Show Notes
The facsimiles are the only pictures in Latter-day Saint scripture — and Facsimile 2 is the strangest of them. Critics say Egyptologists translated it long ago and "disproved" the Book of Abraham. Some Saints treat it as secret temple code waiting to be cracked. So what can we actually know about this mysterious circle?
Jasmin Rappleye, Neal Rappleye, and Stephen Smoot sit down with Egyptologist Dr. John Gee (MA, Berkeley; PhD, Yale) — one of the few scholars published on hypocephali in mainstream, peer-reviewed Egyptological venues — and draw on A Guide to the Book of Abraham (BYU Studies), co-authored by Gee, Smoot, Kerry Muhlstein, and John Thompson.
===Informed Saints Credits=== Produced by The Ancient America Foundation Producer: Spencer Clark Hosts: Stephen Smoot, Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye
In this episode:
What a hypocephalus is — and why the Greek "under the head" mistranslates the Egyptian kher-tep, "at the head" The owner's name on Facsimile 2 — Sheshonq — and why it belonged to a different mummy than Facsimiles 1 and 3 Book of the Dead 162: the "great and secret book" that turns a hypocephalus into a passport through the gates of the next life The 100+ known hypocephali (Tamás Mekis's catalog) — papyrus, linen, lead, copper, ceramic, and one lost gold disc Why modern Egyptologists' readings aren't the same as ancient Egyptian interpretations — and Gee's peer-reviewed study of mismatched figure identifications The one block of text scholars can read — the very figures Joseph Smith said are "to be had in the holy temple of God" — and its parallels on the Ptolemaic temple gate at Karnak The rim inscription's references to the temple of the Benu bird (the phoenix) at Heliopolis The missing head and missing quadrant — and whether the published solar bark and two-headed central figure fall within the ancient range "The great cow who gave birth to the sun": Hathor, Esna, and why identifications shift from city to city Figure 6, the earth in its four quarters, and the four winds on a Cairo Museum sarcophagus Why Joseph Smith's journals call this "the astronomical cut" — and the Kolob connection to Abraham 3 How much the facsimiles actually matter: "not the keystone of our religion"
Further Readings: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5293&context=byusq
https://byustudies.byu.edu/issue/61-4
https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781789693331
https://www.magicgatebg.com/Books/Joseph%20Smith%20Hypocephalus.pdf
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol17/iss3/2/
https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/temple-themes-in-the-book-of-abraham
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