Deciphering "LDS claims"

[All-American]

Originally Posted by nuclearunderpants

I don't expect clarification or revelation on things that haven't been revealed---like evolution. I would like to see an explanation for things that were taught as doctrine and later retracted.

1. Book Of Abraham not being what Joseph said it was, including the text in the book "by his own hand upon papyrus"
2. Adam God Theory
3. Book of Mormon translation not being a translation in any accepted sense of the word.

[nuclearunderpants]

Which instance is a straw man? The picture was fun to look at, but words are easier to reply to.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by nuclearunderpants

Which instance is a straw man? The picture was fun to look at, but words are easier to reply to.

You can make the argument that the church ought to clarify its retraction of the Adam-God theory. On points 1 and 3, you've made some real stretches to depict these topics as "doctrines later retracted."

What's more, I don't think that any of these points ultimately matter to you. I think that your beef with the church lies elsewhere and these issues are merely convenient points of attack for you to target.

[Robin]

Originally Posted by All-American

You can make the argument that the church ought to clarify its retraction of the Adam-God theory. On points 1 and 3, you've made some real stretches to depict these topics as "doctrines later retracted."

What's more, I don't think that any of these points ultimately matter to you. I think that your beef with the church lies elsewhere and these issues are merely convenient points of attack for you to target.

Does it matter what people in Joseph Smith's day understood to be the meaning of the word 'translation' and such? If people had completely wrong understandings of what Joseph was doing, and Joseph was aware of these misunderstandings, but let them stand, would that matter?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Robin

Does it matter what people in Joseph Smith's day understood to be the meaning of the word 'translation' and such? If people had completely wrong understandings of what Joseph was doing, and Joseph was aware of these misunderstandings, but let them stand, would that matter?

Is this that "one last great post" we've been hearing about? Be sure to let us know which one is it, will you?

[Robin]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

Is this that "one last great post" we've been hearing about? Be sure to let us know which one is it, will you?

Not even close. I'll get to it after Burning Man, most likely... if Mike doesn't give me the boot before that.

[nuclearunderpants]

You are right that these issues only butress my main issue. Your suggesting that my disbelief clouds my objectivity in evaluating the issues. I could suggest the opposite about you, but I don't know your position as it has not been articulated. I do have a mocking picture of a scarecrow though. I do say that I am offended at the harsh response. I take the matter of my religion (or lack thereof) very seriously. I have struggled with it and tried to come to a place where I am at peace.

The churches willingness to hide the truth in many cases has lead to a lot of hurt.

On point one---The church for many years held and taught that Joseph came into possession of papyri that contained the writings of Abraham and Joseph of Egypt. They also maintained that Joseph translated the papyri to produce the Book of Abraham. The claim was not that the Abraham papyrus was a copy, or a stimulus to receive revelation about Abraham. The claim was (and is) that the papyrus was written by Abraham himself and that Joseph translated it. Joseph himself made this claim. He even produced an Egyptian alphabet and grammar to evidence his ability as a translator.

The favorite response is to indicate the lack of cubrics [sp?] in the Sensen fragment and say we don't have the right papyrus. I feel this is stretching since the other papyrus found has red ink and fits the description of the Book of Joseph.

The other response is to look at the Book of Abraham and parallels of ongoing Abrahamic scholarly work. The idea being to prove the text of the "translation" correct.

I don't buy either explanation. The case that the Sensen fragment is the Abraham papyrus is very strong, including the drawn in facsimile and the translation text with the Egyptian characters added down the side.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by Robin

Does it matter what people in Joseph Smith's day understood to be the meaning of the word 'translation' and such? If people had completely wrong understandings of what Joseph was doing, and Joseph was aware of these misunderstandings, but let them stand, would that matter?

There were a lot of "misunderstandings" running around regarding Joseph. I'd have been impressed if he were able to keep track of them all, much less do something to correct them.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by nuclearunderpants

You are right that these issues only butress my main issue. Your suggesting that my disbelief clouds my objectivity in evaluating the issues. I could suggest the opposite about you, but I don't know your position as it has not been articulated. I do have a mocking picture of a scarecrow though. I do say that I am offended at the harsh response. I take the matter of my religion (or lack thereof) very seriously. I have struggled with it and tried to come to a place where I am at peace.

The churches willingness to hide the truth in many cases has lead to a lot of hurt.

On point one---The church for many years held and taught that Joseph came into possession of papyri that contained the writings of Abraham and Joseph of Egypt. They also maintained that Joseph translated the papyri to produce the Book of Abraham. The claim was not that the Abraham papyrus was a copy, or a stimulus to receive revelation about Abraham. The claim was (and is) that the papyrus was written by Abraham himself and that Joseph translated it. Joseph himself made this claim. He even produced an Egyptian alphabet and grammar to evidence his ability as a translator.

The favorite response is to indicate the lack of cubrics [sp?] in the Sensen fragment and say we don't have the right papyrus. I feel this is stretching since the other papyrus found has red ink and fits the description of the Book of Joseph.

The other response is to look at the Book of Abraham and parallels of ongoing Abrahamic scholarly work. The idea being to prove the text of the "translation" correct.

I don't buy either explanation. The case that the Sensen fragment is the Abraham papyrus is very strong, including the drawn in facsimile and the translation text with the Egyptian characters added down the side.

I apologize; I had not meant to offend. I was probably overboard on that.

I'll briefly wrap up my views by saying that I've heard the arguments you give as conclusive and they don't bother me a bit. I have no doubt that you've heard the arguments I've found as conclusive, and that they likewise don't bother you. The issue, therefore, runs quite a bit deeper than these little details. There's little sense in rehashing these issues when 1), neither of us are going to be convinced by them, and 2), they're not the main issues anyway. We'll both save a lot of time by avoiding arguments over non-issues and getting to the heart of the matter.

[nuclearunderpants]

I believe the heart of the matter is whether or not BYU is going to beat UofA next week. I'm going down with two of my high school buddies from Arizona (I'm from Prescott, AZ).

I cannot stomach the thought of having to eat crowe from them if we lose.

Anyways, I accept and appreciate the apology. I'm thin skinned on the issue of religion as I always took it very seriously but could never come to terms with it.