The Backyard Professor

Powerful Egyptological Evidence for Book of Abraham facsimile 1, figure 9 Crocodile as "Idolatrous god of Pharaoh"

 

Every now and then, we see or hear a critic of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints say that Joseph Smith got nothing right in his explanations for the facsimiles in the Book of Abraham. They do not realize that the explanations of Joseph Smith are not translations, literally rendered, but explain what the function of the figures are for. He described what the story is with the various figures. True he did not translate the crocodile in Facsimile #1 as “Sobek,” but does that mean he was wrong to identify it as “The idolatrous god of Pharaoh?”

 

When we look at what the Egyptologists and ancient Egyptians taught about Sobek, we are in for a real surprise. It just so happens that Sobek literally is “the idolatrous god of Pharaoh!” Lets consider the Egyptian evidence.

 

James P. Allen, Curator of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of art in New York and Research Associate and Lecturer in Egyptology at Yale University since 1986, shows the crocodile in the “sign list” when it is the determinative, signifies “aggression.” As a doubled sign, the ideologram is “jty” which, interestingly enough, means “sovereign.”[1] Sovereign, according to the “Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology,” comes from the 14^th century Old French “so(u)vereinete” meaning “(supreme) ruler.” The old Roman word related to this was “superamus,”

Evolution and Mormonism (Religion in General) incompatible?

BYU biology professor Steven Peck has something thoughtful to say in his latest blog post:

...[T]heology is under unprecedented attack from a cluster of philosophers and scientists, called the ‘New Atheists.’ While this group is hardly representative of scientists in general, they are popular, vocal, evangelical and influential. They are theologically naive, but their misrepresentations of religion and theology are gaining traction. What seems odd is that in responding to these atheists there seems to be a tendency for believers to buy into their most harmful (from my perspective) argument. That is, that evolutionary biology and religion are incompatible and that one must be chosen above the other. They both accept the thesis that there can be no compromise and that this is a fight to death between one or the other. This is unfortunate because this false dichotomy, widely accepted by both camps, is the real danger. As I have said elsewhere in [the Salt Lake Tribune] speaking about the creationist movement Intelligent Design, “[My] complaint about Intelligent Design is it sets religion and science against each other. It puts forward a false dichotomy in students’ minds that suggests that evolution and faith are incompatible. It makes people of religious faith suspicious of science. When students genuinely think that science and religion are incompatible, one of two things typically happens. One is they embrace science and since it is incompatible to religion, religion is abandoned. The other is that they maintain their faith but remain suspicious of science and cast doubt upon its methods and findings, inclining themselves to superstition and pseudoscience. I have to wonder if the reason science education in the United States is falling behind other countries is because misinformed people of faith have been dissing science to the point that many students are choosing other paths. Faith and science need not be enemies. I embrace both fully and without reservation. My religious convictions are part of who I am. My science and faith reciprocate and inform one another. They are part of the way I understand my place in the universe. Intelligent Design does nothing to promote the search for understanding and cooperation between these two vital ways of knowing. It is a darkening of the mind on every level, both religiously and scientifically.”

Does the Shema (Deut 6:4) Prove There are No Other gods?

Monotheism & The Shema: אֶחָֽד יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל שְׁמַ֖ע​ Hear O Israel: the Lord your God the Lord is one: Is This Proof There are No Other gods?

 The Shema can be translated in various ways depending on which context one proposes for its meaning. The verb שְׁמַ֖ע in the Qal imperative means “hear.” It’s simple. It is a vocative addressing Israel. The command of God to Israel is to listen

Was Joseph Smith's First Vision(s) Unique in His Day?

Richard Bushman comments about the Stearns diary vision:

 

Richard L. Bushman, “The Visionary World of Joseph Smith”, BYU Studies, 37, 1 (1997-8)

Edited version Meridian Magazine, Aug. 31, 2005: http://www.ldsmag.com/byustudies/050831Visionary.html

 

We are most interested, however, in Joseph Smith Jr.’s place in the visionary culture. How did his revelations compare to the stories in the pamphlets? Of all the pamphlets, the one most like any of Joseph’s revelations was The Religious Experience of Norris Stearns, Written by Divine Command

New Blog, The Masonic Scholar

http://www.backyardprofessor.com/the_masonic_scholar/

Hugh Nibley's Magnum Opus "One Eternal Round" is HERE!

Waiting for 20 years to get this in my hands was worth the wait. I got my copy yesterday, and just finished reading it tonight. This 700 page magnum opus is vintage Nibley, so incredibly fascinating, scholarly, interesting, broad and deep that it simply takes my breath away!

THANK YOU MICHAEL D. RHODES for your work on making sure it did not slip into obscurity! 

If you do not purchase this book, you only cheat yourselves. I will be producing many a video for You Tube about this lil baby for many years to come.

Edited to add:

I'll add that it is, of all the books Nibley ever wrote, my favorite. He brings in Alchemy, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Free Masonry, the Tabula Smaragdina (parallels to the hypocephalus are absolutely STUNNING!) many ascension literatures, Sacred Geometry, and ALL in *favorable* lights!!! No joke, this was unlike much of his other themes wherein he downplayed things in order to elevate something else. In this book, IT IS ALL GOOD. Absolutely stunning. This is the wake up call to we LDS to broaden our views, open our minds, and get more serious about learning far more than in our own tradition and culture. It really is vintage Nibley with a vengeance. He is saying HEY LDS, don't you think it is time to take others serious instead of only ourselves and our view of truth and religion? I really believe he takes the roof off the house with this astonishing book. Only Nibley could have pulled this off. Now if we will just take the clue and run with it. We don't do very well with the clue that Joseph Smith gave us about learning the Biblical languages, perhaps Nibley can nudge us a bit more? We appear to be sleep walking through an awful lot, and all this stuff is prophesied to come forth. To the critics Nibley is simply destroying your objections. Course, you won't agree with me on this, but he is anyway. Wow are we *all* behind or what?! None of us can claim knowledge now if we ignore this. Well, I mean we can claim it, but those who read it and get it will see the hollowness of such an claim. Trust me, you WANT to read this, friend and foe alike. 

The ***Incredible*** Prolific Dr. Andrei Orlov

This site of his has MANY links to seriously great articles, as well as access to all his books, and publications he helps edits. Dr. Orlov is a good friend of mine, and a very serious scholar of Old Testament scholarship and Book of Enoch analysis. I have never been disappointed in anything I have ever read of his.

http://www.andreiorlov.com/

Nothing is Right.... Nothing is right! On Kolob

Nothing is Right…. Nothing is Right…. The Anti-Mormon Comments on the Book of Abraham Facsimiles

 

By Kerry A. Shirts

 

John Ankerberg and John Weldon’s book Behind the Mask of Mormonism, contends that Egyptologists have proclaimed that nothing Joseph Smith translated in the Book of Abraham was correct. They quote an archaeologist, a Dr. Richard Fales as saying “Joseph Smith did not get right even one word in this whole translation.” 1 They then use Gleason Archer, a fine Bible scholar, as saying that the facsimiles have also been shown to be incorrect. “Their findings [the Egyptologists of 1912] was that not a single word of Joseph Smith’s alleged translation bore any resemblance to the contents of this document.”2

 

These are fundamentally incorrect conclusions however, especially concerning the Facsimiles in the Book of Abraham. I will concentrate on a couple of particularly interesting correlations with the facsimiles, since they have been attacked mercilessly through the years, always without going into the Egyptian writings and concepts themselves. The key element in criticisms I am responding to in this paper is the principle claim that there is nothing that Joseph Smith said that has been correct or even plausible. James White rather adamantly claimed Joseph Smith “…grossly misidentified each of the items not only in this facsimile, but in the other two as well.”3

Becoming Gods Discussion from a Non-Mormon Source

“Becoming Gods by Becoming God’s: Augustine’s Mystagogy of Identification”, David Vincent Meconi, S.J., Augustinian Studies 39. 1 (2008): 61-74.  [Meconi is associated with Saint Louis University]

 

Meconi argues that the two ways of life for Augustine lead mankind into a position whereby they have to choose.

 

Many of make the wrong choice:  Meconi says that “by settling on the creature, the deceived soul confuses material goods with God.  This type of soul fails to soar upward to the divine but falls under the very bodies over which it is to have dominion, thus confusing these visible creatures with their draftsman” (64)

 

The soul can either strain for that place from which it came or it can settle for visible goods…. In this fallen state, the soul becomes confused with what it is to master (65)

 

When the human soul turns away from God, it becomes confused with lower goods; loving creatures instead of their creator, the soul becomes fused with the world (66)

 

According to Meconi “Augustine’s strategy of being removed from this morass is the Holy Spirit…. ‘It is love which conforms us to God and thus conformed and configured to God and cut off from this world, we are not confounded with the things which ought to be subject to us.  This is done only through the Holy Spirit’” (66)

Living Through is More Powerful Than Learning About

One of the finest stories on the Internet is here:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/11/23/Smith.daughter/index.html?iref=allsearch