"Turretinfan" is a Reformed Presbyterian blogger and a co-blogger on James White's Alpha and Omega blog. He is named after Francis Turretin (1623-1687), the author of the Institutes of Elenctic Theology and a key figure in the Amyraldism controversy.
He wrote a recent blog post attempting to critique the Book of Abraham. This is a response thereto. His comments will be in red and my responses will be in black.
Problems in the Doctrine and Covenants: Discovery and Naming of Egypt
The Book of Abraham is not part of the Doctrine and Covenants; it is found in the Pearl of Great Price.
Doctrine and Covenants, Book of Abraham 1:23, states:
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;
There are a number of issues here.
a) Egyptus
The -us ending is typical of masculine Latin nouns. It's not a typical way of ending Chaldean nouns (masculine or otherwise).
b) Egypt's Discovery
If one of Ham's daughters discovered Egypt, she would roughly precede Nimrod (the grandson of Ham), who founded Babel.
a) Egyptus
The -us ending is typical of masculine Latin nouns. It's not a typical way of ending Chaldean nouns (masculine or otherwise).
b) Egypt's Discovery
If one of Ham's daughters discovered Egypt, she would roughly precede Nimrod (the grandson of Ham), who founded Babel.
Genesis 10:8-10
And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
Thus, there would be no reason that her name would have any particular "Chaldean" meaning.
c) Etymology of Egypt
From etymonline.com
c) Etymology of Egypt
From etymonline.com
Egypt
Old English Egipte "the Egyptians," from French Egypte, from Greek Aigyptos "the river Nile, Egypt," from Amarna Hikuptah, corresponding to Egyptian Ha(t)-ka-ptah "temple of the soul of Ptah," the creative god associated with Memphis, the ancient city of Egypt.
Strictly one of the names of Memphis, it was taken by the Greeks as the name of the whole country. The Egyptian name, Kemet, means "black country," possibly in reference to the rich delta soil. The Arabic is Misr, which is derived from Mizraim, the name of a son of Biblical Ham.
Old English Egipte "the Egyptians," from French Egypte, from Greek Aigyptos "the river Nile, Egypt," from Amarna Hikuptah, corresponding to Egyptian Ha(t)-ka-ptah "temple of the soul of Ptah," the creative god associated with Memphis, the ancient city of Egypt.
Strictly one of the names of Memphis, it was taken by the Greeks as the name of the whole country. The Egyptian name, Kemet, means "black country," possibly in reference to the rich delta soil. The Arabic is Misr, which is derived from Mizraim, the name of a son of Biblical Ham.
So, notice that the name "Egypt" comes from the Amarna language, and means "temple of the soul of Ptah," not something to do with being forbidden.
The three earliest handwritten manuscripts of the Book of Abraham have the name Zeptah, which contains the Ptah element in the Egyptian name Het-Ka-Ptah, "house/residence (het) of the spirit (ka) of Ptah." It originally did not read “Egyptus” which blows “Turretinfan” out of the water from the get-go. In the Memphite creation account, Ptah is the creator god. The name means "opener, discoverer" and is cognate to the Semitic term having the same meaning. Note Abraham 1:24, which says that Egyptus “discovered the land it was under water.” Some Egyptian texts say that the woman who discovered the land rising out of the floodwaters was the goddess Isis. Some Egyptian texts indicate that Isis and her brother-husband were two of the children of Ptah, while others differ. This is significant because, for the time period of the Egyptian scrolls that Joseph Smith possessed, the name Ze-Ptah would mean “daughter of Ptah.”
Neither Ze-Ptah nor Egyptus would be Chaldean words/names, but it’s possible that Ze-Ptah could have been taken over by the Chaldeans to denote “forbidden” and “Egypt.” It happens a lot in languages. For example, in English, we employ the Spanish term peon and the Italian term paisano as derogatory insulting terms, though their original meaning is simply “farmer.” As John Tvedtnes in his 2005 FAIR Conference Paper Authentic Ancient Names and Words in the Book of Abraham and Related Kirtland Egyptian Papers noted:
So, I should make one point here before we move on though because somebody is probably going to look at this and then say, ‘Well why is it that you said then- why does the Book of Abraham say that it means ‘forbidden’ in Chaldean? Well my guess is that it’s analogous to what happens in Russia. Does anybody know how the word ‘Mormon’ is used in Russia? They heard about the Mormons in the United States and these were bad people because all the books they ever had on it were anti-Mormon. We start sending missionaries to Russia, the Soviet Union almost- after 1989. These missionaries come in and they said, ‘We’re Mormons’ and people say, ‘Oh you’re those awful people.’ But other people in Russia have been called Mormons for some time, it’s a group of evil-doers they say and so they’ve used the term ‘Mormon’ meaning evil-doers
Perhaps the author should engage in some meaningful research into the Book of Abraham before he embarrasses himself again on this issue as well as other Latter-day Saint related topics.