Yes, sorry, this is satire, in the spirit of Cassius Univeristy, following on from the discussion a few weeks ago with Kish et al.
I've also noticed something else. The parchment translation in D&C 7 begins with the word "And...". This suggests that the revealed text is an excerpt from a longer narrative. Maybe it comes from a longer (and now lost) version of the Gospel of John. As it happens, mainstream New Testament scholars have often discussed the possibility that the Gospel of John went through differnent redactions, and here is seeming proof of that... how could Joseph have known?
More on Brother Joseph and ancient documents
Re: More on Brother Joseph and ancient documents
Meadowchik wrote:If so, I am relieved. I do not know Johannes enough to be able to tell.
The references to Rev. Kishkumen and Prof. Symmachus were a good sign it was satire.
Re: More on Brother Joseph and ancient documents
Runtu wrote:Meadowchik wrote:If so, I am relieved. I do not know Johannes enough to be able to tell.
The references to Rev. Kishkumen and Prof. Symmachus were a good sign it was satire.
You're going to have a lot of apologising to do if it turns out that Kish is a validly ordained reverend....
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Re: More on Brother Joseph and ancient documents
Johannes wrote:Yes, sorry, this is satire, in the spirit of Cassius Univeristy, following on from the discussion a few weeks ago with Kish et al.
I've also noticed something else. The parchment translation in D&C 7 begins with the word "And...". This suggests that the revealed text is an excerpt from a longer narrative. Maybe it comes from a longer (and now lost) version of the Gospel of John. As it happens, mainstream New Testament scholars have often discussed the possibility that the Gospel of John went through differnent redactions, and here is seeming proof of that... how could Joseph have known?
Thank you! :P
by the way, I've mentioned this here before, but a few years ago we were staying in an old hostel on southern France, and one of the caretakers there was a former Eastern Orthodox monk. He had lived 27 years in the monastary after being orphaned, knew several dead languages and had done translation work on very old texts. At least, he said he did.
I wish someone more knowledgeable could have been there to talk to him with us.
Re: More on Brother Joseph and ancient documents
Meadowchik wrote:Thank you! :P
by the way, I've mentioned this here before, but a few years ago we were staying in an old hostel on southern France, and one of the caretakers there was a former Eastern Orthodox monk. He had lived 27 years in the monastary after being orphaned, knew several dead languages and had done translation work on very old texts. At least, he said he did.
I wish someone more knowledgeable could have been there to talk to him with us.
That's amazing. You do occasionally come across people like that in the most unlikely places. I used to worry about the old monastic tradition of learning being kept alive, but in recent years it's seen something of a revival.
Re: More on Brother Joseph and ancient documents
Johannes wrote:You're going to have a lot of apologising to do if it turns out that Kish is a validly ordained reverend....
I think he'll forgive me.
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Re: More on Brother Joseph and ancient documents
Runtu wrote:
I'm pretty sure this is satire.
What? And here Brother Johannes insights on the prophet Joseph was beginning to help me to start to doubt my doubts.
Re: More on Brother Joseph and ancient documents
Oh., don't mind me, I'm just Balaam's ass.
Re: More on Brother Joseph and ancient documents
Another exciting discovery. It seems that most of verses 6 and 7 did not appear in the original Book of Commandments
http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/book-of-commandments-1833/22
How do we explain this discrepancy? Obviously, the Lord must have revealed two versions of the parchment to Joseph: one was the original version written by John, and the second was a redacted version by an ancient editor who recovered the parchment from its hiding place, added the additional material, and then "hid it up" again. As verses 6 and 7 contain the intertextual material from Hebrews, we may surmise that the redactor was none other than the mysterious author of Hebrews.
As John must have "hid up" his parchment in a location in the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps in the vicinity of Ephesus, we may hypothesise that the author of Hebrews was active in that same part of the world. This resolves a debate among modern scholars about where Hebrews was written: Rome has been considered to be one candidate, but this possibility can clearly now be ruled out. Joseph cannot possibly have known that his revelation would resolve this debate.
http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/book-of-commandments-1833/22
How do we explain this discrepancy? Obviously, the Lord must have revealed two versions of the parchment to Joseph: one was the original version written by John, and the second was a redacted version by an ancient editor who recovered the parchment from its hiding place, added the additional material, and then "hid it up" again. As verses 6 and 7 contain the intertextual material from Hebrews, we may surmise that the redactor was none other than the mysterious author of Hebrews.
As John must have "hid up" his parchment in a location in the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps in the vicinity of Ephesus, we may hypothesise that the author of Hebrews was active in that same part of the world. This resolves a debate among modern scholars about where Hebrews was written: Rome has been considered to be one candidate, but this possibility can clearly now be ruled out. Joseph cannot possibly have known that his revelation would resolve this debate.
Re: More on Brother Joseph and ancient documents
Following on from the discussion of Dr Gee's ideas about the Book of Abraham (http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49621), I have some thoughts of my own to offer on this unique piece of latter-day scripture.
My point of departure is this comment by Symmachus:
I can do no more in this short post than sketch out a very broad and tentative theory about the sources and composition of the Book of Abraham.
Broadly speaking, it would seem that the Book of Abraham divides into two sections:
1. Abraham 1-2 - A narrative (N) of Abraham's travels and adventures.
2. Abraham 3-5 - An instructional (I) text on cosmogony and astronomy.
A caveat: obviously, the Book of Abraham is too complex a work to be divided simplistically between N and I. The two sources have become entwined together, and it is evident that they have been supplemented by one or more later redactors. Nevertheless, please stay with me.
What was N?
It has long been known that N must post-date the time of Abraham. For example, Professor Robert Ritner has noted that the name "Potiphar" (Abr. 1.10 etc) is Late Egyptian.
This is unsurprising, as interest in Abraham and telling stories about his life seems to have been a post-exilic phenomenon among the people of Judaea. N is a characteristic product of the Second Temple period (c. 530 BC - 70 AD).
N has echoes of both the Pentateuch and Isaiah, for example:
- Abr. 1.2 and 2.6 quote from Gen. 17.4-8 (P source), and Abr. 2.9-11 has close similarities to Gen 12.2-3 (J source).
- Abr. 1.2 and 2.7 quote from Is. 9.6 (First Isaiah) and 66.2 (Third Isaiah) respectively.
These intertexts provide further proof for our proposed dating. A writer who had access to the P and J sources of the Penateuch, and to Third Isaiah, must have been writing some time after the exile.
N has two main polemical themes, (1) the evils of idolatry, and (2) the importance of legitimate priesthood. Theme (1) is strongly suggestive of the circumstances surrounding the Maccabaean revolt, although (2) would fit with a slightly later date, contemporary with John Hyrcanus' controversy with the Pharisees over the high priesthood (note that the phrase "High Priest" is prominently mentioned in Abr. 1.2). In any event, we are probably dealing with a Palestinian text from the second century BC.
Anti-Mormons love to point out that there is a Greek name in the following passage in Abr. 1:
"Egyptus" is obviously a Greek name. The history here is clearly metaphorical and typological, but the use of a Greek name would fit very well with a second-century, Seleucid-era context for the text.
There is a bit of a peculiarity at Abr. 2.10-11, where the Christian term "Gospel" is mentioned:
Why would we find references to the Gospel in a second-century BC Pharasaical text? The answer is that they must be interpolations. Indeed, the three glosses ("that is...") in this passage indicate that the text here is unstable. We may see here the hand of a Christian redactor (R), who may indeed have been the person who stitched N and I together. He may well have been a member of the Alexandrian church (see below) in the time of St Clement, who had an interest in Abraham.
What was I?
I is a more interesting text than N in some ways. The astronomical content plainly indicates a Hellenistic date (3rd-1st century BC). Certainly, we are no longer in the era of the Hebrew Bible. Even the term "planets", which is found at Abr. 3.17, fails to occur in the earlier scriptures (save possibly for 2 Kgs. 23.5, where the meaning of mazzaloth is uncertain). We may suggest that I was written in Alexandria by a member of the Hellenised Jewish community there.
The "intelligences" in Abr 3, and the doctrine of the pre-existence, are reminiscent of ideas from Platonic philosophy. Perhaps "intelligences" is a translation of the Greek νόες (the plural of νοῦς, "mind", which is a key term in Platonic doctrine). God's revelation to Abraham of the souls of those waiting to be born at Abr. 3.22ff is vaguely reminiscent of the Myth of Er in the tenth book of Plato's Republic. We are clearly dealing here with a Judaism in dynamic dialogue with Greek philosophical traditions. Likewise, Abr. 4-5 is a kind of polytheistic retelling of the creation story in Genesis 1-2. This section of I is what would later be called a Targum - a creative adaptation of a scriptural text into another language (in this case, presumably Greek). Such a text might easily emerge from encounters between diaspora Jews and Egypto-Greek philosophers in a place like Alexandria.
There is one verse (3.27) that argues for a post-Maccabaean date:
The "Son of Man" reference cannot predate the first mention of "one like a son of man" in Daniel 7.13, which is of course contemporary with the Maccabaean revolt of the 160s BC. However, Abr. 3.27-28 is probably an interpolation by R.
That's all I can manage for now. I hope the Interpreter's referees are reading, because this stuff is solid gold.
My point of departure is this comment by Symmachus:
....there is no general theory about the Book of Abraham's composition that can account for how bits of evidence that are millennia apart are supposed to be meaningful. Gee has so far offered us, for instance, evidence for place names (Olishem) from the early second millennium BC, as well comparison to some Coptic text from the fifth or six century AD or later! What they lack is a general theoretical model into which they can fit these bits of evidence, which are otherwise pretty useless.
I can do no more in this short post than sketch out a very broad and tentative theory about the sources and composition of the Book of Abraham.
Broadly speaking, it would seem that the Book of Abraham divides into two sections:
1. Abraham 1-2 - A narrative (N) of Abraham's travels and adventures.
2. Abraham 3-5 - An instructional (I) text on cosmogony and astronomy.
A caveat: obviously, the Book of Abraham is too complex a work to be divided simplistically between N and I. The two sources have become entwined together, and it is evident that they have been supplemented by one or more later redactors. Nevertheless, please stay with me.
What was N?
It has long been known that N must post-date the time of Abraham. For example, Professor Robert Ritner has noted that the name "Potiphar" (Abr. 1.10 etc) is Late Egyptian.
This is unsurprising, as interest in Abraham and telling stories about his life seems to have been a post-exilic phenomenon among the people of Judaea. N is a characteristic product of the Second Temple period (c. 530 BC - 70 AD).
N has echoes of both the Pentateuch and Isaiah, for example:
- Abr. 1.2 and 2.6 quote from Gen. 17.4-8 (P source), and Abr. 2.9-11 has close similarities to Gen 12.2-3 (J source).
- Abr. 1.2 and 2.7 quote from Is. 9.6 (First Isaiah) and 66.2 (Third Isaiah) respectively.
These intertexts provide further proof for our proposed dating. A writer who had access to the P and J sources of the Penateuch, and to Third Isaiah, must have been writing some time after the exile.
N has two main polemical themes, (1) the evils of idolatry, and (2) the importance of legitimate priesthood. Theme (1) is strongly suggestive of the circumstances surrounding the Maccabaean revolt, although (2) would fit with a slightly later date, contemporary with John Hyrcanus' controversy with the Pharisees over the high priesthood (note that the phrase "High Priest" is prominently mentioned in Abr. 1.2). In any event, we are probably dealing with a Palestinian text from the second century BC.
Anti-Mormons love to point out that there is a Greek name in the following passage in Abr. 1:
23 The land of Egypt being first discovered by a woman, who was the daughter of Ham, and the daughter of Egyptus, which in the Chaldean signifies Egypt, which signifies that which is forbidden....
25 Now the first government of Egypt was established by Pharaoh, the eldest son of Egyptus, the daughter of Ham, and it was after the manner of the government of Ham, which was patriarchal.
"Egyptus" is obviously a Greek name. The history here is clearly metaphorical and typological, but the use of a Greek name would fit very well with a second-century, Seleucid-era context for the text.
There is a bit of a peculiarity at Abr. 2.10-11, where the Christian term "Gospel" is mentioned:
10 And I will bless them through thy name; for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father;
11 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal.
Why would we find references to the Gospel in a second-century BC Pharasaical text? The answer is that they must be interpolations. Indeed, the three glosses ("that is...") in this passage indicate that the text here is unstable. We may see here the hand of a Christian redactor (R), who may indeed have been the person who stitched N and I together. He may well have been a member of the Alexandrian church (see below) in the time of St Clement, who had an interest in Abraham.
What was I?
I is a more interesting text than N in some ways. The astronomical content plainly indicates a Hellenistic date (3rd-1st century BC). Certainly, we are no longer in the era of the Hebrew Bible. Even the term "planets", which is found at Abr. 3.17, fails to occur in the earlier scriptures (save possibly for 2 Kgs. 23.5, where the meaning of mazzaloth is uncertain). We may suggest that I was written in Alexandria by a member of the Hellenised Jewish community there.
The "intelligences" in Abr 3, and the doctrine of the pre-existence, are reminiscent of ideas from Platonic philosophy. Perhaps "intelligences" is a translation of the Greek νόες (the plural of νοῦς, "mind", which is a key term in Platonic doctrine). God's revelation to Abraham of the souls of those waiting to be born at Abr. 3.22ff is vaguely reminiscent of the Myth of Er in the tenth book of Plato's Republic. We are clearly dealing here with a Judaism in dynamic dialogue with Greek philosophical traditions. Likewise, Abr. 4-5 is a kind of polytheistic retelling of the creation story in Genesis 1-2. This section of I is what would later be called a Targum - a creative adaptation of a scriptural text into another language (in this case, presumably Greek). Such a text might easily emerge from encounters between diaspora Jews and Egypto-Greek philosophers in a place like Alexandria.
There is one verse (3.27) that argues for a post-Maccabaean date:
3.27 And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first.
The "Son of Man" reference cannot predate the first mention of "one like a son of man" in Daniel 7.13, which is of course contemporary with the Maccabaean revolt of the 160s BC. However, Abr. 3.27-28 is probably an interpolation by R.
That's all I can manage for now. I hope the Interpreter's referees are reading, because this stuff is solid gold.