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Title: By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri by Charles M. Larson ISBN: 0-9620963-2-6 Publisher: Inst for Religious Research Pub. Date: 01 March, 1992 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.08 (39 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain
Comment: While there are numerous bits and pieces that don't quite add up in Mormonism, the Book of Abraham is where Joseph Smith gets scaught red handed in his fabrications. Unlike the Book of Mormon, where the Angel Moroni spirited away the Golden Plates once Smith had finished his "translation", here is the documented proof that Smith was no "prophet, seer and revelator."
Larson does an excellent job of tracing the controversy from the time that Smith first acquires the papyri through the first French translation by Champollion's students until the amazing discovery of the papyri in the late 1960s. His evangelical Christian agenda is apparent, but doesn't get in the way of his research until the last two chapters, when he presents his own religion as an alternative for disenchanted Mormons. Other than that, this is an excellent work.
This is a must read for any Mormon or anyone curious about Mormonism. I have a hard time seeing how anyone could believe in Smith's tales after reading this damning book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Established, well documented account of Smith's 'translation
Comment: Being a buff on historical accounts of early Christian, the likes of the works of Crossan, Mack and Funk, I have also read several accounts of the early history of the Mormon Church, and that of the life J. Smith.
This single book of Larson's, provides a concise account of the historical facts of the case surrounding J. Smith's alleged work. Alone, this book leads most readers to conclude, that J. Smith, the 'prophet' is all but a con artist with much less art than con.
The facts stand by themselves, The book of Abraham, appears as nothing more than Mr. Smith's rambling writings, faking an translation (as he said he did) of an old Egyptian papyri text for the dead, as the very writing of Abraham and an account of Joseph. Dozens of Egyptian scholars since the 1850's and continue through now, have examined the papyri and the works of the book of Abraham, and declared that Smith's 'translation' work has nothing to do with the papyri text itself, which is a standa! rd text for the dead, found with most mummies, and that what ever Smith wrote, as a 'translation' of the papyri (in the 1830's when all but one or two Frenchman could translated such a text at that time, since the language of the Egyptians has only then been discovered) Smith's book of Abraham in no way relates to the actual papyrus text.
Smith used the papyrus text to makeup, his own version of Abraham's 'writings' declaring to his followers that the Lord has handed him (the prophet) this very papyrus text, upon which Abraham himself had wrote.
'There is no cheese on the moon, sir."
The Mormom Church has said nothing to Larson's book, as expected, nor of the numerous other scholar's who have examined the papyrus text and that of the account of Smith's translation of it, as the Book of Abraham.
The papyrus text (according to schalors) dates back to just before the BC era, and not to the time of Abraham, which it would have to had, it been written by Abraham'! s own hand.
Having said this, religion is often the way ! or path of followers, and come as they do, the path becomes the way. There was a Jesus and there is Christ. Jesus was, and was real, for sure. For followers, Christ is real.
Far be it for me to say how to belief or what to follow. But, least ye be fooled, check the tires before you roll down the road. Of course, many of folks drive what they please and seem happy.
Just don't tell me the tires are round, when I can seem that they are a bit flat.
Rating: 1
Summary: Poor scholarship
Comment: The following are excerpts from a review of this book by Dr. John Gee, who has a PhD in Egyptology from Yale University:
"He makes fun of the book of Abraham.... Yet, left on his own to translate Egyptian, he gives us gibberish (pp. 97-99). He does not even identify the contents of the various Egyptian texts correctly (pp. 62, 120, 138). Not only is Larson apparently unable to read the original texts to which he refers, but he has misunderstood the translations he himself cites. Contrary to his assertion that the Book of Breathings contains "prayers to pagan Egyptian gods" (pp. 120, 138), the Joseph Smith Book of Breathings is addressed to no Egyptian gods; rather, it is addressed to a human individual and reminds him of promises made to him and things he has experienced.
"Larson ... betrays no knowledge of any foreign language, yet offers to guide us through Egyptian.... ([From the review's footnotes:] Larson's statement about vowels on p. 232 n. 3 is not true.) ... he cannot even pull the correct hieratic signs from the papyrus.... ([From the review's footnotes:] E.g., the fourth set of signs on p. 99, far from being the m-ht signs of column 1, line 3, are the w and p signs from irw p3, column 1, line 6.)...
"Larson labels facsimile 3 "the single most common form of Egyptian funerary scene known...." For him the scene is just the standard "chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead" (p. 108). This is an important point for critics of the book of Abraham. The facsimiles must be dismissed as just run-of-the-mill pagan nonsense. The University of Chicago's Klaus Baer, however, disagreed: "Facs[imile] No. 3 is not a judgment scene and exact parallels may be hard to find." Much the same might be said of the other facsimiles.... (See Hugh W. Nibley, Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri. Larson never deals with the issues Nibley raises here.)
"Larson never deals with what occurs on the Egyptian papyri we have: What do they say? What did they mean to the Egyptians? His only attempt at indicating what any of the papyri mean is an explanation of Joseph Smith Papyrus I (p. 102). But the explanation not only matches no Egyptian text; it makes no sense. How can grandchildren be present at their father's conception? Can Larson produce any Egyptian text where the Egyptians make this mistake?....
"Larson provides what he claims to be a "professional reconstruction" (pp. 62-65), contrasting it with Joseph Smith's reconstruction of missing portions of the papyri, of which he is extremely critical. To restore a lacuna ... careful comparison to parallel texts must be done in order to show that the restorations are even possible. Can Larson produce another papyrus (as opposed to a temple wall) where the figure on the lion couch is ithyphallic? Can he show any authentic Egyptian drawing where anyone wearing breeches is ithyphallic? While Larson has noted that there are some characters above the figures, he has misunderstood the implications. The characters are in vertical columns marked by vertical lines to either side of the text, a practice reserved for cases where there is more than one column of text. Given at least two columns of text, there is no room for the bird hovering over the figure. A hand is the only reasonable restoration. Besides, the artist has already demonstrated how he draws the end of a bird's wing, and it is not in separate strokes. Thus the restoration Larson mocks (pp. 155-56) is possible, whereas his own is not....
"Nearly every attempt at reconstruction of Joseph Smith Papyrus I strenuously tries to avoid the knife in the standing figure's hand. This, the critics say, is a figment of Joseph Smith's imagination.... Nevertheless, an eyewitness account suggests that it was, in fact, present on the original ... "a number of glazed slides, like picture frames, containing sheets of papyrus, with Egyptian inscriptions and hieroglyphs. . . . Pointing to the figure of a man lying on a table, he [the Mormon guide] said, 'That is the picture of Abraham on the point of being sacrificed. That man standing by him with a drawn knife is an idolatrous priest of the Egyptians.' " ...
"Larson tries to dismiss the notion that the document from which the book of Abraham was translated was "beautifully written upon papyrus, with black, and a small part red, ink or paint, in perfect preservation" (pp. 129-32). But there is another eyewitness account from the Nauvoo period that supports this statement.... And there is still more evidence that Joseph Smith had additional papyri....
"Larson's discussion of Hugh Nibley's qualifications to deal with the papyri is similarly inaccurate ... Dr. Nibley's first study of Egyptian was in 1927; he used it in his Ph.D. dissertation and in articles published [later]... In 1959 ... Nibley became Klaus Baer's first student in Egyptian.... During the summer of 1964 Nibley studied under both Baer and Wilson at the University of Chicago. When the papyri appeared, it had been forty years since Nibley's first introduction to Egyptian. ... Egyptologists have quoted Nibley in respected Egyptological journals....
"Larson never deals with the contents of the Joseph Smith Papyri. He does not seem to know what is in them ... he condemns the contents outright without ever properly examining them....
"All we have from Larson in his attempted rebuttals is that somebody somewhere does understand the Egyptian material, but that no one (or at least no Bible-believer) should try...."
(Review of By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri by Charles M. Larson. Reviewed by John Gee. FARMS Review of Books, Volume 4, Issue 1. Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1992. Pp. 93-119.)
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Title: No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith : The Mormon Prophet by Fawn McKay Brodie, Peter Dimock, Fawn M. Brodie ISBN: 0679730540 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Quest for the Gold Plates: Thomas Stuart Ferguson's Archaeological Search for the Book of Mormon by Stan Larson ISBN: 0963473263 Publisher: Freethinker Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 1997 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Insider's View of Mormon Origins by Grant H. Palmer, Grant Palmer ISBN: 1560851570 Publisher: Signature Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Early Mormonism and the Magic World View by D. Michael Quinn ISBN: 1560850892 Publisher: Signature Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1998 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Studies of the Book of Mormon by Brigham D. Madsen, Brigham H. Roberts, Sterling M. McMurrin ISBN: 1560850272 Publisher: Signature Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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