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Sustaining and Defending the LDS Temple

fragments

Brief Intro to the Joseph Smith Papyri and Book of Abraham

July 2, 2008 by Bryce Haymond 10 Comments

Original papyrus of Facsimile 1 (Joseph Smith Papyrus I).  Acquired by the LDS Church in 1967. (Click for a larger view)Note:  This was going to be the next part of the series on the Egyptian ankh, and its relationship with the papyri and Book of Abraham, but I thought an intro to these first would be a better place to start.

Let’s return again to the subject of the ankh, and related symbols, that we’ve briefly studied, and look to see if these symbols figure at all on the Joseph Smith Papyri.  As we’ve seen, these particular hieroglyphs have a strong connection to temple themes, being bestowed by the Egyptian gods in a manner reminiscent of the way eternal life is portrayed symbolically in the temple today.  But do these symbols appear on the papyri from which the Book of Abraham was translated, or in the facsimiles, and what does that mean?  [Read more…]

Posted in: Church History, Scholarship, Texts Tagged: abraham, book, egyptian, endowment, farms, fragments, hieroglyph, hugh nibley, john gee, joseph smith, lecture, olivewood, symbols, translation

What Good are the Scattered Fragments?

February 14, 2008 by Bryce Haymond 2 Comments
Hugh Nibley

Hugh Nibley

Since the first day I picked up a book by Hugh Nibley I have been fascinated by the parallels which he taught exist between our practices and those of the ancients.  Many critics of the Church claim that Joseph Smith made this all up, that he was a charlatan, a deceiver, and a con-man.  However, making that broad claim that Joseph invented it all from his fantastic mind (for even our critics offer him that), or that he plundered the practices from others, still fails to explain why parts and pieces of the gospel structure are to be found scattered around all the world in almost every time, place, and culture.

But what good does it do us in studying the ancient practices?  Why is it so interesting and pertinent to our modern-day Church?  Why does looking back help us look forward?  Nibley gave a good explanation:

Latter-day Saints believe that their temple ordinances are as old as the human race and represent a primordial revealed religion that has passed through alternate phases of apostasy and restoration which have left the world littered with the scattered fragments of the original structure, some more and some less recognizable, but all badly damaged and out of proper context. . . .

Among the customs and religions of mankind there are countless parallels, many of them very instructive, to what the Mormons do. . . . But what about the Egyptian rites? What are they to us? They are a parody, an imitation, but, as such, not to be despised. For all the great age and consistency of their rites and teachings, which certainly command respect, the Egyptians did not have the real thing, and they knew it. . . . in the words of Abraham, “Pharaoh, being a righteous man,” was ever “seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign” (Abraham 1:26), for he “would fain claim [the priesthood]” (Abraham 1:27). If the Egyptian endowment was but an imitation, it was still a good one, and we may be able to learn much from it, just as we may learn much about the early church from the vagaries of the gnostics. But it is not for a moment to be equated with the true and celestial order of things. . . . What these few bits of added information do is to supply a new dimension to . . . [our temple] experience, along with the assurance that a wealth of newly found records confirms the fundamental thesis of its antiquity and genuineness. (Hugh Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, xxvii-xxix)

Posted in: Scholarship Tagged: ancients, charlatan, con man, egyptian, fragments, fraud, hugh nibley, joseph smith, Practices, rites

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