Joseph Smith Jr. (b. 1805, d. 1844) |
One of the many controversies surrounding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Joseph Smith Jr.'s translation of an Egyptian papyrus. Joseph Smith and his followers call it the Book of Abraham. Joseph Smith was a student of the Egyptian language (though some understand him to have been a master of the language), and, according to Smith and his followers, he was prophet of God who received revelation from God to share with the world. A major part of Smith's prophetic calling was defined by his work as a translator of sacred text.
Joseph Smith's translations of Egyptian differ greatly from secular translations, and his works are generally rejected by the Non-LDS community. Mormons are left to choose between faith and current scholars' claims. Even the Book of Mormon was, according to Joseph Smith, as well as the words of a couple of prophets in the book, written in a language referred to as "Reformed Egyptian". Scholars deny the existence of any such language. This book is regarded in the Mormon faith as the cornerstone of the LDS religion, meaning it contains the doctrines that uphold and cause our religion to function. Take The Book of Mormon away, and the core of our doctrine is non-existent.
Now, I am a lot less knowledgeable than many other LDS apologists, but I, as many other members of my faith, do not believe that the Lord only reveals evidence to educated members of His church. In fact, the Lord often speaks in disappointed tones when referring to those who are educated. One example is as follows: "When they are learned, they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsels of God, for they set it aside supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not...But to be learned is good, if they hearken unto the counsels of God." (2 Nephi 9:28-29)
I personally have met quite a few educated members of my own church who have chosen to take academic world-views more seriously than the tenets of their faith. I am also aware that LDS scholars generally have no idea how to explain why there are differences between Joseph Smith's translations of Egyptian and current scholars' translations of Egyptian, though this is apparently because they are thrown off by the Rosetta Stone, which is the key to a much later form of Egyptian than the dialect spoken during Abraham's day (this is an observation made by David Grant Stewart Sr., a professional translator of ancient and modern languages). For me, it's enough to say that when I read scholars' translations, the result is a bunch of nonsense that I don't believe any member of the Homo Sapiens species would write or believe in. When I read Joseph Smith's translations, it is totally understandable to me. That, of course, is not substantial evidence of anything for anyone aside from myself, but it does coincide with something Joseph Smith said himself: that true doctrine tastes good. (King Follett Sermon, April 7, 1844)
A facsimile from the Book of Abraham. |
But the content of Joseph Smith's translations and revelations speak for themselves. And when reading them, one must ask, "Could Joseph Smith conceivably have invented these passages, or did he truly draw from revelations given by God?"
The Book of Abraham contains very interesting stuff, and is very different from other religious texts the Judeo-Christian world is used to. It is possibly the most complicated scripture in the LDS canon, even if it seems more relevant to Mormons than much of the Old Testament (the Old Testament is completely relevant, but readers have a harder time understanding its application).
In Chapter 3 of his book, Abraham is given a vision of the universe, in which God speaks and explains some of the mysteries of His creation.
God begins by describing the astrological properties of heaven's location in the universe. Abraham says, "I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it".
God then says, "These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this [star] to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest."
Here God is saying that the greatest star, Kolob, governs all other stars, including our star, the sun. What could He mean by "governs"? How does one star govern another? Most likely by being large enough to influence other star systems via gravitational pull. Indeed, as we read on, we'll see that Kolob is probably that large.
"And the Lord said unto me...that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest."
Here, the Lord explains to Abraham that one day on the planet or in the star system of Kolob is for us one thousand years. The Lord then continues to explain why.
"There shall be the reckoning of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord's time... If two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them; therefore Kolob is the greatest of all the [stars] which thou hast seen..."
So now the Lord is indicating that the reckoning of time on each planet is different, and if one planet is greater than another, its reckoning of time is greater as well.
Wait, what?
Did God just tell Abraham about gravitational time dilation?
Yeah. He did. And in case you aren't sure what I'm talking about, gravitational time dilation is the part of the theory of relativity which informs us that the greater the gravity is in an area, the slower time flows there. Greater gravity comes where there is greater mass, so a larger planet would have greater gravity and slower time than a smaller planet.
So, since God said in these passages that Kolob is so great that a day there is one thousand years for us here we can calculate that time passes 365,000 times more quickly on earth than on Kolob. Once again, all of this being predicated on the 'greatness', or size, of each star or world in question. Which means there is no question as to whether or not Joseph Smith brought into light the gravitational time dilation aspect of the theory of relativity in 1835 when he published The Book of Abraham. That was seventy-two years before Albert Einstein cognized gravitational time dilation of his own accord in 1907.
In the debate over Mormonism's claim that Joseph Smith was a prophet, this is only one of many instances where we are forced to make a logical choice such as the following: do we believe that Joseph Smith, in an attempt to trick everyone, came up with a bogus interpretation of Egyptian that included the theory of relativity? Or was he what he claimed to be, that is, a prophet?
If it's easier for you to accept that Joseph Smith came up with the theory of relativity seventy-two years before Einstein, and all in an attempt to gain followers, I ask you this: can you name a single charlatan in the history of the world who postulated a great scientific truth in order to deceive people?
I can't. Liars do not come up with profound truth as a means to lead the masses astray. They do mingle truth with lies, but those truths are never original - they are truths that are generally accepted by the masses already, making the lies seem more credible. Joseph Smith revealed a principle that was unheard of in his time period, and way over their heads at that. This was no attempt to trick anyone. To me it is clear that Joseph Smith had in his possession a document written by the hand of Abraham, and he translated it correctly. There would be no gravitational time dilation in the text if the text were anything other than what Smith claimed it was.
This realization stacks up with a plethora of other truths Joseph Smith unveiled long before the academic world could catch up with him. The Word of Wisdom, which preaches that alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and the tea leaf contain harmful substances was given by Joseph Smith in the year of 1833, over a century before Western practitioners of medicine made this discovery. The Book of Mormon made the audacious claim that the American Indians are descendants of a group of Caucasians, which idea was completely rejected until very recently (read about it here). There is the fact that The Book of Mormon contains the histories of three ancient American civilizations that were massive and advanced in many ways, which Europeans and Euro-Americans would not accept until after Smith published the book, having chosen instead to believe the central American monuments had been built by the Romans. We have since celebrated the greatness of the Olmec, Mayan, and Aztec nations as examples of the ingenuity of peoples indigenous to America.
My original intent in writing this post was to present one of the many reasons to believe that Joseph Smith was not your typical founder of a religious movement. He was a prophet. A prophet receives knowledge from God on our behalf. Joseph Smith did not take the credit for major scientific discoveries. He let the words of Abraham be Abraham's words. Smith was not seeking fame. He was seeking the Truth, and he found it. Smith attributed it to that God whom he served, the God of Truth from whom all knowledge flows. If Smith were less than a prophet, I feel fairly certain that he would have touted the theory of relativity as his discovery, had he managed to discover it on his own as a non-prophet, non-translator. But he found this knowledge via inspiration as a prophet, which thing I know to be true.
Some of the remaining fragments of the papyrus from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham. |
ReplyDeletehttp://i.imgur.com/nABGhr3.jpg
"This blog is intended for members of the LDS faith and those who are not members."
ReplyDelete... so, everyone?
FYI: If Kolob is at the center of the Milky Way it would take 29,000 years for an angel traveling at the speed of light (according to Brigham Young they travel at the speed of lightning) to reach Earth from Kolob. That's not round trip, that's ONE WAY. Thus... well that's just a can of worms. Jesus supposedly went back to his Father after his resurrection, and before his last appearances to the Apostles. But there were only a matter of weeks or months separating the events, and a round trip to Kolob would've been 58,000 years.
True. But take into account D&C 130. Christ is a being of light. The theory of relativity suggests that any physical entity that reaches the speed of light would become all-present, existing everywhere as well as in its own locality simultaneously. God could therefore reach any point in the universe instantly. From the D&C manual:
Delete"According to Einstein’s theory, if a body moves at very fast speeds (those approaching the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second), that body’s time slows down in relation to the time of a body that is on earth; and for the body in motion, space contracts or shrinks. In other words, time and space are not two separate things but are interrelated. Physicists refer to this as the space-time continuum. If an astronaut were to journey out into space at speeds approaching the speed of light, though to himself all would seem perfectly normal, to someone on earth it would appear as though his clock were ticking slower, his heart were beating slower, his metabolism operating slower, and so on. He would actually age more slowly than would a person who remained on the earth. Though the finite mind tends to reject such concepts, Einstein’s theory suggests that reality to us is a product of our relative position in the space-time continuum.
"According to this theory, if a being achieved the speed of light, to that being all space would contract to the point that it would be “here” for him, and all time would slow down until it became “now” for him. The theory of relativity thus may suggest how, for a being of light and glory like God, all space and all time could be present. As difficult as such a concept is to understand, increasingly sophisticated experiments continue to substantiate Einstein’s theoretical description of the realities of the universe.
"Lael Woodbury, dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications at Brigham Young University, talked about man’s perception of time and God’s perception of time in an address sponsored by the Church Educational System:
“The evidence suggests that God … perceives time as we perceive space. That’s why ‘all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things’ [D&C 88:41]. Time, like space, is ‘continually before the Lord.’ …
“… Right now we perceive music in time as a blind man perceives form in space—sequentially. He explores with his fingers, noting form, texture, contours, rhythms. He holds each perception in his mind, one by one, carefully adding one to the other, until he synthesizes his concept of what that space object must be like. You and I don’t do that. We perceive a space object immediately. We simply look at it, and to a certain degree we ‘know it. We do [not] go through a one-by-one, sequential, additive process. We perceive that it is, and we are able to distinguish it from any other object.
“I’m suggesting that God perceives time as instantaneously as we perceive space. For us, time is difficult. Lacking higher facility, we are as blind about time as a sightless man is about space. We perceive time in the same way that we perceive music—sequentially. We explore rhythm, pitch, amplitude, texture, theme, harmonies, parallels, and contrasts. And from our perceptions we synthesize our concept of the object or event—the musical artwork—that existed in its entirety before we began our examination of it.
“Equally complete now is each of our lives before the Lord. We explore them sequentially because we are time-blind. But the Lord, perceiving time as space, sees us as we are, not as we are becoming. We are, for him, beings without time. We are continually before him—the totality of our psyches, personalities, bodies, choices, and behaviors.”
You are doing violence to physics.
DeleteNow with a meager understanding of the topics involved you could look at the following and think, "Yay, my idea might be right!" I know because I used to believe the EXACT SAME THING, and wrote the following in support of it. Since you sound like a smart chap, I expect you will be leaving these ideas in the dust as I have.
What I used to think (written in September 2009, 3 months before I realized the church was false, and resigned):
We've been taught that traveling at or even close to the speed of light is not possible according to our understanding of mainstream Physics, and that if we 'were' to travel faster than the speed of light we would be traveling through time as well as space, which we are also told is not possible. I am convinced that we've been misled, and there is a great effort to continue this erroneous belief. Some brave scientists have new theories which tell us otherwise (like string theory), but are derided by many top scientists content with the status quo. I have never been a qou guy :)
Take this journey with me (there are several premises here that you may not agree with, but bear with me anyways). I like to mix my religion with science sometimes :)
1. The God of the Book of Abraham (PGP) lives on/near Kolob.
2. Kolob probably has the same root as 'qalb' in Arabic, meaning 'heart', or 'center'.
3. Kolob is probably at/near the center of the Milky Way, if not the center of something even farther away, meaning it is probably at least 26,000 ± 1400 light-years away.
3. Angel 'X' (insert favorite angel here) had a physical body when he visited Earth, which was subject to the same laws we are.
4. Angel 'X' would have taken ~26,000 years to get here from Kolob if only traveling at the speed of light.
5. We must conclude then that what we understand about Physics is adequate at explaining some things on Earth but is lacking.
6. Now ma head egsplode: "Action at a distance" which is the proven instantaneous transfer of information with no known medium, (instantaneous is much faster than the speed of light) - still unexplained. Another term for the issue is non-locality, defined as "direct influence of one object on another, distant object, contrary to our expectation that an object is influenced directly only by its immediate surroundings." This is a very interesting post (and source of that quote) on the problems created by this for Physics:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2255117&postcount=36
7. Study in 2008 found the minimum speed of Action at a distance to be 10,000 times the speed of light. Can you say Ludicrous Speed! See end of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement
8. Perhaps I am way off base here, but Angel 'X' may have been traveling by teleportation related to this extra-fast travel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation
It says that it cannot transfer matter... but we've been wrong before. :)
9. However we have actually observed matter traveling faster than the speed of light, almost 10x faster. We've even observed it in our own galaxy! And the tired, old explanation that it is an optical illusion is falling apart (IMO).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal_motion
Continued...
Basically if you split an electron, and get two quarks, one will have top spin and the other bottom spin. If change the spin of one the other will instantly flip also. If you separate the two quarks, even by miles, the quarks still exhibit this instantaneous behavior.
DeleteAnd this is what one of our sad institutions of "higher" learning has to say in an attempt to resolve the matter. We can't have our students learning that there are things we don't understand can we?
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/lec16.html
"Bosons are the particles which transmits the different forces between the matter particles, they normally have a whole number spin, 0, 1 or 2... Real particles are the ones you are familiar with... The Bosons can sometimes be virtual and sometimes real. Virtual particles are the particles which transmits the force between the particles, e.g virtual photon carries the electromagnetic force between e.g electrons. They are called virtual particles because they can't be directly detected, you can't 'see' them so to speak... the use of virtual particles to carry force resolves the action at a distance problem."
These wikipedia articles are interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_at_a_distance_(physics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlocality
Now for WHY IT IS WRONG:
Even within quantum mechanics, faster than light travel is impossible. Nonlocality is not "faster than light" - that implies a speed. Speed is meaningless for instantaneous effects that do not transmit information or matter.
Matter is not transmitted. Information is not transmitted. Nothing is EVER transmitted faster than the speed of light. You say that arriving at the speed of light physical beings would be omni-present. This is completely false, and not supported in any way by physics. You are quite simply making that up. Even if God converted himself into a stream of optical data and beamed himself across the Galaxy the maximum speed is always the speed of light. The only slight caveat is that space is expanding/contracting and this can affect the **perceived** speed to an observer, but even then the actual speed limit is always C (speed of light). So unless the space between Earth and Kolob contracts to mere Solar distances, every time an Angel flies, causing major whiplash, and craziness in the heavens, then Kolob is effectively cut off from Earth in all meaningful ways.
You're forgetting wormholes (portals), in theory. When Moroni visited Joseph Smith, Joseph saw the "portal" behind Moroni.
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ReplyDeleteNice article Bryce.
ReplyDeleteAll of this is over my head but could you please explain why Joseph pretended to translate the Kinderhook Plates?
ReplyDeleteSorry, I haven't been back to this blog since December.
DeleteYes, I can explain the Kinderhook plates easily.
These plates have been disregarded as fraudulent solely for the reason that etching acids have been detected on the plates.
Before this conclusion was reached, Joseph Smith made it clear that for the purpose of making the inscriptions more readable, he cleaned out the oxidization with acid. In his own words: "The rings and clasps appeared to be iron very much oxydated. The plates appeared first to be copper, and had the appearance of being covered with characters...It was agreed by the company that I should cleanse the plates. Accordingly I took them house, and washed them with soap and water and a woolen cloth; but, finding them not yet cleansed, I treated them with dilute sulfuric acid, which made them perfectly clean, on which it appeared that they were completely covered with hieroglyphics that none as yet had been able to read." So of course there would be acid detected on the plates.
The argument of modern scholars to dismiss the plates is another brilliant example of how low people of "intellect" are willing to stoop in order to pass by truth that demands living by a higher standard, which Mormonism certainly does.
Anyone who accepts the scholars' views in regards to rejecting the plates because of the presence of acid has probably not done their research. Also, there were witnesses to the discovery of said plates.
As for the translation itself, which stated that the person buried with the plates was a "descendant of Ham [one of Noah's sons] through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth."
According to LDS scripture (the Book of Abraham), Noah's son, Ham, was the ancestor of the Egyptians. (Even the Egyptian word for Egypt, Hamet, means Ham's Land, Ham being the Egyptian word for 'black').
Joseph Smith said the Kinderhook plates were buried with a giant skeleton, the skeleton of a Jaredite. The Book of Mormon says the Jaredites were giants.
Vicente Hernandez, a Spanish missionary in the 16th century, said that giant skeletons were discovered in Mexico. (Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1891)
Carlos de Siguenza y Gongorra, another Spaniard (17th century) had access to Aztec knowledge, and said that the giants who occupied the Americas anciently were descended from Naphtuhim, a descendant of Ham in the Egyptian line, and that they "left Egypt for Mexico shortly after the confusion of tongues," which is exactly what the Book of Mormon states (without using the term Mexico, of course). That account is to be found in the same Encyclopedia Britannica. Credit goes to David Grant Stewart, Sr., who pointed me to these sources.
Take it or leave it. Seems pretty silly to reject it, considering the evidence and the silliness of scholars' dismissing an artifact with acid on it when the translator of the artifact expressly documented the purpose of the acid being there.