Answering Cecil Andrews on "Kolob" in the Book of Abraham

Cecil Andrews, a very ignorant Reformed critic of the LDS Church in Northern Ireland, has a new post attempting to critique the Book of Abraham:

Is the Mormon star KOLOB a location for “Thou Fount of Every Blessing?”

Andrews’ misinformed comments (largely based on the works of the Tanners and James White[!]) notwithstanding, the name “Kolob” in the Book of Abraham is actually a “hit” vis-à-vis the authenticity of the volume.

 In the Book of Abraham, we read:

And the Lord said unto me: 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 one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest. (Abraham 3:3)

There is a potential wordplay here, as “Kolob” is said to be near God. The Hebrew for “near”  is קרב *QRB, and R (ר) and L (ל) can oftentimes be interchangeable (they are two “liquid consonants”), thus a play on QLB or KLB with QRB (cf. facsimile 2 figure 1: "Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God).

Additionally, Hebrew כֶּלֶב  k^el^eb “dog” is a plausible etymology of Kolob. “Sirius,” the chief star in antiquity, was known as the “dog star” due to its prominence in its constellation, [Alpha] Canis Major (“Greater Dog”), evidenced by texts from antiquity. E.g.:

Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky

On summer nights, star of stars,

Orion's Dog they call it, brightest

Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat

And fevers to suffering humanity. (Homer, The Iliad, Book 22, lines 33-37)

 Commenting on Sirius (the dog star) and its important role in Egyptian cosmology, we read the following from sources representative of the scholarship on this matter:

It was discovered quite early on in their civilization that at their capital, Memphis, the Nile began to rise at the heliacal rising of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, that is, at the time when Sirius first became visible in the morning twilight above the eastern horizon. The Egyptians therefore took Sothis (as it was called) to be a divine star responsible for or signalling the Nile’s rising. The great Sothis period of 1,460 years, used by the Egyptian priests, is a consequence of the fact that, whereas the heliacal rising of Sirius occurs every 365.25 days, the calendar they used contained 365 days. Thus the heliacal rising of Sirius occurred one day earlier every our years with a return to the same calendar date in 1,460 years. (Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Universe, ed. Archie Roy [Oxford University Press, 1992], S.V. “Egyptian astronomy”)

The dog star Sirius that was deified as a goddess and shown as a woman with a star on her head . . . Sothis, represented as a large dog, was later associated with Isis; she is shown rising side-saddle on the animal as Isis-Sothis on some of the coins from the Greek Imperial (i.e. Roman colonial) mint of Alexandria. (Manfred Lurker, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Egypt, [trans. Barbara Cummings; New York: Thames and Hudson, 1982], 114)

 In a Sumerian text, Inanna’s Descent, the goddess Inanna, while returning to heaven from the Underworld  after freeing her husband Dumuzi (the rain god), stops in a desert at Kullab (the temple precinct dedicated to Anu, the creator god). Here, Dumuzi sits on his throne and puts on royal apparel which was taken from him during his imprisonment, showing a relationship between Kullab and the themes of god as a creator, kingship, sacred clothing, and a divine throne (kings were divinized in the Ancient Near East [cf. Psalm 45; Heb 1:8-9]), similar to what we find in the context of the reference to Kolob in the Book of Abraham in both ch. 3 and figure 1 of the hypocephalus (i.e., facsimile 2). Beginning at line 331, we read:

“Let us go for him
to the maimed apple tree
in the Kullab desert!”
To the maimed apple tree
in the Kullab desert
they followed in her footsteps

Dumuzi had dressed
in a grand garment
and sat seated in grandeur. (Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps That Once . . . : Sumerian Poetry in Translation [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987], 225)

It should be clear that the name "Kolob" and how it is presented in the Book of Abraham, far from being a mark against the volume, is a "hit" for its antiquity and authenticity. For more on the onomasticon of the Book of Abraham, see, for e.g., the slides of a presentation I have on this issue in Dublin back in October 2018:

The Onomasticon of the Book of Abraham: Evidence for Authenticity

This is not the first time Andrews has embarrassed himself on the topic of “Mormonism”; for others, see:

Answering Cecil Andrews on Salvation

Cecil Andrews on Mormonism and the nature of a "Cult"

Answering Cecil Andrews on the LDS Priesthoods

Cecil Andrews of Take Heed Ministries on the Conception of Jesus and Mormonism

It should be clear to any unbiased observer that Andrews lacks any serious intellectual integrity and scholarly capabilities, and should not be taken seriously.