Noah's Ark, Joseph Smith, and Ants

The experiment shown in this video is quite interesting.

Ants are presented with a few types of sugar and a few artificial sweeteners. By the end, the ants had left the artificial sweeteners mostly untouched but had interacted heavily with the sugar, carrying most of it away.

This means if you hadn't known which was artificial and which was real, you could have actually tested which was which, reliably, based on the extent to which the ants interacted with them.

I would suggest we might be able to conduct a similar test of scripture, using Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible (JST). 

This is similar to the situation with the Kinderhook Plates (KP). They were claimed to be ancient, and people wanted Joseph Smith to translate them. But he did not. In fact, we now know Joseph didn't even attempt a secular translation which many historians and apologists have mistakenly concluded. 

The KP is like the artificial sugar, and Joseph Smith is like the ants. Now, it should be noted that the ants did interact a little with the artificial stuff, but quickly realized it was no good. 

The most important thing to realize from the outset here is the JST was neither intended nor claimed to be a full correction of the Bible. In fact, according to Apostle George Q. Cannon, Brigham Young recounted Joseph telling him the Lord had restrained him from giving his translation of the Bible "in plainness and fulness," and that Joseph had hoped to one day be able to do so. 

So, just because something from the King James Version (KJV) is carried over into the JST does not mean it is part of Joseph Smith's translation.

If you separate what Joseph Smith added from what was carried over from the KJV, instead of seeing it as one united text, some differences become apparent.

As with the KP, until they were proven to be fake in 1981, many church members have felt a need to defend all the details of the Noah flood story. 

I do believe Noah was a real prophet, and he built an ark. But I also believe the Book of Mormon when it says many plain and precious truths were lost from the Bible. I believe this applies to both the Old Testament as well as the New Testament.

And of course we naturally want to defend the most beloved stories of the Bible. I suspect this may be one of the reasons the Lord did not allow Joseph to correct things as fully as Joseph would have wanted, lest the world should look upon His restored church as an attack on the Bible.

But what I'm proposing is that Latter-day Saints might not need to feel obligated to defend all the details. 

For instance, not just once or twice but all seven times where the Book of Moses refers to the flooding event of Noah, it says "floods," plural, rather than "flood." But whenever the word is carried over from the KJV, Joseph just leaves it as "flood." Just like the ants not bothering to interact very much with the artificial sweeteners.

Seeing the phrasing in Moses about the earth being "covered by floods" as a reference to the number of floods and how widespread they were, rather than covering every inch, is like the phrase "world war" not literally referring to war over every inch of the earth. This would also add some context to claims about everything dying - i.e. that the floods would be so severe that anyone caught in them would die, similar to saying that nothing can survive a nuclear weapon (which doesn't mean a bomb will kill everything on the planet).

And we are all familiar with the claim that the flood covered the mountains. But that line is a word-for-word carry over from the KJV. Of course, just because it is in the KJV doesn't make it false, but it does mean you don't have to die on that hill (no pun intended).   

Then there's the curious case of Moses 7:52. The Lord promises that a remnant of the seed of Noah "should always be found among all nations," but that only makes sense if people who are not of the seed of Noah would also be on the earth. Otherwise, who would the seed of Noah be "among?" This reminds me of how the Book of Mormon alludes to other people while the references almost seem inadvertent. 

Now, perhaps you are thinking Joseph may not have realized the implications of his wording. But, interestingly enough, Joseph's scribe, John Whitmer, tried at some later point (the ink is much darker) to change the wording in the manuscript in order to get rid of the implication. It was obviously not merely a correction in grammar but a clear change in meaning. See the picture at the bottom of this post, for reference. Nevertheless, the original wording is what made it to publication. 

In the JST account of Noah, we can see a clear progression along a spectrum from less problematic to more problematic as we move from Joseph's own added lines, to lines he made small alterations to, to lines Joseph made no changes to. 

In terms of what Joseph may have been allowed to change, he may have been allowed to, among other things, add information which scholars of his day had already noted, and would thus not offend or seem to attack the Bible. If so, this may help account for the similarity between some of Joseph's changes and some of the information proposed in the Adam Clarke Bible Commentary. So, rather than saying Joseph took ideas from Clarke, it may be the case that Joseph was allowed to include the things Clarke got right.  

So, I think the JST can be seen as somewhat of a hybrid. Some content may be Joseph's elucidation of the original lost ancient text. Some, a matter of Joseph trying to work with the KJV where it includes apocryphal content. And some may be Joseph allowing apocryphal content to carry over without any alteration. The alternative would be for Joseph to delete it, which would be declaring that some of the parts of the Bible don't belong there, which, again, people weren't ready for. 

A couple tangential final notes:

I see no reason why Noah couldn't have lived 3,000+ years B.C. and, in fact, if there was a massive reset on civilization, that could account for the coincidence of the "first" written languages cropping up around that time. People may have needed to reinvent language if the "confounding of language" event consisted of written records (and those few elites who would have known how to write) being destroyed by God. The writers of Genesis would have had no personal means of knowing that written language had only been around for such a short while, yet they place the confounding of language within a reasonable margin of error for the Biblical timeline vs modern dating. 

Consider this verse of scripture:

Yea, and behold I say unto you, that Abraham not only knew of these things, but there were many before the days of Abraham who were called by the order of God; yea, even after the order of his Son; and this that it should be shown unto the people, a great many thousand years before his coming, that even redemption should come unto them. 

(Helaman 8:18, emphasis added)

     Consider the significance of those words: "a great many thousand years."

     This could mean a very large number of years, potentially.

And, of course, I realize the scriptures give us some genealogy concerning who begat who, but this could easily be a record of notable names rather than every descendant. For instance, I am a "son of Abraham," yet Abraham lived 4,000 years ago. The New Testament starts out in Matthew with the words, "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." Or, in reverse it could be said, "Abraham begat David, David begat Jesus Christ." I realize the Bible says that specific people lived certain numbers of years and begat other specific persons. But in light of the fact that we may say David begat Jesus, it may just be the case that at a certain age a particular named person in the Bible begat the lineage from which their said descendant came. For instance, we might ask at what age David begat Jesus. The answer may be the age at which David begat Solomon, from whom Jesus came. This might not seem to be appropriate terminology in modern-day English, but then again it also would not "seem" appropriate to us today to say that Jesus was the son of David, or that David was the son of Abraham, and thus to omit everyone in-between. So it would be very hasty for us to assume that the Bible is telling us that a person was born at or even close to the time they are listed as being "begat."

     For those interested in a more thorough treatment of this issue, research the word "begat" (the Hebrew word, "yalad") and the Hebrew word, "ben," Also, I find this article by Jeff Lindsay on D&C 77 and the Age of the Earth quite insightful. 

As for the John Whitmer change in wording which I referenced above:

click to enlarge the below image

Deconstructing Kinderhook

"If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself"

Although I disagree with the conclusion, in a quite brilliant FAIR presentation in 2011, historian Don Bradley closed the case for many when it comes to the Kinderhook plates (KP). You can view the presentation here. 

That same year, Signature Books published the late Egyptologist Robert Ritner's analysis and translation, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri. This included the Book of Breathings for a Theban priest named Hor (the Hor papyrus), whose mummy had been in the ownership of Joseph Smith. 

These represent two sides of the Kinderhook coin, because the character Bradley relies on in his argument is from Joseph Smith's papyri. And, the character's description, which Bradley also relies on, was written several years prior to the KP entering the scene. 

However, not considering the relevance of the other half of the story, most apologists have treated the matter of the KP as resolved, when it is actually not resolved. 

To understand how this happened, we first need to understand the argument put forth by critics. It goes something like this:

1. The markings on the KP are a fake language

2. Fake language can't be translated

3. Therefore, Joseph could not actually have translated the markings

4. Joseph claimed to translate markings on the KP

5. Therefore, Joseph was a fraud as translator

There's an unusual dynamic now where both sides of the argument have a vested interest in moving past #4, and thus no one sees any reason to look into it beyond pointing out fallacies in older arguments and citing evidence that William Clayton is generally a reliable source (Clayton is the one who claimed Joseph Smith had translated a portion of the KP). 

The effect of Bradley's argument was to point out that disproving a non-revelatory, or traditional, translation effort does not disprove the correctness of translations Joseph performed through the Gift and Power of God. So, Bradley countered #5 and thus neutralized the main attack. 

However, Bradley's conclusion is based on a view which impacts a larger picture surrounding Joseph Smith. In other words, Bradley's conclusion creates a premise which helps shape the general understanding and direction of future research regarding who Joseph Smith was and what he understood. We need to make sure we get that right. 

As Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst-McGee jointly wrote, "An unbiased examination of the Kinderhook plate episode would have to ... follow the evidence wherever it leads." I would point out however, as a gentle reminder, we can't follow the evidence wherever it leads if we only look at half the evidence. 

As I will demonstrate, evidence of Joseph claiming to translate a portion of the KP is weaker and less straight-forward than one might suppose. And when we look at the other half of the coin, a different picture emerges with very different implications which may help us correct our course in understanding Joseph Smith.

We will dissect and analyze what Clayton said, and afterward we will dissect and analyze the description for "Ho e oop hah." 

Deconstructing Clayton's Translation Claim

In his journal, dated May 1, 1843, William Clayton made the following claim:

"Pres J. has translated a portion and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found and he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth."

Let's break it down.

Clayton writes, "Prest J. has translated a portion..."

This could possibly mean Joseph Smith himself said he "translated," but that would be reading more into it than what Clayton said. On its face, this simply means William Clayton believed Joseph "translated a portion..." 

You might think, "but Clayton was a close, personal scribe, so he obviously would know." But remember, we're not talking about a regular translation. According to the dominant narrative itself, we're talking about Joseph comparing a character on a Kinderhook Plate with a character he had previously copied down from a different source and had previously written an explanation next to. That's very different than anything else William Clayton is known to have ever witnessed. Yet, it has the trappings of translation, i.e. a person sees a word written in a foreign language and then looks for it in a lexicon-like resource, and so one might assume they used the resource to translate the word, without the person themselves ever using the word "translate," or even thinking in their mind that they had conducted a translation. 

On May 7, almost a week after Clayton penned his journal entry, a different witness stated that Joseph had "compared" the characters to each other, which is not the same as "translate" but may have looked nearly the same as what Clayton witnessed. This witness, who made his statement in a letter printed anonymously in the New York Herald under the name "A Gentile," went on to say they were "evidently the same characters" and Joseph "therefore will be able to decipher them." Setting decipherment in the future evinces a different impression on the part of "A Gentile" than Clayton's apparent understanding. How do we reconcile that? Of course, it could be the case that Joseph didn't tell his later audience as much as he had told Clayton, but keep in mind this was almost a week later and Joseph evidently had his resources open in front of the audience and they were probably there specifically for this purpose. So, it could instead be the case that Joseph told his audience more, not less, than Clayton, and his audience was therefore able to realize that Joseph was just trying, at that stage, to see if the characters might be authentically ancient. The indication that Joseph had not yet translated is also supported by Wilber Fugate's claim that Joseph "would not agree to translate them until they were sent to the Antiquarian society at Philadelphia, France, and England." And, more importantly, the Willard Richards account in Joseph's own journal describes Joseph exhibiting the KP on May 7, but does not indicate any actual translation.

Does the suggestion that Clayton made an understandable mistake have any plausibility problems? No. In fact, the dominant narrative proposes quite casually that "A Gentile" made a completely understandable mistake. He claimed Joseph compared the KP characters with characters from the Gold Plates. The dominant narrative assumes the individual who signed his name as "A Gentile" just didn't know very much about the papyri. But do you know who else didn't know very much about the papyri? William Clayton. Clayton didn't show up until years after the initial excitement surrounding them had died down, and he doesn't seem to mention them ever. Now, for the record, I personally have suspected that, in his Egyptian papers, Joseph was looking for convergences in form and meaning between Reformed Egyptian and Egyptian, and thus the Gold Plates may have been relevant and "A Gentile" may have been making a claim that isn't mutually exclusive with other information. But the point is, most people would probably agree that confusion on his part would be very understandable and, therefore, we are not under obligation to treat what "A Gentile" said about the Gold Plates as fact, and likewise, confusion on Clayton's part is also understandable, and, therefore, we are not under obligation to treat what he said as fact, either.

Clayton continues, "...and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found..."

Okay, how would Joseph know, through traditional translation means, that the brass plates (KP) not only were in the possession of, but the writing on them was about, the person with whom they were found (incidentally, there was actually no person, just a few bones)? Let's think about this for a minute. Why would Joseph assume this, when he had written about another set of brass plates in the Book of Mormon and yet the content on those plates was not about any of the characters in the Book of Mormon who possessed them? Moreover, Joseph knew from his own personal experience with buried plates that the reasons for burying plates can be complicated. It seems unlikely that Joseph would have jumped to that conclusion.

The most one could deduce along those lines from the "Ho e oop hah" description is that the plates are about someone who fits that description. And if they were buried with a person, that person would be the top candidate. But that's speculation. Clayton is very matter-of-fact in stating not that Joseph offered speculation, but that Joseph outright said they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. Moreover, Clayton implies Joseph learned this from the translation itself, i.e. Clayton said Joseph translated a portion, then proceeded to describe what the content of that translation was. Did the translation somehow specify the person it was about? 

Maybe you think I'm asking for too much. Maybe the idea of a document specifically identifying the person it would be found with seems far-fetched. But if, however, Joseph was talking about the "Ho e oop hah" in relation to his original source for the character, i.e. the Hor papyrus, things start to make more sense. You see, the Hor papyrus actually says on it that the scribe is to physically wrap it to the breast of the person it is written about. So, you can literally say it is about the person with whom it is found. And, again, it is the very source of the "Ho e oop hah." We are starting to see the other side of the coin. And the dominant narrative itself postulates that Joseph was talking about the "Ho e oop hah," so it follows that the context of the conversation with Clayton related to the Hor papyrus. 

Further evidence comes from Clayton's journal earlier that day (May 1), where he claims the KP were found on the breast of the deceased. That is a very specific claim. And that claim is false for the KP, but is true for the Hor papyrus. And, I might add, it is only true for that type of papyrus and not for any other type of document known to man. So we have Clayton directly mixing up the KP with the Hor papyrus.  

Let's think about this.

1. Clayton was fully capable of mixing up the KP with the Hor papyrus. He actually did so, as just explained. 

2. Other sources tell us Joseph Smith translated part of that papyrus and through translation discovered it was about the mummy (eg Emma Smith in the bill of sale, and William Appleby)

3. Clayton says Joseph "translated a portion" but that does not mean Joseph specified that he was talking about the KP

4. Joseph talked with Clayton about a description associated with a character on both the KP and the Hor papyrus

5. Clayton may have for a second time mixed up the KP with the Hor papyrus, or may have assumed the content was applicable to both

Another problem with treating Clayton's "translated" claim as clear-cut is the Kinderhook Plates were not called the "Kinderhook Plates" at the time. Even the papyri were usually just referred to by Joseph as ancient or Egyptian records, etc. So if Joseph referred to a particular character, but both the papyri and the KP had that character, how would Clayton always know which one Joseph was referring to? Remember, "A Gentile" came away thinking Joseph was talking about finding matches with characters from the Gold Plates. And, for that matter, one of the actual Kinderhook Plates sat in a museum for years, falsely labeled as one of the Gold Plates from the Book of Mormon! 

If we think about the different ways wording could be orchestrated to avoid confusion, we're just looking at it in hindsight. In practice, there's a reason Clayton mistakenly claimed the KP were on the breast of a skeleton - a claim he never corrected - and we are under no obligation to assume he had a correct enough understanding of this situation to accurately interpret everything he was seeing and hearing.

Clayton continues, "...and he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt..."

Although being a descendant of Ham could potentially be assumed from someone being of the loins of Pharaoh, it is a pretty specific reference and "Ham" is outside the wording of the "Ho e oop hah" description.  

By the time this got to Parley P. Pratt (perhaps from Clayton), this had evolved into a claim that the KP contained a "genealogy of one of the ancient Jaredites back to Ham the son of Noah." And that's problematic for the dominant narrative, because no reading of the "Ho e oop hah" description would imply a genealogy had been written out, let alone that it went specifically to Ham. 

Although the dominant narrative doesn't account for this, it can be accounted for on the other side of the coin. First, the Hor papyrus actually does contain Hor's genealogy, at least as far as giving the names and occupations of his parents - and, second, a description centering around the words "a true descendant of Ham" is located not in but near the description for "Ho e oop hah." It is in the entry for "Ho e oop," which could easily be mistaken for "Ho e oop hah." And although the character associated with "Ho e oop hah" is on a Kinderhook plate, the character associated with "Ho e oop" is not. Joseph Smith would have known they were separate entries, but someone who didn't know better could have looked at the page and seen the words, "Ho e oop" and assumed it was the same entry. The "Ho e oop" entry is written darker, stands out more, and the next letter is even an "A." 

So if someone was not closely studying the document but just saw it open while Joseph was working on it, and a couple days later talked with Pratt, it seems plausible that "descendant from Ham" could be taken by Pratt to imply the presence of a genealogy. And as far as the Jaredite idea goes, it's difficult to see how that would have come from a traditional translation by Joseph Smith, but it's easy to see how Pratt could have deduced it based on the finding being on American soil and not supposing Nephi would have descended from Ham.   

Clayton concludes, "...and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth."

This seems a bit of a stretch for the dominant narrative, as it changes "possessor of heaven and earth" into receiving his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth, but I will get into that more in the next section. 

Deconstructing the Description of "Ho e oop hah"

In Joseph Smith's Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, the first explanation given for "Ho e oop hah" is:

"honor by birth, kingly power by the line of Pharoah. possession by birth one who riegns upon his throne universally - possessor of heaven and earth, and the blessings of the earth."

We see both "honor by birth" and "possession by birth," so let's talk about them together.

When one is born, they have two parents, correct? I propose one is represented here by "honor" and the other by "possession."

So, does the Hor papyrus mention his birth? Yes. What are the odds the document from which the "Ho e oop hah" was derived would actually make an issue of the birth of the person, like the "Ho e oop hah" description does? 

The papyrus hails Hor as being "born of Taikhibit" (his mother) and as the son of Osorwer, his father. Of course, the "Ho e oop hah" description doesn't just say birth, but "honor by birth," and the references to being born of his mother are clearly indeed honorific. 

In this short document of only 10 extant paragraphs, his birth is referred to 11 times. And that's not counting a reference to it in Facsimile 3. In addition, he is declared the son of Osorwer twice. And it is through Osorwer that he possesses his titles, thus the Hor roll declares Hor and his father are "similarly titled." And they are not ordinary titles. In fact, Hor was born into what Marc Coenen calls "an important Theban priestly family," and Coenen states that Hor's father is "easily identified as the most important member of this family," adding that descendants as late as the fifth generation stress their family link to him. So it meant something for Hor to have those titles through his father, listed in the Hor papyrus.

The description states, "...kingly power by the line of Pharoah..."

I think the phrasing there is interesting. If he's talking about a pharaoh, why not just say "a pharaoh?" It's a reference to the power, not the person. The Hor papyrus says, "You are on the throne of Osiris." He's accessing the power of Osiris, i.e. "kingly power by the line of Pharaoh." 

And, keep in mind the papyri are all about esoteric Egyptian mythology which Joseph had no way of explaining to people in terms they would understand. So, for instance, in the words of Robert Ritner, the dead Pharaoh Osiris was "king of the universe," and Hor, the male mummy, had become Osiris, and thus the male mummy was king of the universe, through the pharaoh Osiris. Joseph didn't talk a lot about it, but his mother liked to tell people the male mummy was a king.

The description states, "...one who riegns upon his throne universally..."

In the context of a supposed skeleton in an unassuming mound in frontier America, claiming the man was a universal ruler could seem a bit bombastic, which might be the reason Clayton toned this down in his journal. But in the context of the Hor papyrus, it is right at home. It tells Hor, "you exist as the Great God, Foremost of the gods" and that he is "enduring upon" his "throne in the sacred land." Ritner states that "Hor is repeatedly and explicitly stated to be deified, a member of the company of the gods, and a form of Osiris," going on to say that the "entire Breathing Document is an extended prayer" to Hor. (2011, p 97, n 85)

The description concludes, "...possessor of heaven and earth, and the blessings of the earth..."

Let's take a minute to think about what it's supposed to mean to possess "heaven and earth," and what it's supposed to mean to possess "the blessings of the earth."

A mortal human obviously doesn't possess heaven, so Clayton evidently tries to make this make sense by changing it in his journal to, "...he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth." 

But even if one sticks to the theory that Joseph made the change, it doesn't change the fact that a change is still a change. In other words, before the KP were ever discovered, Joseph had the words, "possessor of heaven and earth," and we have to ask what that was supposed to mean and where it came from. 

What are the odds that it would accurately describe the theme and purpose of the short document from which the "Ho e oop hah" was derived? And yet that document, called a "book of breathings," is filled with and even titled after that exact concept. 

As Robert Ritner explained, the deceased "is elevated to divine status ... and is thereby guaranteed powers of rejuvenation. These powers, including mobility, sight, speech, hearing, and access to food offerings, are summarized in the term snsn, or "breathing" which refers to the Egyptian expression 'breath of life,' the fundamental characteristic that distinguishes the living." (2003)

And thus Ritner, in the above quote, gives us the context for the document itself giving explicit references tying Hor with the earth, as follows (translated by Ritner, 2011):

"You shall not be turned away in heaven or on the earth"

"Your flesh is on your bones in accordance with the form you had on earth"

"That you might regain the form that you had on earth among the living"

"So that you might go forth to the earth every day"

Conclusion

I encourage the reader to set aside any meta-reason they may have for drawing conclusions a certain way on this issue. For instance, some believers may reject the idea that Joseph knew what he was doing, because they feel it would open a can of worms they don't know how to deal with. After all, the idea that Joseph didn't know what he was doing can be a powerful apologetic card to play. But in light of the evidence above, perhaps we should replace it in apologetics with the fact that WE don't understand what Joseph was doing, and those around him in his lifetime didn't really understand what he was doing. If you are concerned about the can of worms, don't be. Read my other blog posts, as I address most of the Book of Abraham issues and there's nothing to be afraid of once you understand the posts. 

Our role is to consider possibilities. Understandably, for their part non-believers might only accept secular possibilities. But I hope all readers will at least try to judge this issue objectively, on the merits. 

Myth: Figure 6 Of Facsimile 3 Had An Anubis Snout On The Printing Plate

Myth: Figure 6 Of Facsimile 3 Had A Snout On The Printing Plate

Fact: The snout cut into the plate is not an Anubis snout and there's a better explanation  

The reasoning behind this myth seems at first to make a lot of sense. If Figure 6 of Facsimile 3 is supposed to be Anubis, as experts have said, that would mean Figure 6 is supposed to have a snout. And when we look at the lead printing plate, we see a sharp cut in the shape of a snout, with marks left behind where little chunks of lead were evidently scooped out. 

So, one could imagine a scenario where Figure 6 originally had a snout on the printing plate, and then they removed the snout before the first printing. 

This scenario has problems, however. Although a snout shape is cut into the plate, it is not a snout shape Anubis would have had, but is just a generic snout shape. 

So, who would cut out a non-Anubis style, generic snout shape around Figure 6? 

Someone who:

A) Had heard that a snout was supposed to be there, and was contemplating the issue

But

B) Didn't know what an Anubis snout was supposed to look like

The corollary question is, who would not have had reason to cut out a non-Anubis, generic snout shape around Figure 6? The answer: Someone who, hypothetically, was trying to surgically remove an Anubis snout shape from the plate. 

The presence of teeth-shaped marks, and a mouth, also lends evidence to the above statements. And if one believes those marks are just a coincidence, they might as well also believe the snout shape itself is a coincidence, since the reasons for both identifications are very similar: someone intentionally created marks in the lead plate which are in essentially the right place and are the right type of generic shape. Artistic quality is not the issue. The snout is in the right place relative to the head, and the teeth are in the right place relative to the snout. 

And since intentionality is important for identifying the sharp cut as a snout, we can't just say a "real" Anubis snout was somewhere in there and in the process of removing it they created a much larger, differently shaped snout which extends to areas which would have nothing to do with removing the Anubis snout. What would be the purpose of scooping out little bits of lead in these other areas? At the same time, scooping out those bits of lead could have a lot to do with someone trying to block in features of a dog, like teeth and jowls, which both extend way too far down for an Anubis snout to have reached. 

In the case of the jowl shapes, someone could try to say they are a part of Anubis' headdress, but the figure has no headdress, which we know because we still have the original parts of the head and chest which would have been covered if a headdress had existed, and that's in addition to there being two of them hanging down, separated by a little space, like jowls and not like an Anubis headdress. 

Click images to enlarge them 

There's another obstacle, as well. 

The sharp cut for the snout interrupts some groove marks, which implies the groove marks had been occupying space where the alleged snout had supposedly been. Which would mean the snout had not actually been there (see this video).

To see the significance of this to my overall theory, see this post

Myth: Gustav Seyffarth and the "beginning of the book"

 Myth: We can deduce that Gustav Seyffarth saw the words "beginning of the book" after the Facsimile 3 vignette on the Hor papyrus. 

Fact: Gustav Seyffarth described the Facsimile 3 vignette on the Hor papyrus. 

If another document followed the Hor Book of Breathings on the roll, and it contained the words "beginning of the book," that would be a blow to the missing roll theory, which proposes the Book of Abraham text was on the roll, because the Book of Abraham does not contain the words "beginning of the book." The Book of Abraham does say "book," of course, but it's actually the word "beginning" that Seyffarth was known to have rendered as "book," which was in reference to a different Book of Breathings than the one for Hor. Moreover, the word for "book" in "Book of Abraham" would most likely not have been the same word as is translated as "book" in the Book of Breathings, because the translation of the word as "book" in "Book of Breathings" is an unusual case. So if Seyffarth saw "beginning of the book," that book would not likely have been the Book of Abraham. 

Anyway, Seyffarth never claimed to have seen the words "beginning of the book" on the Hor roll, so the missing roll theory is safe from that scare. If, however, Seyffarth had claimed to see the words, "Book of Hymns," then there would have been a chance he actually saw the words which appear in the Book of Breathings as "beginning of the book," because Seyffarth had translated those words in other Book of Breathing documents as "Book of Hymns." However, Seyffarth never claimed to have seen the words "Book of Hymns" on the Hor roll, either. 

If you are confused, and asking why we are talking about things Seyffarth didn't say about the Hor roll rather than what he actually did say about it, here's the reason. Some people claim that Seyffarth's description of what he saw on the Hor papyrus includes something which doesn't match anything he could have actually seen on either the Facsimile 3 vignette (which is the only part of the Hor papyrus we know for sure he saw) or on anything else that could have plausibly been part of the portion of the Hor roll which he saw. So they say we need to reconstruct what he saw. 

And the reconstruction they propose goes like this: 

1) Seyffarth was said to have described the papyrus roll as "an invocation to the Deity Osirus, in which occurs the name of the person, (Horus,) and a picture of the attendant spirits, introducing the dead to the Judge, Osirus."  

2) Even though Facsimile 3 contains an invocation to gods (which includes Osiris), and even though it mentions the name of the person, Horus, and even though it includes a picture of the attendant spirits introducing the dead to Osiris, thus matching Seyffarth's description on every point, it must be counted as not matching Seyffarth's description (for no stated reason).  

3) Using the premise that the Facsimile 3 vignette is not sufficient, a need is created for something else to be the invocation, i.e. another text on the roll.  

4) A hymn can be a type of invocation.

5) Seyffarth once translated something as a "book of hymns."

6) What Seyffarth translated as "book of hymns" actually said "beginning of the book."

7) Therefore, Seyffarth saw a second document on the roll, saw the words "beginning of the book," translated the words as "book of hymns" and then later described it as an invocation to Osiris. 

Okay the first major problem with this attempted reconstruction is that the Facsimile 3 vignette already matches Seyffarth's description, so there's no actual logic to the  deductive reasoning involved in claiming a second document is needed.

The second major problem with this attempted reconstruction is that even if Seyffarth thought it was a book of hymns (yet chose not to call it that), he said it is "to" Osiris, etc. The words "book of hymns" say nothing about Osiris or Horus or a picture of attendant spirits. Of course, one could posit that Seyffarth thought the Facsimile 3 vignette was part of the book of hymns, but then one would be relying on Facsimile 3 to match all the parts of Seyffarth's description.. when the ONLY reason for proposing the additional document on the roll in the first place is the perceived need for a document that can serve the function of BETTER matching Seyffarth's description. One would apparently need to posit that neither the Facsimile 3 vignette nor the words "book of hymns" on their own is able to match Seyffarth's description, but that only together do they have power to match Seyffarth's description. But where does Facsimile 3 fall short and need the words "book of hymns" to make up the difference? Let's see if we can find any holes.

An invocation to the Deity Osiris? It's there. Facsimile 3 says: "O gods of the necropolis, gods of the caverns, gods of the south, west, north and east, grant salvation to the Osiris Hor..." If one wants to claim that this invocation isn't explicit enough about being to Osiris, then how would adding the words "book of hymns" change it from not being to Osiris to suddenly being to Osiris? 

The name Horus? It's there.

A picture of the attendant spirits, introducing the dead to the Judge, Osiris? It's there. 

It's all there. Without the words "book of hymns." And, therefore, without the words "beginning of the book."

Apologetic Logic

 “it is not valid to argue that something does not exist because it does not correspond to what we expect” - Dr. John Gee, Egyptologist

Click to enlarge images in this post.

The first possibility depicted in the above image is what some people expect and assume to be the case even though the character on the right does not match the character to the left of it. The second possibility is backed by actual evidence, which we see when the possibility is allowed to play out instead of being arbitrarily taken off the table. More on this later. 

The human mind is a funny thing. 

It can be quite narrow and stubborn, and can easily mistake its own assumptions and intuitions for reason and logic. 

We tend to discard possibilities based on how well they align with our expectations, and when we do so it can "feel" like we are being logical. But that's not logic. That's why I think it's important to steelman every possible apologetic and then attempt to logically deduce ruling it out, and if we can't logically deduce that the possibility can be ruled out, then it's important to leave it on the table and allow it to play out. That doesn't mean every possibility should be seen as true; it just means every possibility that can't be logically ruled out needs to be played out, as that's the only way we can see where it leads. 

Consider, for instance, the parable of Johnny.

Johnny was a clever boy, and pretty good at chess. His parents hired a chess master to give Johnny private lessons. One day, Johnny and his friend Alec thought of a fun prank to play on the chess coach. They set up a hidden camera so Alec could see the chess board from a different room and could input the position as he saw it on the board, to an advanced chess engine. Alec could then tell Johnny where to move, through a bluetooth earpiece. 

The boys thought the chess master would be very impressed by the moves. But it didn't go that way. 

"No, you don't want to move there, because I'll be able to take your bishop! Johnny, you need to look for potential threats before you make moves! Take that move back and try again." "No, no, don't do that. It will weaken your pawn structure!" "You missed an opportunity to develop your knight! Let's take that move back" etc. 

Johnny and Alec were both growing frustrated. But what they didn't realize is that the tutor was relying on pattern recognition, while the engine was playing out possibilities that humans would dismiss. 

And not only was the tutor relying on pattern recognition when it came to pieces on the board, but also when it came to Johnny himself, because the tutor did not expect Johnny to make moves that are beyond any human level. The tutor had limitations in his mind as to what moves Johnny was capable of making, so, for him, the possibility that Johnny's odd looking moves should be played out wasn't on the table. 

It's true we only have a certain amount of time and we can't personally play everything out. But rejecting something you have not played out, and campaigning for others to reject it too, is not logical (unless you literally use logic to rule it out through deduction, or identify and disclose premises which you personally believe are true and you demonstrate those premises are inherently in conflict with the possibility, and you openly state that this conflict is your reason for rejecting the possibility). 

What does playing it out mean? You get to play either side, but you have to leave it on the table so the other side can come back and respond. That's if you choose to play at all, which you don't have to. 

Let's illustrate. I hate to criticize the beloved onomasticon, but since individual Book of Mormon Onomasticon entries are relatively anonymous, and I want to keep this discussion about substance and not criticize individuals if I don't have to, I will use an onomasticon entry to demonstrate. 

Under cureloms, the onomasticon states, "Whatever fauna CURELOMS were..."

We can see here an assumption that cureloms were fauna rather than flora or something else. As well-meaning as that assumption might be, is it logical? No. It is not a logical deduction or assumption. The writer seems to be confusing their intuition with reason. This would be the case regardless of what credentials they have. 

The entry goes on to state, "three criteria affect their identification ... whatever etymology is proposed, it must meet these three criteria."

We can see the possibilities are further being pruned, without logical deduction being laid out to the reader. 

The three proposed criteria are as follows: "1) they were especially useful to the JAREDITES; 2) they were indigenous to JAREDITE America; and, 3) it must be assumed, Joseph Smith did not have an English translation for them or he would have rendered it in English."

So, it "must" be assumed Joseph Smith did not have an English translation? Are we to believe there are no other possible reasons why Joseph did not render it into English? The Lord's ways are higher than our ways. And we must also accept that they were without a doubt indigenous to Jaredite America? I mean, it seems likely, but does not appear to be a logical deduction. 

Admittedly, the first criteria does seem deducible from the text. So let's start there. 

And let's put flora on the table, allowing it to be played out. Different lines of possibility can be played out (like chess), but let's consider one with premises which don't seem extremely controversial. 

P1. An association between Jaredites and Olmec-related areas is plausible

P2. Premise 1 implies that the things which were especially useful to known Olmec area-related people would plausibly have been especially useful to the Jaredites

P3. We can identify some things which were especially useful to known Olmec area-related people

4.  Therefore, we can identify some things which plausibly were especially useful to the Jaredites 

Okay let's go down a secondary line within the main line and see where it leads. 

The word "Olmec" actually means something akin to "Rubber People." Rubber was something "especially useful" to Olmec-area-related people. 

As I understand it, people made rubber using latex from rubber trees. 

Therefore, rubber trees were especially useful, thus plausibly especially useful to the Jaredites. 

Another observation is that the verse which mentions cureloms repeats the wording "elephants and cureloms and cumoms," which may indicate that the three go together. Associating trees with elephants would make sense, since as they aged and no longer produced as much, they may have needed to be cleared. And elephants can be very useful for that.

Okay, it seems plausible that the word cureloms could therefore refer to a type of tree. Now, some have suggested Sumerian as a candidate Jaredite language. So, let's look at one possible Sumerian-based Jaredite construction for the word "curelom." I would propose the word "kirilam" as something the Jaredites may have crafted out of Sumerian words:

So, the assumption that cureloms were animals may "feel" logical, but in reality it mistakes biases and expectations for logic. 

Avoiding that mistake is something we can all work on.

-----

Okay, now I would like to address the image I placed at the top of this post. 

On one hand, the image shows a gradual change in the shape of the character, from the Hor papyrus to the W.W. Phelps Book of Abraham manuscript (although the image shows this happening in more or less reverse order). By tracing the character back to the Book of Breathings, we can identify the character and what it means. It is a determinative meaning "great," among a few other things that are really special about it. 

On the other hand, we see at the top of the image an alternate possible provenance for the character. Advocation of this alternate idea does not coincide with actual evidence, but does coincide with a timeline which is threatened by the evidence-based provenance. In other words, the order in which the Alphabet/GAEL/BOA documents were prepared is an issue, and the evidence of the evolution of the character from one document to the next conflicts with what some of our friends want to maintain was the order in which the documents were produced. 

Of course, both explanations should remain on the table and our friends can attempt to defend the alternate provenance, but, unfortunately, some of our friends try to shut down other explanations rather than allowing those explanations to play out. 

For instance, I shared a particular apologetic argument about 4 years ago, and it relies on the evolution provenance of the character shown in the image, as I was just talking about. Because my argument relies on that provenance, certain folks have simply taken the argument off the table as though it doesn't exist, because the argument threatens the timeline they maintain for Joseph Smith and his scribes creating the various documents. 

I am going to present that argument, in part, further below. 

Now, although our friends may reject the evidence-based explanation, the question remains of what type of reasoning would lead anyone to propose that Papyrus Louvre 3284 set of characters in the first place. And you might wonder what my response would be to their reasoning. That's perfectly fair. 

Basically, the oldest extant Book of Abraham manuscripts have characters drawn in the left margins, with the English text on the right. Those characters come primarily from a particular section of the Hor Book of Breathings. So, some have argued that Joseph Smith and/or his scribes believed those characters were the Egyptian text of the Book of Abraham and that was the reason those characters are lined up with the English text. If true, that would mean they got it wrong. 

In any event, the Phelps manuscript was produced separately from the others. And I don't believe the placement of characters in the left column on the Phelps manuscript was part of the same project in which unknown person(s) drew characters on other manuscripts. Even though the manuscripts all have characters in the margins. I believe Phelps added the characters to his margins, but someone else years later added characters to the other manuscript margins. Thus, the adding of characters to margins would be two separate projects. There are different ways this could have happened. For instance, William Smith may have done this when he was aligning himself with James Strang, or when he was travelling around trying to sell the mummies and papyri, drawing the characters as evidence attempting to make the papers and artifacts more appealing as the "source of the Book of Abraham." Also, a lot of these same characters from that section of the Book of Breathings were used to fill lacunae in Facsimile 2, which is significant because this likely means they were copied on a piece of paper for the printer to use and perhaps labeled something like "these are the characters for the Book of Abraham," which the printer would have understood (from in-person conversation) as telling him those were the characters to use to fill in the lacunae, but which someone years later may have misunderstood as meaning that those characters were the source of the Book of Abraham. And someone like William Smith, with access to these documents, may have added a few additional characters as well, in case anyone wondered what had once filled the torn areas of the papyrus. 

However, once again, some have assumed the Phelps margin characters were part of the same project as the other margin characters. That's the first assumption which leads some of our friends to turn to Papyrus Louvre 3284. There's a big lacunae in the Hor Book of Breathings which contains these characters, and Papyrus Louvre 3284 is a parallel text to the text of the Hor Book of Breathings, so it can tell us with some certainty which characters belong in the torn areas. If one believes Phelps was just copying from that section of the papyrus, and if one believes he copied a character which is now torn off and has thus become part of the lacunae, one could then surmise that the character he copied was actually the same as the next set of characters on Papyrus Louvre 3284. Even though the two bear no resemblance. 

That may have been hard to follow, but the jist of it is that they assume that what Phelps did with his characters in the margin was part of the same project as characters drawn in other manuscripts (which need not be the case, because the Phelps manuscript came first and is much more formal about the characters, which is consistent with someone else doing a copycat attempt at a future date), and they assume Phelps got his third character (out of three) from a spot which is now completely torn off from the papyrus, and they turn to a parallel text to determine what the next character would have been and they assume that was the character Phelps copied even though it bears no resemblance and they have no evidence that it was the character Phelps copied. The reality is that even if the characters were visible for Phelps on the Hor papyrus, there is no evidence that Phelps derived his character from those characters. 

What makes their claim even more curious is that our friends who advocate for the Papyrus Louvre 3284 possibility simultaneously propose that the characters in the margins were NOT copied strictly in order from the papyrus but that whoever drew them was jumping around and using characters out of sequence. So why would anyone insist that Phelps used this one character in sequence when it doesn't even match? Again, their reason is apparently an attempt to preserve the timeline of document production which is threatened by the evidence-based scenario, which is why they exclude the evidence-based scenario. 

.......................

Okay, now let's move on to my argument.   

Here is the Phelps manuscript: 

You will notice it has three characters in the margin, which I highlight in red below.

The first two characters are pinned to letters in the English text, which I highlight in blue:

To simplify things, let's focus on the characters and the letters in the English text which are pinned to characters:

Now, to simplify even further, let's transliterate the Egyptian characters so everything will be English:

Now, consider the fact that the first and second character are both used in transliterating the third character:

And the other letter which is needed is tagged:

If you are skimming or not paying attention, start to follow the significance of each detail here. 

There are a number of convergences which add up and support each other, which are about to be pointed out. 

iaw actually means "oldest official," which is a dominant theme in the Phelps manuscript, in reference to patriarchy:

And as I pointed out, the first two characters, plus the "a" which the Phelps manuscript associates with them, transliterate the third character. But it doesn't stop there. That third character also transliterates as wr, which means great, and is lined up right across from the word great!

Now, you might wonder, "what about the s?" I haven't forgotten that. If we put the s instead of the a between the iw, we get isw, which takes us to the same hieroglyph we would get if we put the a after the w rather than before it, i.e. "iwa" which means "inherit." 

Think about that. isw is the same hieroglyph as iwa. Both take us directly to the same hieroglyph. And that hieroglyph means "inherit," which is exactly what Abraham is talking about in his scripture.  

Now, what to make of the system of tagged numbers/letters? The "i" is tagged with a 1, which is consistent with it only occupying one position, as it does in all three transliterations. The "w" and "a" and tagged with a 2, consistent with them occupying two positions (they invert positions for iwa and iaw), and the "s" is tagged with a 1, consistent with the s only occupying one position, with no inverting. The Egyptian "i" is tagged to the English "i," perhaps to involve a more generic "i" than the reed leaf. Understanding it this way gives us iwa, iaw and isw. 

Study out the following image to understand how involved and amazing these convergences are.

And to top everything off, the iaw/wr character was taken from the name Osorwer, meaning “Osiris is great.” It’s the “great” part. Anyway, Osorwer was a High Priest and the father of Hor, and the one whom Hor inherited his Priesthood through in the Egyptian religion. So, a clear parallel with Abraham’s words in the Phelps manuscript, inheriting high priesthood down through fathers. This may have been what caught Joseph’s attention in the first place with the character. 

As you can see, the Phelps manuscript has very strong evidence of authentic Egyptian transliteration.