The truth about the Book of Abraham | with Kerry Muhlestein 

As far as I can tell any non-LDS Egyptologists think Gee and Muhlestein's Book of Abraham scholarship is abhorrent and ridiculous.

​@@franklinanderson9687That's right!

And he was, but even the mormon church has admitted that the facsimiles of the BOA are in reality a common funerary text showing, for example, in facsimile 1 the 4 jars under the bed representing the 4 sons of Horus and containing the organs of the deseased.

@@AgrippaTheMighty They had to admit that because it became obvious that they were. The problem is that Joseph said what wasn't true. In his journal he even drew in the missing scraps and did so wrong. He told us it was a scene of priests trying to sacrifice Abraham. All wrong. Call a spade a spade and ask yourself if you can still reconcile him as a prophet or not.

@@blusheep2 I sure can't!

@@AgrippaTheMighty Nor can I. This isn't my main reason but it sure is icing on the cake.

One fraud !!! Scandal

well well well.....good catch.

Do you remember where in Clarke's Bible Commentary?

@@MichaelSmith-fq3pg Clarke, Holy Bible, 1:281; s.v. Ex. 1:11. You can read about it more here: Vogel, Dan. Book of Abraham Apologetics: A Review and Critique (p. 225). Signature Books. Kindle Edition.

@@quemaspana Thank you 👍

I remember someone saying "research is not the answer"

@@kirklandmeadows right, it’s not, research is part of the process that leads to the answer BUT the answer, the answer is always God the almighty.

@@ardoario4990 to clarify research is a part of the process then God gives you the answer,that's may or may not be in the reseach.

Yes, do all the research you can but if God tells you all your research is wrong, go with that! …🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

This comment seems biased 😉

​@@dannytayRight? Fortunately my biases are the truth. How lucky I am! /s

I agree!

@@Jozeemoss Whatever you're talking about...ZZZzzz....

@@Jozeemoss Yes, the truth does matter, so stop fighting against it.

Anymore and they risk letting the cat out of the bag. Like Joseph Smith translated the egyptian language written on facsimile #2 #3 100% wrong.

ZZZzzz... @@franklinanderson9687

@@Jozeemoss You arent supposed to remove anything or add anything from the bible right? well you are removing by not accepting the word of God in the Book of Mormon, D and C, and Pearl of Great Price

@@lootingiv4058the Lord can add to His own word by instructing a prophet to do so.

​@@zionmama150he sure can but he never appeared to Joseph Smith

@@Compulsive-Elk7103 how do you know that God and Jesus didn’t appear to Joseph Smith?

​@@lootingiv4058weak argument. Where does it say that specifically. And don't quote Revelations because the Bible was not constructed the way it currently is when that came forth.

Robert Ritner? The arrogant Egyptologists were proven wrong.

Robert Ritner? That crap from Ritner and the other arrogant Egyptologists was debunked, proven stupid. Google Book of Abraham pt 5 Why Egyptologists are wrong you tube instead.

@dougandjyness I would love some resources you used to learn the truth. I’m trying to help my husband see and understand that it is made up. Including the Book of Mormon.

As long-time member, High Council, still strong in the faith. Ritner? His whole thesis is flawed from its foundation, and both Kerry Muhlestein and John Gee have clearly demonstrated that his conclusions are wrong, because the underlying assumptions he started are not true. And he destroyed his own objectivity when he denigrated Dr. Hugh Nibley on a personal level, Ritner did, in the introduction of his book, also referred to Dr. Muhlestein as "that Mormon in Provo" - completely denigrating and dismissing his academic expertise and Egyptological credentials on personal religious grounds - a form of religious and academic bigotry. Then, to boot, showing up on anti-Latter-day Saint online channels to give long interviews pontificating against the Book of Abraham's authenticity.

Have you watched the video I suggested 10 days ago? Paul Gregersen debunked the arrogant Egyptologists by presenting proper interpretation, what are your thoughts on the video?

​@livingtruth2374 I would love to know which underlying assumptions you are referring to. I am a believing member but have a loved one that used his arguments as evidence

The ignorant and uninformed are those who look at the preponderance of evidence straight on and refuse to acknowledge it.

Found the definition of dogma

The Book of Abraham is true.

The Book of Abraham is true.

@@latter-daysaintbatman2679the translation isn’t

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zPiCkEEOa-U.html Saints Unscripted did a video on it that explains it pretty well. It’s usually referred to as the Hoffman forgeries or the Salamander letter.

Nemo is incredibly dishonest and will be dishonest a lot in an attempt to discredit the Church. I suggest you avoid his content. A guy named Mark Hoffman was the best forager in the country and foraged many documents some of which were supposed to be from LDS leaders, the most infamous being the "White Salamander Letter". Most of those documents he just gave to the Church and others where bought by other people and then given to the church. Saints Unscripted already did a video on the "White Salamander Letters". A brief explanation, Mark Hoffman had forged a letter from Martin Harris saying that a White Salamander actually appeared to Joseph to tell him where the plates were. He released his findings to the public and a guy bought it and kept it for a year before he donated it to the Church.

@@alvelocipastor7720 Thanks for the assist!

@@Jozeemoss And no one has done that.

@@Jozeemoss you have a point in saying that?

@@Jozeemoss where is that written, in a parable? Not to worry, this is not fiction anyway.

How can you be biased if you have never been exposed to it or an idea expressed by someone else who has never been exposed either? You have to be exposed to wind… you can see it’s effects and feel the same effects from it, but not until you feel or see the effects can a person be biased about it…

@@SuperDuppydoo every person evaluates every experience they have through the lens of their prior experiences. Those are our personal biases. They influence how we perceive experiences and how we feel about them. Having biases does not necessarily mean we are biased “against” something; it simply means that we are never able to be completely objective because we cannot divorce ourselves from the prior experiences that affect the way we see and think about things that happen in our lives.

Hey this is Jaxon, the guy in the black! I can definitely see if we’d be willing to talk about that great film!

@@BlazeHawk1315 This would be great!

The challenge of claiming you speak face to face with God, is you have to be perfect as God is.

@@BrendonKingJoe Smith’s translations were 110% correct. Maybe even 120%.

@@TP-om8of see the problem is you look ridiculous when you make comments like this.

He falsely translated book of abraham and kinderhook plates. JS is clearly not a reliable seer

@@TP-om8of If Joeseph Smith's were true where is the Temple of Zion in Missouri that was supposed to be built? It is an empty lot and the generation that is was supposed to be built by is long gone, even the LDS admits it was a false prophecy. here is the false prophecy: This prophecy comes directly from Doctrine & Covenants Section 84, the introduction of which states: Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, at Kirtland, Ohio, September 22 and 23, 1832. HC 1:286-295. 1. A revelation of Jesus Christ unto his servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and six elders, as they united their hearts and lifted their voices on high. 2. Yea, the word of the Lord concerning his church, established in the last days for the restoration of his people, as he has spoken by the mouth of his prophets, and for the gathering of his saints to stand upon Mount Zion, which shall be the city of New Jerusalem. 3. Which city shall be built, beginning at the temple lot, which is appointed by the finger of the Lord, in the western boundaries of the State of Missouri, and dedicated by the hand of Joseph Smith, Jun., and others with whom the Lord was well pleased. 4. Verily, this is the word of the Lord, that the city New Jerusalem shall be built by the gathering of the saints, beginning at this place, even the place of the temple, which temple shall be reared in this generation. 5. For verily this generation shall not all pass away until an house shall be built unto the Lord, and a cloud shall rest upon it, which cloud shall be even the glory of the Lord, which shall fill the house. The Mormons were forced to flee Missouri due to persecution and a temple was never built on the "temple lot" in the lifetime of Joseph Smith or within the generation of his contemporaries.

The scrolls were located. If you compare the scrolls' characters with those that Joseph smith copied into his translation papers the order of the characters is the same. It also shows that there is no missing scroll. Now that they're published in the Joseph smith papers, it is clear that the scrolls are complete and there is nothing missing. Joseph smith indicated this was a translation. He even indicated this was so.

@@user-og2wt3le4j Not really, what you stated before has always been the position of the Church, just not always that of the culture.

@@Mustardmanor It doesn't seem that you have actually read the Joseph Smith Papers since that is not the conclusion they make.

@@brettmajeske3525 I have looked at the Joseph smith papers. He has the symbols written down and what they mean next to it. Pages of them. What is clear is that the surviving papyrus do not translate to what Joseph smith wrote down. if the whole thing was inspiration, that is not how Joseph smith viewed his work when he was going to translate the scrolls. When the LDS church got copies of the papyrus they were very excited to prove Joseph smith was correct and hired several scholars to translate the scrolls. But... The results didn't match. The fact that this is up for debate is odd. The translations don't match. We can then say the whole thing was inspiration but that's changing the narrative.

@@brettmajeske3525 the links are under book of Abraham and Egyptian materials on the Joseph smith papers website. Numerous character sheets with translations. It was published as a translation. It was published in the times.and seasons as being the words of Abraham written by his own hand. We could argue that Joseph smith or even the printers were mistaken. Or we could say that it was all inspiration and revelation. We could say that it wasn't actually written by Abraham or about Abraham. All of those support the idea through apologetics that the book is still valid scripture. It is rewriting the history. That is called revisionist history as we're just rewriting what Joseph smith said to fit our own spiritual bias to support our own beliefs. It is not how historians work. (however, remember that boyd k packer spoke against historians... Enemies to the church.) Historians look from both sides. Anyone who benefits from publishing the materials in book form also has a bias as they want to sell copies of the book and support their research. Every non-lds egyptologist has discredited the translations. Every LDS egyptologist rewrites the narrative to support the faith. I read one interview with a non-lds expert who stated it is simply a fraudulent translation. As I said, we can each choose to cling desperately to any idea which allows us to fit it into our faith still, but that is not without its own clear biases. I'd send the link but I don't think RU-vid likes hyperlinks.

Great Idea, Please make it a long form discussion ( 1.5-2 hr ) where you both go in depth on both sides of the argument. In all of my searching I am yet to see anyone really go into the detail on the faith promoting side and explain how they retain their faith with out mental gymnastics. I don't mean this to be snarky.....this genuinely needs to happen for those who go down this rabbit hole and want to stay and still retain their integrity.

@@gordianknot9595can you provide a link to the characters?

​​@@dougandjyness guess you'd have to start by defining mental gymnastics. How much thinking is allowed? I have found a lot in my searching, but maybe we draw the line of gymnastics in different places. I would also appreciate a discussion on both sides.

@@gordianknot9595 Oh, that's what you wish for, don't you? "all emotional and psychological" - even when the actual truth is staring you in the face. It's almost as if you didn't listen to Kerry. Mouthing these unsupported words: "We literally can see the characters they used in their work and read them. We also can read the text where it tells the reader about the papyrus and facsimiles" - this is not only simplistic as Dr. Muhlestein pointed out, it's not factual either, because there is WIDE disagreement on what the characters mean, even among Egyptologists, and it's already been demonstrated that they are often wrong on what the ancient Egyptians thought they meant with individual characters - this has been proven in excavations that revealed the ancient interpretations. Don't you know that? And we know (or at least vast majority of the evidence demonstrates) that the Prophet Joseph was not translating from the areas near the facsimiles, but from the long roll.

@@livingtruth2374 The irony of saying "we can see all these characters and read them" and "unsupported" in the same breath.

Is that the new standard for verification, personal experience?

Isn’t personal experience how the original apostles knew that Jesus was the Christ? And then they testified of that truth.

@@lw1959 What differentiates your experiences from that of a Jehovah’s Witness or Muslim? Surely they trust and believe the experiences they’ve had too?

I’m sure they do, and I would never disparage or discount those experiences just because I’ve had different ones. Agency means you get to make your own decisions based on your own experiences.

@@lw1959 I’m not LDS but, I know a bit about the theology, I believe the official position of the church is that only LDS have the “full light”, and the restored priesthood which says to me your church believes itself to be superior or more correct than faiths so, I’m not certain how agency plays into that?

Sorry, but that's a logical fallacy. By your token, I can assume the Olympian Gods are true and exist and then look for reasoning and evidence that support my belief. We cannot conclude anything is real until the evidence shows that. BTW, that's how we all operate. From picking up a butter knife to spread peanut butter on my slice of bread to feeling loved by one's family and friends. Just my 2 cents.

@@AgrippaTheMighty I wholeheartedly agree. I believe Muhlestein’s reasoning is deeply troubling

Do you believe the Book of mormon is true?

@@mocknews True meaning an ancient record of Semitic inhabitants of the Americas? Certainly not.

@mocknews The BoA is totally NOT true. Therefore, neither is the BoM.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Agree! 😊

Nah. RFM and Bill Reel show that we do have the source material. But even then, Robert Ritner explains the idiocy of even thinking that the Egyptians were anywhere near where the book claims.

@@lrsvalentine 😂😆😂🤣

@@quemaspana It wasn't Joseph, he was not involved with the creation of the facsimiles. Rather he hired a non-member woodcutter to create them.

@@soneedanap Joe Smith. 😂😂😂😂😂

@@brettmajeske3525 Ah, the blame the scribe tactic. You are saying that Ruben Hedlock came up with the explanations? Did Ruben Hedlock also do Facsimile #1 with explanations? Did you know Joseph Smith was the editor? That it would be Ruben Hedlock just doesn't make any sense at all.

Jehovah is Jesus Christ. Heavenly Father and the council of heaven is the architect of the plan. Jehovah, Jesus, the oldest son of our father, carried out the plan, including creating our earthly home.

Yeah. It's weird how Joe Smith can't keep his Jehovah, Elohim, and Jesus straight. It's almost as if he made it up as he went along. Almost...

Because the vast majority of people don't want to even watch a 10 minute video, let alone a 30 or 60 minute video. That's just the nature of RU-vid. Videos like this provide a cursory overview of a topic which provides a starting point for viewers to explore the topic more on their own.

@@RyanMercer interesting. I listen almost exclusively to longform podcasts/vids. In fact the short lengths here are the main reason this channel isn’t in my regular rotation.

@@ClintThomsen I prefer 30-60ish myself but YT has a LOT of short attention span users.

Because they have no legs to stand on. Kerry’s speculations are laughable…and he knows it.

Royal Skousen at BYU thinks the facsimiles should be dropped from the BOA and the content accepted as inspired. See page 39 of his CV.

You have conflated two different things. 1)The facsimiles and 2) The Book of Abraham. They have criticized the facsimiles and the explanation, but also have agreed upon some explanations. For example the four cardinal directions and the Pharos worship of the alligator God. I read an pamphlet criticizing the facsimiles as well and also threw in criticizing the Book of Abraham without actually doing so.

@@andrewdurfee3896 If you look at the sketch of fac 2 you will notice sections missing in the upper right hand corner. Smith inserted a figure taken from another piece of papyri that is not usually there. Do a search in google British museum hypocephalus and you will see in the upper right hand corner a figure standing in a boat with and insect in the examples shown nothing like that Smith inserted.

Paul Gregersen clearly demonstrates that Joseph Smith was right.

Eh there Paul.

@richardholmes5676 Keep the faith brother.

Complete nonsense. Joe got everything wrong. I love watching all the mental gymnastics the LDS apologists have to do to keep faith in Joe the conman. No wonder they were easy pickings for Trump.

@Jozeemoss Then why did God define the future of the world in Daniel's pagan kingdoms by a timeline using pagan Idalatry starting with the pagan king of Babylon in 600 BC? "Daniel 2." From this IDOL of Golden head, breast and arms of silver, legs Iron tracks time itself to the kingdom of God." Daniel 2" Paul used pagan God's to re-teach the people of Athons the true gospel.

@@Jozeemoss RU-vid( BOA ep 16)

I can tell you that if you pray about literally ANYTHING with a sincere heart, real intent, belief in , that you will eventually get the answer you are looking for. Someone once explained that faith is believing in something more than you should otherwise believe based on evidence. Critics have effectively disproven the Book of Mormon as a historical document based on historical, linguistic, dna, etc records. The evidence against the Book of Mormon grows stronger every year as more evidence is uncovered.

@@quemaspana That’s not my experience at all. The Lord has shown me many times by the blessing of the Holy Ghost that it is true and it is his work. I feel much closer to the Saviour and Our Heavenly Father. There is a beautiful spiritual peace that comes when reading it prayerfully. I feel it now as l am sharing this with you. I have had suchlike precious moments when reading the bible which we are studying this year in Sunday school.

@@michaelmichaelc1748 I have talked with many people who have had similar feelings of peace while doing drugs, or praying to Allah. Explain how your feeling is different from theirs.

@@howardedward5339 There is also historical prophetic and anthropological evidence for the truthfulness of the Koran. Muslim hell might be worse. Should you join the religion that has the worst hell?

@@howardedward5339 Ok, try telling what you wrote to a practicing Jew. They would clearly have exception to what you wrote. I HIGHLY recommend the book "Authoring the Old Testament" by former Fair apologist David Bokovoy. The Bible is not what you think it is. The sacred texts of Buhdism and HInduism are both older and cover longer periods of time than the Bible. Not that it is in any way relevant to it being true or not.

You've completely missed the point he was making then

I asked some Egyptologists about Kerry. They think he's out to lunch as far as the BA is concerned.

Please note my post.

@@user-og2wt3le4j No, THEY (those Egyptologists of whom you speak) have been out at breakfast actually, and haven't come back for the day. Dr. Muhlestein is a fine Egyptologist, but their problem with him has nothing to do with Egyptology, it's a religious bias, they don't believe the Book of Abraham is inspired. Not because of their Egyptology training, but because they don't have the faith to find out the truthfulness of the scripture.

​@@livingtruth2374do you really believe that trained historians and egyptologists are all conspiring against the church? It doesn't make sense. The church is an extremely small population of the world. Members of the LDS church seem to cling to any kind of hope that the book of Abraham is a true book. It is clearly not a translation even when Joseph smith said it was one. If it is not a translation, it is inspiration according to members. You can still believe in it... But you need to understand that every translator agrees it is not a true translation. Joseph smith published a translation guide with the characters and their meaning. From what I gather, there are only a small select portion which have any vague similarities in meaning. But, you can believe as you like.