Comment Re:Knowledge (Score 1) 1037
Only fragments of the original papyri have survived. The only part of the papyri that are reproduced directly in the Book of Abraham are two drawings, only one of which survives in part, and the most interesting and controversial parts are not among the scraps that have survived. Egyptologists have argued that the drawings are "wrong,*" but that's actually kind of the point. The author used a variation on the Egyptian funerary drawing to illustrate a story. As for the text itself, that may have come from a separate papyrus that did not survive, or Joseph may have received it as a direct revelation as he did many other passages of scripture. To me, how Joseph got from the papyri to the extant text is not so interesting as the text itself, which I have found to be extremely valuable.
So the explanation for the translating being completely wrong is the author wasn't actually writing Egyptian?
About how you would deal with it if I laid out to you my theory for how I have disproved the existence of trees. You'd look at it and think, "That's interesting, but I know there are trees, because I've seen them. So I suspect there is something missing in your argument."
Except for some reason we can't actually see the trees (I'm not sure what you mean by seeing them).
So instead we ask what would we expect if there were trees? Well there would be leaves on the ground. Why aren't there leaves? The wind must have blown them away.
Ok, there would be wooden furniture and houses. But then we look and all the houses are brick and the furniture metal and plastic. So you say they must not like to build with wood.
Ok, then there would be fruit in the markets, but there isn't any. You say they must not like fruit.
The problem is that every time there's a test that could endorse the Mormon narrative you end up finding an excuse to explain away the difference.
Joseph Smith claimed there was a sword with the golden plates. Assume we had some fancy sonar that could identify the type any material underground, and, starting at Cumorah Hill, we scanned the earth 100m deep for a 20 km radius.
Would you expect them to find any swords or other metalwork from the 4th century?