slightly different title than the Dialogue article but has essentially the same information.

I, of course, believe that Ashment is somewhat on track for his analysis of the evidence. However, like all critics, he is wrong about the central premise. They claim Joseph Smith could not translate. They claim he was not a prophet. I say he could translate. I say that he was a prophet. So, this is not about my disagreement about the nature of the evidence, but rather, the interpretation of the evidence.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Another part of the picture, along with the Ancient Egyptian Interpreters hypothesis is the modern reconstruction scenario. Both are true. William Hamblin stated that someone engaged in iconotropy, and perhaps it was Joseph Smith. Indeed, it was Joseph Smith, following whatancient people had done with these types of documents. In other words, Joseph Smith was doing the same thing that the ancient people did: they were creating derivative documents, that contained both Sensen characters, and Abrahamic meanings that were assigned to them.

I obviously am in favor the Ancient Egyptian Interpreter hypothesis, because it is most consistent with Joseph Smith's own assumptions at the time, that someone in ancient times regarded the Sensen Papyrus as an Abrahamic papyrus. I am also in favor of the Modern Reconstruction theory because of the evidence for modern reconstruction of the missing portions of the papyrus. These are both parts of the picture. The modern reconstruction in the Sensen Papyrus is a reconstruction of what ancient people were doing in a derivative work