Two Good Videos Refuting Popular Christ Myth "Arguments"

Here are two good videos I just came across that refutes various arguments by Christ Mythicists:



Jaclyn Glenn Thinks Jesus is a Lie:

The Error of Richard Carrier: Fishers of Evidence:

In Search Of Mormon's Hill - Warren Aston

For Nikki Yaste

I just recently came across this on facebook:

For those who have Nikki's contact details, I would urge you to forward the following refutations of Jeff Durbin's nonsense about "Mormonism":

Refuting Jeff Durbin on "Mormonism"

Refuting Jeff Durbin Mormonism and the Atonement

(see Refutations of Jeff Durbin and Apologia Radio which includes posts on Durbin and James White's incredibly lame "response" to the first article listed above). To further see how, from a biblical perspective, false Evangelical Protestantism truly is, please read my full-length paper refuting Sola Scriptura, the formal doctrine of Protestantism:

Not by Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura

Mark J. Johnson on the so-called "Book of Joseph"

Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture just published a new essay on their Website:

Mark J. Johnson, Scriptures with Pictures: Methodology, Unexamined Assumptions, and the Study of the Book of Abraham (pdf)

Johnson has an interesting analysis of the so-called "Book of Joseph":

The Book of Joseph: In addition to the Book of Abraham, many of the saints believed the rest of the scrolls contained other accounts of the patriarchs. If one scroll had the writings of Abraham, it would be only natural for the other scrolls to be a record of Joseph, the other patriarch who had ties to Egypt. The writings of Joseph of Egypt were, from an early date, believed to be contained in the scrolls.¹⁴⁴ Once the Saints decided the other roll was the Book of Joseph, they began the task of assigning biblical meanings to the vignettes. Eve tempted by the serpent was seen in the vignettes as was Enoch’s Pillar.

The early saints can hardly be blamed for their overzealous interpretation. The Lord was revealing truths at an incredible rate through revelation and through ancient writings. With the Book of Mormon and its accompanying artifacts, it is easy to see that the cache found with the writings of Abraham would also belong to a sort of treasure trove of the biblical patriarchs.

This mindset is clear in the statement of Parley P. Pratt:

The record is now in course of translation by means of the Urim and Thummim, and proves to be a record written partly by the father of the faithful, Abraham, and finished by Joseph when in Egypt. After his death, it is supposed they were preserved in the family of the Pharaohs and afterwards hid up with the embalmed body of the female with whom they were found.¹⁴⁵

Pratt strives to present a plausible solution for how the records could have been preserved in the catacombs of Egypt. However, once the discipline of Egyptology started to gain steam, his theory has shown to be impossible regarding these particular scrolls.

Pratt also presents the interesting idea that there may not have been a separate Book of Joseph but rather that Joseph finished the record of his great-grandfather. If there is any truth to the existence of the writings of Joseph being present in the collection of the scrolls, this scenario seems most likely. However, this idea may have been borrowed from the Book of Mormon narrative, with Moroni finishing the story of his father Mormon. Pratt’s testimony stands in contrast to the statements of other witnesses, for example Oliver Cowdery and Albert Brown, who stated that the writings of Joseph were on a separate scroll.

One recent study has attempted to collect all the pertinent information on the lost writings of Joseph of Egypt.¹⁴⁶ To the author’s credit, he makes his assumptions transparent within the paper. However, whenever the evidence is ambiguous, he chooses to interpret the evidence in favor of his thesis. The witness statements cited are given the maximum benefit of the doubt based on each of the witness’s proximity to Joseph Smith. Nor does the author acknowledge the possibility that Joseph Smith was mistaken about the contents of the rest of the scrolls.

As an additional limitation it needs to be remembered that many of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s journal entries were added after the fact by his scribes. Indeed, many of these journal entries were included years later, after they actually happened. It needs to be acknowledged that the secretaries employed by the Prophet had the opportunity to interject their own views. For example, the first journal entry mentioning the writings of Joseph was given the dates of 6‒8 July 1835, but it wasn’t originally written by Joseph Smith; rather it was likely inserted into the church history manuscripts by W. W. Phelps in 1843.

This author, as well as H. Donl Peterson before him, takes note of a lengthy description of Joseph of Egypt’s scroll by Oliver Cowdery. They both note that Cowdery describes “the Godhead, the creation, the fall of Adam and Eve, Satan in the Garden of Eden, and other temple related themes.”¹⁴⁷ Of course, other scholars have noted that these biblical themes appear to be based on the vignettes of the Tshemmin scroll. The author acknowledges these parallels in the footnotes but puts forward the familiar idea that the location of the vignettes need not appear next to the text they supplement. The author cites Malcom Mosher: “[In] documents from the 21st Dynasty on, misalignment of the text and vignette of a spell can occur, with the text preceding the vignette, or vice versa.”¹⁴⁸ This implies that the writing of Joseph could have been elsewhere on the Tshemmin scroll, in the same manner as the Book of Abraham coexists on the Horos scroll with the Book of Breathings. This is a creative theory, one worthy of further research.

However, I find two difficulties with this theory. First, while some vignettes may not be aligned with their respective texts, this doesn’t appear to be the case with the Tshemmin Book of the Dead; the vignettes appear next to their respective chapters. The vignette of the deceased sitting before three seated deities (which is described by Cowdery as the Godhead) is next to a chapter titled “A chapter for sitting among the great gods.”¹⁴⁹ Cowdery’s description of the Eve and the serpent vignette is next to a chapter that allows the deceased to walk the earth.¹⁵⁰ The Pillar of Enoch that Cowdery describes is a hieroglyphic sign for Heliopolis. The chapter next to this vignette describes the deceased entering Heliopolis.¹⁵¹ Muhlestein notes that these descriptions as understood by Egyptologists are different from those given by Cowdery and other witnesses.¹⁵² This is, of course, to be expected. The significance of these witness statements is not that they are different from those of Egyptologists but rather that these witnesses believed they were seeing scrolls and pictures associated with biblical accounts.

Second, while Horos could have been inclined to include the Book of Abraham on the interior of his scroll, we have no indication that Tshemmin had the same proclivities. And while it is possible that writings of Joseph could exist on the interior of the Tshemmin scroll, there could have been another Book of Breathings, another text entirely, or no text at all.

Following the mindset of the early Latter-day Saints, it seems likely that the Book of Joseph was invented because of the large number of scrolls in the collection. Since the collection had a perceived connection to Biblical world, it only became natural that the Book of the Dead of Tshemmin was seen as the Book of Joseph and that the curious vignettes it contained were representative of Biblical scenes, even if all of these scenes were not understood.

Notes for the Above

144. Muhlestein, ”Joseph Smith’s Biblical View of Egypt,” 452.

145. Parley P. Pratt, “Editorial Remarks,” Millennial Star 3/3 (July 1842): 47.

146. Quinten Barney, “The Joseph Smith Papyri and the Writings of Joseph of Egypt” Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 42, No. 2 (April 2016), 95‒109.

147. Barney, “The Joseph Smith Papyri and the Writings of Joseph of Egypt,” 103‒04. See also Peterson, The Story of the Book of Abraham, 130.

148. Barney, “The Joseph Smith Papyri and the Writings of Joseph of Egypt,” 103, footnote 19.

149. Michael Dennis Rhodes, Books of the Dead Belonging to Tshemmin and Neferirnub: A Translation and Commentary (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2010), 54.

150. Michael Dennis Rhodes, Books of the Dead, 43.

151. Michael Dennis Rhodes, Books of the Dead, 44.

152. Muhlestein, “Joseph Smith and Egyptian Artifacts,” 53‒60.

187th anniversary of the Church's organisation

187 years ago today, the Church was officially organised. Here is an appropriate hymn, The Morning Breaks, sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir:

As an aside, a great work defending the “traditional” view that the Church was founded in the Peter Whitmer farmhouse in Fayette, New York, instead of the Hyrum Smith household in Manchester as proposed by some historians (e.g., Wesley Walters and Michael Marquardt, Inventing Mormonism[Signature Books, 1994]).

Michael Hubbard MacKay, Sacred Space: Exploring the Birthplace of Mormonism (BYU Religious Studies Center, 2016)

Acts 13:1-2 and the personality of the Holy Spirit

An often over-looked text that supports the personality of the Holy Spirit is Acts 13:1-2 (emphasis added):

Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.

Acts 13:2 is rather clear that it is the Holy Spirit that speaks; the Greek εἶπεν τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον translates as "the Holy Spirit said." As this is part of a historical narrative and not a poetical text, one cannot claim, without any good exegetical warrant, that the Spirit is being personified.

Joseph Fitzmyer, commenting on this verse, wrote (emphasis added):

Thus the Spirit-guided missionary journey of Barnabas and Saul is inaugurated; compare 20:28 and 1 Tim 4:14. The risen Christ has called Saul, and the Jerusalem church has sent to Barnabas to Antioch. Now the Spirit takes over and inaugurates the joint missionary work of the two, and especially of Saul, who becomes “the apostle to the Gentiles” (Rom 11:3). “The work” is a reference to the mission of Saul proposed in 9:15. (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 31; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1998], 497)

On this event, William H. Shepherd cogently notes the following in his (recommended) volume on the Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts (emphasis added):

Though Luke does not say so, one might assume that the words of the Spirit were mediated by one of the assembled prophets; here, then, Luke pictures the Spirit as direct actor, with the prophet acting implicitly. The contrast with other passages, in which the Spirit is the indirect actor while the prophet acts directly (cf. Acts 11:28) underlines the significance of this event. (William H. Shepherd, Ir. The Narrative Function of the Holy Spirit as a Character in Luke-Acts [Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series no. 147; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1994], 210 n. 177)

Therefore, one is on solid grounds to argue that this passage provides good biblical evidence for the Holy Spirit being a person, not the operational presence of the Father and/or Jesus after the ascension as many Unitarians argue.

As an aside, I would recommend Shepherd's book to see the evidence for the personality of the Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts as well as a good discussion of the Pneumatology contained therein.

Support this blog:

Paypal

Gofundme

Why Did Nephi Make a New Arrow in 1 Nephi 16:23?

And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make out of wood a bow, and out of a straight stick, an arrow; wherefore, I did arm myself with a bow and an arrow, with a sling and with stones. And I said unto my father: Whither shall I go to obtain food? (1 Nephi 16:23)

In his article, The Bow and Arrow in the Book of Mormon in Warfare in the Book of Mormon, eds. Stephen D. Ricks and William J. Hamblin (FARMS, 1990) has an appendix entitled, "Why Did Nephi Make a New Arrow?" which discusses this particular verse:

Appendix: Why Did Nephi Make a New Arrow?

David S. Fox has maintained that Nephi had to make a new arrow for his new wooden bow because the arrows used with his old steel bow would have been too heavy for a wooden bow.66 Although the general principle he describes is accurate, I believe the issue is more complex than that.

In reality, nearly any arrow can be shot from any bow. The basic limiting factor is the length of the arrow versus the length of the bow — shooting short arrows from longbows is difficult. This is because a full draw on a longbow may make the distance between the fully drawn string and the handle of the bow longer than the length of the arrow. Short arrows can be shot from a longbow only if the string is not drawn back fully, which greatly reduces efficiency.

What Fox is really talking about is the relative efficiency of shooting arrows of different weights from different bows. A very heavy arrow shot from a bow with a light draw weight will have short range and weak penetrating power.67 The accuracy and impact will be ineffective, but the arrow can be shot. Fox’s discussion seems to be based on the assumption that Nephi’s “steel bow” was of the late medieval steel type, while I have argued that in fact Nephi’s steel bow must have been a metal-backed wood weapon that was common in the Near East of his day, which would not have shot an arrow substantially heavier than other bows.

Why then, did Nephi make a new arrow? There are two possible reasons. First, as arrows are continually shot in hunting they become lost or broken. He may simply have run out of arrows and needed a new one. Second, Nephi very likely owned a metal-backed recurved composite bow, as discussed previously. Recurved composite bows can achieve the same draw weight with a much smaller string and draw length than a longer bow. In other words, recurved composite bows shoot shorter arrows than longer bows. If Nephi’s old bow was the recurved composite type, and his new one was a long staff bow (which is the simplest to make on short notice), he may have needed to make a longer arrow because of the longer string and draw length of his new bow.

Notes for the Above:

66. “Nephi’s Arrows,” F.A.R.M.S. Update, July 1984, with a brief synopsis in “Nephi’s Arrows Create Solid Bull’s-eye,” Insights, October 1984, 2.

67. See Taybugha, translated in Latham and Paterson, Saracen Archery, 24-33, for a medieval discussion of this question.