Reading assignment for Pearl of Great Price Class

[All-American]

So here is the reading assignment for tomorrow's Pearl of Great Price class:

Abraham 1:1-20, 28-31.

Observation 1: yeah, it's short. We had a paper due, also. Even so, it's a light load.

Observation two: check out the verses he skipped. Don't think I won't be mentioning it tomorrow.

The coward.

[il Padrino Ute]

Interesting.

Go get'em AA.

[Archaea]

I've never known what to think of these verses, but I've liked the tradition set forth in this verse:

Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that aorder established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the bblessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.

Which Pharaoh is referred to here? Is the lineage of Pharaoh from the First Dynasty to the Ptolemalic Dynasty?

This verse is confusing and does not look upon the true origins of Egypt, so it is a perplexing verse. Yes I know Seattle's claim, it's all bullshit. However, if we give a more charitable reading, what the hell does it mean?

[All-American]

Originally Posted by Archaea

I've never known what to think of these verses, but I've liked the tradition set forth in this verse:

Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that aorder established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the bblessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.

Which Pharaoh is referred to here? Is the lineage of Pharaoh from the First Dynasty to the Ptolemalic Dynasty?

This verse is confusing and does not look upon the true origins of Egypt, so it is a perplexing verse. Yes I know Seattle's claim, it's all bullshit. However, if we give a more charitable reading, what the hell does it mean?

I think the loosest idea that you can get from these verses is that the Egyptian system of government (which was also the Egyptian religious system) was modeled on the priesthood order established by God.

A run through of the Egyptian temple is startling to an endowed latter-day saint. I have some files left over somewhere from an Ancient Near Eastern class on the Egyptian Temple; I'll look for them and see if I can't post them here.

[Surfah]

Originally Posted by All-American

I think the loosest idea that you can get from these verses is that the Egyptian system of government (which was also the Egyptian religious system) was modeled on the priesthood order established by God.

A run through of the Egyptian temple is startling to an endowed latter-day saint. I have some files left over somewhere from an Ancient Near Eastern class on the Egyptian Temple; I'll look for them and see if I can't post them here.

Had an interesting lesson in SS once on this where the teacher taught this very idea.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by surfah33

Had an interesting lesson in SS once on this where the teacher taught this very idea.

Sekret is not a pharaoh I know much about, and Narmer was known as the Scorpion King. So was Rock a righteous man, because he got righteously laid in the movie?

[All-American]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Sekret is not a pharaoh I know much about, and Narmer was known as the Scorpion King. So was Rock a righteous man, because he got righteously laid in the movie?

We know comparatively nothing about Egypt's first dynasties. And who knows if that is what Abraham is referring to, anyway. Most scholars doubt that what we have labeled the first dynasty was really the first dynasty.

[All-American]

Allright, the update. I asked the teacher about the conspicuously missing verses and he promised that they would be covered in a different class period. I suppose he gets a pass on that for now.

Truth be told, it was actually a rather good lecture today. We spent about an hour talking about various problems people have with the Book of Abraham-- debunking most of them, of course, but that's better than not mentioning them at all, methinks.

Topping it off was a twenty minute or so discussion on what to do if information gained from science, history, etc. seems to conflict with the revealed word. The general consensus was not to be afraid of conflicts of those kinds. Given that we don't know everything about science, history, OR religion, it would be very surprising if they should agree with each other on all counts. If a conflict arises between, say, Egyptology and our understanding of the Book of Abraham, either one of the two could be wrong-- and there was plenty of emphasis on the idea that our own ideas or interpretations of the scriptures may not necessarily be accurate.

Quite reasonable, all things said.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Adam

The Nibley bio points out that Joseph in Egypt married a black woman and Ephraim and Manassas are her kids--half black.

And they clearly had the priesthood.

It is delicious irony (or tragic sad irony if you care about the church) that all the Mormons were running around so proud of thier membership in the black tribe of Ephraim while denying blacks the priesthood.

This guy I know, Matt Bowen, a candidate at Catholic U in biblical studies, sadi that that Egypt was ruled by foreigners, not native Egyptians, at the time Joseph was there.

So why does Nephi talk about his race as a "white and delightsome people"? I can think of two explanations:

1. "White" is relative.
2. The black blood had been diluted by the time Nephi was born.
3. Nephi had blancophilia.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

This guy I know, Matt Bowen, a candidate at Catholic U in biblical studies, sadi that that Egypt was ruled by foreigners, not native Egyptians, at the time Joseph was there.

So why does Nephi talk about his race as a "white and delightsome people"? I can think of two explanations:

1. "White" is relative.
2. The black blood had been diluted by the time Nephi was born.
3. Nephi had blancophilia.

That's right-- I had forgotten about the Hyksos.

Toward the end of the Middle Kingdom era, just before the second intermediate period, power shifted to a group of people known as Hyksos, who are actually semitic. This power struggle doesn't seem to have been a military conquest so much as a usurpation. It was during the reign of the Hyksos that many biblical scholars believe Joseph's story took place.

Ian Shaw's Oxford History of Ancient Egypt notes that the names of Hyksos names derive from west semitic languages, and points out Syrian, Hittite, and other Asiatic influences in their culture. Though their lifestyle was "heavily adulturated" by Egyptian influence, Shaw shows their origination from the Syrio-Palestinean region.

So yeah, it is altogether possible that Asenath, Ephraim, and Manasseh were full-blooded Semites. Not that it would have mattered, anyway.