that it's a star that is then orbited by planets.

Julia [01:24:48] So therefore, this star is the greatest of all the stars because that's what koglebee means in Hebrew, because it's nearest to God. Right. I just, I'm struggling to see what, what is. What is Abraham's knowledge of astronomy that we need to be taking from this.

Nemo [01:25:06] Again, I think it's just that Joseph Smith talks about astronomy and Abraham talked about astronomy, therefore. Correct. But if you. There's. There's nothing specific in the book of Abraham that points to any astronomical teachings that Abraham made In other reported teachings of his astronomy. The church doesn't provide any specifics, any details because I don't know if Abraham was going around talking about kolob in those other ones. Right. That would be a hit. What would be a hit here is that if in other texts, in other Jewish traditions, you've got Abraham talking specifically about things like kolob, you've got him specifically talking about the names for the planets that Joseph gave, all that sort of stuff.

Julia [01:25:51] Although I will say that kolob and kokubim, meaning stars or one star, like that doesn't feel like you're just giving it a different. You're just saying it.

Nemo [01:26:00] We know Joseph Smith started to study Hebrew. Right. So it's entirely plausible that he's got this Hebrew connection and gone, all right, well, I'm going to give it a Hebrew name. Just add a little flare of authenticity or a Hebrew sounding name. I'm going to. I'm going to Anglicize it.

Julia [01:26:15] Right, right. It just doesn't. I don't know. It's like when you find out, like in from the Disney movies, when you find out that simba means lion or these other words mean the normal things that they're like, what's that meme that

Nemo [01:26:29] was going around recently that the opening to Lion King is just the lion. Look, there's a lion.

Julia [01:26:33] Oh, yeah. When you find out that this thing is just the simplified version of it, or Kung Fu Panda does it as well, where it's like these words just mean the other thing. Like shifu just means chief, I think. Or like, I don't know it. It really. It's not remarkable anymore. Whenever you look at it, like, oh, he's just saying stars.

Nemo [01:26:53] He's just using a Hebrew word because he started to study Hebrew at this point in his life.

Julia [01:26:57] But even if Abraham had talked about kokobeem or kolob and these other Jewish traditions, that doesn't really seem like a hit to me either, because I don't

Nemo [01:27:05] know, because it's more of a hit than what we have now.

Julia [01:27:07] I guess that's true. But, like. Right.

Abraham's Astronomy According to the Book of Abraham

Nemo [01:27:10] Anyway, I've just had this brought up on screen before we go to the conclusion, because I think it's important that the church is trying to push Abraham's understanding of astronomy. And this is what we have of Abraham's understanding of astronomy according to the book of Abraham. So what he understands of astronomy is what he is calling stars here. So, for example, Figures 22 and 23. Right in that central box, you've got 22 and 23 either side of the central figure. Yeah. Those are within the Explanation of Figure 5. If you go to your scriptures where Joseph is saying names like the governing planets Enish. Go on. Dosh. Right. That's a name he's giving to a governing planet. That's his astronomy according to Abraham or according to Joseph Smith through the book of Abraham. So if you go to Robert Rittner, he says the equation of a day to a cubit is specious, and the Egyptian terms for Earth do not include the barbaric. J. A. O. A Smith discussed Figure 22 and 23 within the explanation of Figure 5. Key Flosis S and hakoukoubim. So cocoa beam is broken up in. In that word, and you just have ha put in front of it the stars represented by numbers 22 and 23 receiving light from the revolutions of Kolob. As elsewhere, these outlandish names are not Egyptian. We can see where he got one of them from. It's Hebrew. Like, there is just. There is. We could possibly do an entire episode just on what's wrong with this facsimile here. But the point is, if this is the astronomy that the Church is pointing to to legitimize the book of Abraham, it bears no resemblance to the text itself or to the hypocephalus. Parts of it were recreated in ways that then, you know, Joseph just given meaning to the recreation of the text. And I just thought that was worth adding in before we jumped to the conclusion.

Julia [01:29:06] Yeah. Do you want to hold up his book while you've got it? Yeah. This is Robert Rittner's book, the Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri. A complete edition.

Nemo [01:29:14] Great book.

Julia [01:29:15] Great book. Yeah. Okay. That was great. Yeah. Because the text itself doesn't really talk a whole lot about astronomy, but these. I didn't realize. I forgot about how much these facsimiles or the hypocypholus talks about that. And just these words like as a non. As a somebody who's left the church reading these. Reading these things like what you just said. What was the. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds kind of like his language of.

Nemo [01:29:45] Well, I mean. And then we could get into. Yeah, the Adamic language. God. Amen is the name of God in pure language. It sounds a lot like English to me, but there we are anyway.

Julia [01:29:58] Or him. Him also adding ha at the beginning of some names. He does that in the Book of Mormon as well. Yeah, Hakobeam or whatever. Yeah. Okay. So going to the conclusion, the concluding slide. So we're going to recap. Again, the church says other details in the Book of Abraham are found in ancient traditions located across the Near East. These include Tara, Abraham's father being an idolater, which was. Everybody knew that. A famine striking Abraham's homeland. Again, they're keeping this vague. Abraham's familiarity with Egyptian idols. Right. Abraham's familiarity with Egyptian idols.

Book of Abraham: Extra Biblical Elements Found in Ancient Tradition

Nemo [01:30:33] He was wrong about them.

Julia [01:30:35] And Abraham's being younger than 75 years old when he left Haran.

Nemo [01:30:39] Wide goalpost.

Julia [01:30:40] Wide goalpost. Some of these extra biblical elements were available in apocryphal books or biblical commentaries such as Adam Clark and Joseph Smith's timeline. But others were confined to non biblical traditions, inaccessible to or unknown to 19th century Americans. What? Which ones are they talking about? Yeah, which.

Nemo [01:30:58] I don't see any of those.

Julia [01:30:59] I don't either. Okay, so going through the list in our contents at the beginning, Ur and Haran, this was already debated in Joseph Smith's day through Acts and Adam Clark where he says now he's given two callings rather than having two of them competing against each other.

Nemo [01:31:12] Genesis and Acts compete.

Julia [01:31:15] The famine in Chaldea. Jewish tradition places the famine in Canaan, not Chaldea. So that's against the tradition. Heron's death, traditionally consistent, consistently described death by fire, not famine, which is. So this is against the tradition. Terah's repentance. Tradition mentions repentance, but for completely different reasons.

Nemo [01:31:34] He saw his son saved or he was otherwise convinced.

Julia [01:31:39] Right. Converts and Heron. The idea reflects Adam Clark's commentary on Genesis 12:5 about that them being won over as being converting Abraham's age. Ancient sources disagree, but none support the age of 862, which Joseph and the

Nemo [01:31:53] church gave him a wide goalpost anyway.

Julia [01:31:56] Right. Sacrifice of Abraham. Ancient accounts describe a fiery furnace, not an altar sacrifice. And additionally they didn't do human sacrifices, which I'll talk about. Also, as to the death of the priest, there's no ancient parallel for Pharaoh's priests being struck dead. Egyptian idols. The Name deities have no basis in Egyptian religion. Human sacrifice, There is no evidence for Egyptian sacrificial practices. In Abraham's Ur Terah ordering the sacrifice. Ancient legends involved idol smashing before Nimrod, not Abraham's account. So again, against the tradition. And then Terah the idolater. Ancient, ancient tradition agrees. But this tradition is already widely known in Joseph Smith's day. So again, the question I would have is what are these other ones that they're talking about when they say some of these were confined to non biblical traditions, inaccessible or unknown to 19th century Americans? So they're citing the book that we've been discussing and which Dan Vogel in his book is addressing specifically. And I think if any of these traditions existed outside, Dan Vogel would have talked about it because he says, I'm talking about the importance of the most important ones here. So I don't, I really don't see any legs for this claim. I don't.

Nemo [01:33:10] And they also, they just continue to give more ammunition where if you go back to the footnotes, they say that some of these extra biblical elements were available to Joseph Smith through the books of Jasher and Josephus. Joseph Smith was aware of these books, but it's unknown whether he utilized them. Okay, but again, if it's possible, then it's possible and that has to be acknowledged. And then all of a sudden it forms a plausible part potentially of a question of where did he get these ideas from if he was making this up and not just bringing forth a transmitted text of ancient origin through a Hebrew tradition, that it doesn't reflect any of the traditions thereof and is written in a writing that would lead no normal translator to bring forth any of the things that it's actually trying to transmit. You have to have some special powers to get the secret meaning out of the otherwise plain characters. That's the argument that Jasmine's making.

Julia [01:34:04] Yeah. That's confusing.

Nemo [01:34:07] That is incredibly confusing. And I thought God wasn't meant to be the author of such confusion.

Julia [01:34:11] It seems like they're undermining themselves here. Yeah, like, oh, some of these, they

Nemo [01:34:15] have to admit it.

Julia [01:34:17] Yeah. But, oh, he, he, he was aware of them, but we don't know if he used them, if he utilized them. Like, I, I don't know

Nemo [01:34:27] if you're Occam's razoring it. That seems a simpler explanation than the one I just described, where people are transmitting information in a way that is just entirely inaccessible without special pleading.

Julia [01:34:38] Yeah. So just in summary, when she says this is maybe not written by Abraham's hand and this has been passed on and through transmission, editing and redacting, but it still holds up or however she worded it. It really doesn't. Like, there's no reason for us to think that Joseph Smith didn't. Wasn't aware of these stories. And I really think mostly he's changing things because he's, because he. Because of these facsimiles. You have that the hypocephalus that we just showed where he's coming up with these different stories that are completely wrong based on Robert Rittner's translation of them. And yeah, it seems like if the facsimiles weren't there, maybe he would have followed along maybe more closely to the traditional. From these. Of these stories of Abraham, but he

Nemo [01:35:20] got caught up following the images. Yeah.

Julia [01:35:23] Yeah.

Nemo [01:35:24] All right, well, thank you very much, Julia, for that. I think that was a great episode and you should remind people where they can find more of your work before you.

Julia [01:35:34] Yes. So I'm analyzing Mormonism. I'm on all the. I'm on Patreon and Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Yeah, just you can follow me there and you can support me if you wanted to on Patreon. I am also doing. I am undergoing this project in which I am taking old out of print Mormon books and trying to make them available to the public again through ebook, through print book and through. I will eventually hopefully get audiobooks for all of them. And so that's something I'm really excited about. And maybe we can discuss that later as well. But if you want to help support that, that'd be great too. Or you can go to Amazon and purchased some of those already that are available. So cool.

Mormon Stories: Please Support the Podcast

Nemo [01:36:10] Cool. All right, well, thank you very much, Julia, for all that. Thank you very much all of you for watching. I'm Nemo, the Mormon, one of your hosts today. You can find that name anywhere that your social media heart desires, apart from, as always, on MySpace. I'm not on MySpace. If you would like to support my work, you can go over there and check it out. But most importantly, if you want to support this work that we do here at LDS discussions, then consider becoming a monthly donor. You can go on over to MormonStories.org donate to find all the details there because this show is only made possible through the donations of people like you. Mormon Stories is a nonprofit under the Open Stories foundation and it only survives because of people like you. So thank you very much. If you are supporting us, consider supporting us if you aren't already and we will see you on another edition of of Mormon Stories podcast, another LDS discussions edition specifically. And in the meantime, as John always says, be good to each other and be kind to each other, and we will see you soon. All right?