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The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 13

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Part 13: CES Letter Book of Abraham Questions [Section D]

 

by Sarah Allen

 

Today, we’re going to start talking about the facsimiles, beginning with Facsimile 1. Facsimile 1 is pretty unique, not just among the other Book of Abraham facsimiles but also among other similar known scenes, which are often referred to as “lion couch scenes.” This is the only facsimile that we actually have the original copy of. We don’t have the originals of Facsimile 2 and Facsimile 3 anymore. Facsimile 3 was described on one of the scrolls in the 1863 Wood Museum catalog, showing that it was among that papyri that burned in the Chicago Fire.

To begin with, this is what we have in our scriptures today. It’s an engraved copy of the original with numbered explanations of what the figures mean. This is the papyri fragment showing the facsimile. You’ll note that in the fragment, there are pencil markings filling in missing pieces, which I’ve circled in teal on this copy. We don’t know who penciled in those missing pieces or when they did it, but eyewitness testimony does suggest at least some of those missing pieces were intact when Joseph first received the papyri. There are at least two eyewitness descriptions of what seem to be the original vignette. So, maybe Joseph filled it in, maybe he didn’t. We honestly don’t know. There are claims it was filled in incorrectly, which seems to be partially true and partially untrue.

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The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 12

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Part 12: CES Letter Book of Abraham Questions [Section C]

 

by Sarah Allen

 

As the beginning of the next question in the CES Letter is basically a retread of the previous one, I’m just going to skim over it really quickly as a brief recap.

Egyptologists have also since translated the source material for the Book of Abraham and have found it to be nothing more than a common pagan Egyptian funerary text for a deceased man named “Hor” around the first century C.E.

As we went over previously, the papyri fragments have been translated and do reflect funerary texts, which the Church confirmed just over a month after they received them. As we also went over, we certainly cannot say they were the source material for the Book of Abraham. Joseph himself said otherwise, and even if you don’t believe him, numerous other eyewitnesses all confirmed that it was the long roll that was the source material, not the fragments mounted under glass. Since the fragments are all we have today, we can’t confirm the eyewitness testimony. However, whether you believe in the catalyst theory, the missing scroll theory, or some other theory entirely, if we trust in Joseph Smith, the one thing we know for certain is that the fragments are not the source material for the Book of Abraham, no matter how many times Jeremy Runnells insists that they are.

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Come, Follow Me Week 40 – Doctrine and Covenants 109-110

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by David W. Smith

 

“A Fulness of the Holy Ghost”

From the beginning of his presidency, President Russell M. Nelson has repeatedly emphasized the blessings of temple service. In his very first address as President of the Church he said:

As a new Presidency, we want to begin with the end in mind. For this reason, we’re speaking to you today from a temple….The ordinances of the temple and the covenants you make there are key to strengthening your life, your marriage and family, and your ability to resist the attacks of the adversary. Your worship in the temple and your service there for your ancestors will bless you with increased personal revelation and peace and will fortify your commitment to stay on the covenant path.
(“As We Go Forward Together,” Ensign, April 2018)

In a later address he counseled: [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 40 – Doctrine and Covenants 109-110

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 11

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Part 11: CES Letter Book of Abraham Questions [Section B]

By Sarah Allen

 

Before I get started, I just wanted to reiterate that these are all answers that work for me personally. They may not work for you, and that’s fine. My point in all of this was not to say that this is the only way to view something, but to show that there are answers out there if you go looking for them. If someone who is not a scholar or a professional apologist or researcher can find the stuff I’m posting with a little digging, imagine what else you could find out there if you tried, you know? And some evidences that are convincing to me won’t be convincing to you, and vice versa. That’s okay. Find what is convincing to you. Investigate the stuff you have questions about. Don’t just take my word for it, or the words of critics. Dive in yourself and do the research and see what you can find. Don’t just take one source at its word. Evaluate the different sources, as Reddit user lord_wilmore recently advised. You’ve all seen just how many different sources I’m drawing from to write these posts. There’s never just one. Even when I find a response from someone whose opinion I trust, I still often look for additional sources. I read the footnotes, and I read the sources my sources draw their opinions from. My hope is that these posts will encourage all of you to do the same when you come across a question you can’t immediately answer.

So, that said, let’s dive into some controversy, shall we?

We know this is the papyrus that Joseph used for translation because the hieroglyphics match in chronological order to the hieroglyphics in Joseph’s Kirtland Egyptian Papers, which contains his Grammar & Alphabet of the Egyptian Language (GAEL). Additionally, the papyrus were pasted onto paper which have drawings of a temple and maps of the Kirtland, Ohio area on the back and they were companied by an affidavit by Emma Smith verifying they had been in the possession of Joseph Smith.

First of all, that second sentence is completely out of place. No one from the Church that I’m aware of with any degree of authority has never denied that the papyrus fragments the Church has in its possession are some of the papyri that Joseph had. If someone out there did ever make that claim, it certainly was not in an official capacity while speaking for the Church. As I stated last week, the Church announced the fragments were in fact Joseph’s and that they were funeral documents a month after receiving them. This has never been in dispute, and tacking on the sentence to imply that it was in dispute is sketchy. [Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 11

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 10

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Part 10: CES Letter Book of Abraham Questions [Section A]

by Sarah Allen

 

The Book of Abraham is perhaps our most controversial book of scripture, maybe even more so than the Book of Mormon though it is less well-known. It is a complicated, messy subject with a lot of different parts to it. This is something I’ve studied a fair bit over the years, and it’s actually one of my favorite things to study. I know enough about the subject to talk about the various theories and viewpoints, but I suspect a lot of people won’t agree with my stance on things and that’s okay. We all need to come to our own opinions about these sorts of things. I’ll try to keep from getting too esoteric in my comments, but please understand that some of the current controversies involve minor details that seem silly to quibble over, but which end up making a rather large difference once you get deeper into the study of this book.

Perhaps even more than the translation method, this subject bothers Jeremy Runnells the most. I believe he even says at one point that the Book of Abraham is what officially broke his testimony, which is unfortunate. He makes a lot of misstatements throughout this section, so I’m not sure if the issue is that he just doesn’t understand the Book of Abraham and its scholarship, or if he’s doing it deliberately. The critics of the Church have been particularly successful in framing the arguments on this topic in such a way that it really hurts a lot of people, so I’m willing to give Jeremy the benefit of the doubt regarding this section and believe that he just doesn’t know enough about the topic. If so, it’s especially sad that he let it destroy his testimony when some further study might have saved it. I may be wrong; maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing when he makes those misstatements and frames things incorrectly. He certainly does that knowingly in other sections of this Letter.

Either way, this is a difficult subject for a lot of people, so I’m going to try to break it all down in such a way that it makes sense, and that it helps you guys see that there are faithful explanations out there. We’ll go slowly and I may have to break some questions into multiple parts because he covers so much ground in a single question. I don’t want to skim over anything too lightly because it is such a controversial subject. If anything isn’t clear as we go along, please let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to clarify. I love the Book of Abraham and I think its doctrine is beautiful, so I hope you guys come away with that feeling, too.

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Come, Follow Me Week 39 – Doctrine and Covenants 106–108

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Reading D&C 107 as a Daughter of Eve

by V.H. Cassler

D&C 107 contains many interesting elements. We learn Noah was ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood when he was but age 10, for example. We learn quite a lot about various levels of hierarchy in the Church, differences between the lesser and greater priesthoods, and the mandates of various offices in the priesthood. We also learn about the privileges of those ordained to these priesthoods, such as communing with the Church of the Firstborn or even Heavenly Father and Jesus.

However, on the surface, 107 appears to be a profoundly “womanless” section of the D&C.  Whereas many sections of the D&C seem equally applicable in their exhortations to both women and men, even if women are not explicitly mentioned, it is much harder to say that about section 107. There just seems no place for them at all.

Of course, women are used to being completely overlooked in scripture, and may find this unremarkable. After all, scripture is mostly heavenly men speaking to men on earth about men’s ecclesiastical responsibilities. Perhaps men need more explicit guidance in these things; after all, negotiating hierarchies, which are meant to defuse competition, is tricky business among men. Questions of authority, power, keys, and so forth might need to be settled among men in very clear fashion by God in order for the work of men in the kingdom of God on earth to proceed unhindered.

However, the older I’ve become, the more I see beneath the surface to things implied by womanless scripture that have relevance not only to women, but also to the subject of male-female relations in the family of Adam and Eve. I would like to offer two examples of reading women into D&C 107. After all, if we can read women into this most womanless of sections, that offers hope that we can cease seeing the scriptures as primarily messages from men to men. This would be spiritually helpful for both men and women, as many interpret this not only as suggesting a hierarchy between men and women, but also a separation between church and family. We know from the doctrine of the Church that there is no hierarchy between men and women. We also know that in the hereafter, the family is the form of divine governance, not the church. This suggests that we are likely to suffer from misconceptions if we take seemingly womanless sections such as 107 on a purely superficial level. Let’s look a little deeper, then. [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 39 – Doctrine and Covenants 106–108

Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers Documents, Volume 12: March-July 1843

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Available in the FAIR bookstore

This volume of the Joseph Smith Papers contains 96 representative documents from the period of March – July 1841. During this time period, Joseph continued having legal problems with Missouri, the Kinderhook Plates were found, he led the Nauvoo Legion, construction continued on the Nauvoo House and temple, and he taught about the temple, eternal marriage, and plural marriage. Meanwhile Nauvoo continued to grow, and the church grew outside of Nauvoo and outside of the United States.

One document that I thought showed an interesting side of Joseph Smith’s personality was a response to a letter he had received from Abraham Jonas of Columbus, Illinois, asking to borrow a cannon. He wanted it for use in celebrating the failure of the establishment of a new county. Joseph’s response was to grant permission, along with a note at the end saying “Five hund[r]ed cannons you should have if I had them” (page 112). [Read more…] about Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers Documents, Volume 12: March-July 1843

The Church Of Jesus Christ and the BSA Bankruptcy Case

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By Cassandra Hedelius

Crossposted from Public Square Magazine

A few days ago, many saw the arresting headlines that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has agreed to pay an enormous amount of money—a quarter of a billion dollars—to survivors of sexual abuse by Boy Scouts of America leaders. It’s a complicated legal situation, and an impossibly sad one, and I’ll do my best to make it clear what’s happening and why. (I’m a lawyer, but not a bankruptcy lawyer, and bankruptcy law is quite complicated, so I’m going to leave out a lot of legal nuances.)

I’m a parent of young children, and I can hardly fathom the horror I’d feel if one of them was abused. I can hardly fathom the pain, despair, and confusion abused children feel. I do know, from some personal experience with loved ones, how the effects of childhood abuse can persist all life long in depression, anxiety, difficulty forming loving relationships, problems in school and employment, and worse. At the end of the world, I expect the Lord will dispense mighty judgment against abusers and also merciful understanding to the many abusers who were themselves abused. [Read more…] about The Church Of Jesus Christ and the BSA Bankruptcy Case

The CES Letter Rebuttal, Part 9

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Part 9: CES Letter First Vision Questions

by Sarah Allen

 

Like last week, this is another section with just one main question, the multiple accounts of the First Vision.

There are at least 4 different first vision accounts by Joseph Smith, which the Church admits in its November 2013 First Vision Accounts essay

Yep, and there are also five secondhand accounts written by people who heard the story from Joseph, too. First, though, I have to object to the fact that he’s saying the Church “admits it” in the essay, as if it’s the first time the Church has ever made mention of those other accounts or something. They’ve been published repeatedly in Church magazines and other publications, comparing and contrasting all of them together since at least 1970, and at least a few of them were published many times over apart from that. Add this item to the list of things that Jeremy Runnells could have known, even if I don’t necessarily think he should  have known it.

Here they are, in case you guys want to read them for yourselves and make your own comparisons:

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The CES Letter Rebuttal, Part 8

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Part 8: CES Letter Book of Mormon Translation Questions

by Sarah Allen

 

This section really only has one question/point in it. There are maybe a few different parts to it, but it’s all basically one question and it’s one that comes up over and over and over and over again throughout the rest of the CES Letter. Honestly, I think this the first of only two major hang-ups—the other is the Book of Abraham—and everything else was just Jeremy Runnells throwing everything he could find at the wall and hoping something else would stick. He seems to have a very real problem with the translation method for the Book of Mormon. Few other issues in the Letter receive as much call-back attention as this one particular issue. I’m talking about, of course, the infamous “rock in the hat.”

Unlike the story I’ve been taught in Sunday School, Priesthood, General Conferences, Seminary, EFY, Ensigns, Church history tour, Missionary Training Center, and BYU…Joseph Smith used a rock in a hat for translating the Book of Mormon.

First of all, Ensigns absolutely should not be on that list, because guess where I first learned about Joseph putting his seer stone in his hat to block out the light? Yep, the Ensign. More on that later, though.

Jeremy doesn’t actually say what he originally believed the translation method was, and that’s a little problematic because people seem to vary on the exact details when you press them. Was there a curtain between Joseph and his scribes? Were the plates on the table beside him, or kept out of view? Did Joseph wear the spectacles with the Nephite Interpreters and basically “read” the translation from plates themselves? Or did he look in them and see the words without looking at the plates through the Interpreters? Did he attach them to the breastplate, or wear them separately? Did he take the Interpreters out of the spectacles, or did he try to wear them the entire time, despite the widely acknowledged fact that they didn’t fit him properly? If he took them out, what did he do with them? Did he hold them in his hands, or place them on top of the plates, or what? Etc.

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