Hi Watchmen and Prestor John : I’d like to make some suggestions regarding your debate :
1) Since it is a “one-on-one” debate you two want to have, I suggest you move it to the General Debates area under the “one-on-one” debates.
2) Secondly, If you are going to have a "historical discussion", why not make it an authentic "historical discussion"?
Since the facsimile is not the source papyri that became the book of Abraham, as Watchmen already pointed out in prior discussion, and since Watchmen says he is “not aware of any compelling evidence for the Book of Abramam” (the facsimile is a picture example a very small portion of a larger book, much as a "dick and Jane book" displays dick falling down a hill) Instead of cutting and pasting from repeated failed debates on this subject (even the premise is based on a "cut and paste"), why not attempt an objective and historically accurate discussion that has a chance of educating someone with authentic historical information? One that can come to an authentic and meaningful conclusion? To do this, you are going to have to pick an authentic historical basis for comparison of Smiths story.
For example, No other book of Abraham was known at the time Joseph Smith produced his. In the late 1890s one was found (the Slavice Apocalypse of Abraham) and translated into German and thence, into English. Thus you have a perfectly good, ancient, and historically objective and certifiably ancient book of Abraham to compare with Joseph Smiths' version.
Such a comparison can demonstrate as to whether there is matching, restored theology, or not.
Your current premise cannot prove either side correct since you are unable to use any Egyptian source to prove a Hebraism correct or not. NO such conclusion can be made if you will not use correct historical principles. It is like looking at a French poem and concluding it is terrible Spanish.
The problem with discussions about faulty premises using faulty historical premises about faulty data that create faulty conclusions
For example, readers have already seen that none of the Egyptian specialists agree on even the first symbol labeled in the facsimile. Watchmen himself, gave us the incorrect interpretation of the simple first symbol. A symbol that is incorrectly interpreted cannot then be applied as a standard for a correct translation. This is another advantage of using the known and objective and quite historical Apocalype of Abraham or other known ancient documents as a standard for testing. This is good historical research. What you two are attempting cannot come to any conclusion as the many, many, many examples of other historians who have tried it have shown.
3) If you decide to use an authentic historical comparisons, you and readers can learn about authentic history and what authentic data reveals
Watchmen claims to believe that the “only evidence member can truly point to is the “spirit”. If you “skew” the test to fail, then it still proves nothing about objective evidence existing. Why don’t you USE objective historical evidence that exists and then compare the known historical and proven Apocalypse of Abraham to Smiths Book of Abraham. You CAN prove something with an objective test, but you CANNOT prove something with a bogus and “set up” test that only has the façade of objective history.
4) If you are going to rely on evidence and opinion, then seek actual authentic evidence and authentic and reliable "expert opinion" on a subject rather than argue for arguments sake
Watchmen claims he now relies “on the actual evidence” and “expert opinion” for these historical issues. Why not actually discuss actual evidence and evidence that actually HAS known expert opinion. As shown, none of the “experts” on Egyptian even agreed on the Egyptian they were unable to evaluate as hebraisms.
The egyptian experts are looking at egyptian. They cannot tell you about a hebraism or hebraic story in hebraic idiom. Why not look at hebraic sources?
The problem with avoiding placing hebraisms into their correct historical context is that regardless of the language they appear in, that they may not be correct unless placed in their original context.
For example, when Nephi calls individuals “ye uncircumcised of heart”. It is a Hebraism. It is not correct modern english idiom. If I say to a friend “Jim, you are really uncircumcised of lips.” It is poor English and he may not know what in the world I am saying. If I tell a teen-age son : “John, you are uncircumcised of ears!”, similarly he may assume I meant something else since the phrase doesn’t make sense in English. However these are all perfectly good Hebrew.
The Hebrew term ערל (Ahrael) does mean uncircumcised, but it also means “profane”. I can describe someone as . aral se’fata’yim (uncirmcumcized of lips, meaning dull of speech, hesitating or stammering speech or profane speech, depending upon the context. However I cannot generally use the phrase in English and retain accurate meaning. In context of profane or profanity, one can use the term to refer to the ear (i.e. listening to profame music) or to the heart (thinking profane thoughts or unbelieving) or to the lips (referring to profane speech). When david speaks of Goliath as “this uncircumcised philistine" David was not speaking of somehow knowing Goliath had no foreskin. When Isaiah speaks of Jerusalem, the holy city and says “henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean” he is not speaking of only Jews entering. He is simply using a doublet. Circumcision, in this case, means unclean (the profane and unholy). (Isaiah 52:1)
The point is, your debate about what is “good Egyptian” has nothing to do with a group of hebraisms using Egyptian symbology. If you say a hebraism is "bad egyptian" the historian will reply, "so what? it's not egyptian, it is hebraic!". Similarly, your debate efforts will be wasted unless you place your debate and it’s elements on some sort of objective historical context rather than continue to debate outside of historical context.
Whether you take my advice to first create an objective historical basis for your debate or whether the debate, as formed will simply be an exercise in cutting and pasting irrelavent points from prior debates without containing your own thoughts, Still, I hope you both have good spiritual journeys and don’t wind up spending your time and efforts on irrelevant and discontexted historical claims rather than relevant and contextually accurate ones. See you two
Clear
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