From: ACUS10@WACCVM.SPS.MOT.COM (Mark Fuller)
Subject: Re: Are Mormons Christians? (Was: WANTED Former LDS,...)
Organization: Motorola Inc.
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 19:10:10 GMT

From: mark@yvax.byu.edu
> > All I see is the LDS leading people to a different god -- not the one
> > historically worshipped by the Jews and Christians.
> >
> > Do you really beleive the Mormon god is 'Min',  sitting on a throne
> > with an errection?  Thats what the Pearl of Great Price says.
> >
>
> 	Mark, in your last post you talked about Mormons being deceptive.  What
> do you call this?
 [Anyone desiring a scanned image copy to verify the following may
 write me email, and I will gladly make it available.  Specify
 tiff, bmp, gif, pcx.  -mark]

        In the Pearl of Great Price, a book of Scripture for the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you will find the Book of Abraham,
which Joseph Smith claimed to have 'translated' from Egyptian papyri
found on four mummies the Church purchased from a travelling showman
named Michael Chandler in 1835.  Part of this supposed translation are 3
facimilies which Joseph Smith presents with "explainations".

        Of interest to us is "Facsimilie 2", a round drawing, with
smaller drawings inset.  The "Explaination" asserts that it contains
very sacred, very secret items that "are to be had in the Holy Temple of
God" or "ought not to be revealed at the present time."

        I will begin by examining figure 7, which pictures a man, with
an errect male organ, sitting on a throne.  Joseph Smith gives the
following "Explanation:"

   "represents God sitting upon his throne, revealing through the
   heavens the grand Key-words of the Priesthood; as, also, the sign of
   the Holy Ghost unto Abraham, in the form of a dove."

        Is this indeed a representation of the one true God sitting upon
His throne, revealing the grand Key-words of the priesthood?  Was Joseph
Smith ahead of his time, able to decipher Egyptian writings in a time
when scholarship was just starting to get a clue on the topic?

        The object that Jospeh Smith included in the Book of Abraham is,
in reality, a "hypcephalus," a common item of Egyptian funeral
literature.  Egyptologists tell us that this is the god "Min." Min is an
"ithyphallic god," that is, a sexually aroused male diety. Yes, figure 7
is "pornographic" in nature -- it is sexually explicit. Min is the god
of the procreative forces of nature.  Joseph Smith told us that the
Egyptian god Min was in point of fact the one true God.

        The fact that Mormon leaders have been somewhat embarrassed
by the obvious sexual nature of the representation can be seen by
comparing the 1966 edition of the Pearl of Great Price with the 1981
edition, which came out after the real nature of these materials was
known to anyone interested, and the obvious attempt to alter the picture
by the LDS leadership was exposed.  In the earlier printings of LDS
Scripture the errect male appendage had been removed from the drawing.
Today's printings have restored the drawing to it's original (papyrus)
representation -- returning the errect male organ to Min.

        One explanation offered comes from Mormon Egyptologist Michael
Dennis Rhoades:

  'Joseph Smith mentions here the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove
  and God 'revealing through the heavens the grand key-words of the
  priesthood.'  The procreative forces, receiving unusual accentuation
  throughout the representation, may stand for many generative powers,
  not least of which might be cojoined with the blessings of the
  Priesthood in one's posterity eternally'
_BYU Studies, Spring 1977, p.273_

        In other words, since the God of Mormonism is sexually active,
begetting children in the spirit-world (indeed, God's power is often
described by Mormons as being made up of the power of the priesthood and
the power of procreation), and Min is obviously sexually active as well,
this, then is the "connection."

        I will gladly admit that there is a similarity between the pagan
god Min and the Mormon doctrine of God.  What is equally clear is that
the God of the Bible is not similar to either Min, not the LDS God.  As
God Himself said:

   'To whom will you compare me? (Isaiah 40:25)

        Mormon Egyptologist Michael Dennis Rhoades also provided a
translation of other parts of this facsimile.  His translation of the
edge of the "hypocephalus" is as follows:

   'I am Dajabty in the House of the benben in Heliopolis, so exalted
   and glorious. [I am] a copulating bull without equal. [I am] that
   Mighty God in the House of the benben in Heliopolis...that Mighty
   God....

        Figure 8 is supposed to contain writings that "cannot be
revealed unto the world" but is to be had in the Holy Temple
of God," yet Rhoades translates this section (including
figures 9,10 and 11, the entire left middle section) as follows:

   'O God of the Sleeping Ones from the time of the creation. O Mighty
   God, Lord of Heaven and Earth, the Netherworld and his Great Waters,
   grant that the soul of Osiris Sheshonk may live.

        The bottom section, which contains figures that Smith claimed
"will be given in the own due time of the Lord," actually reads,

   "May this tomb never be desecrated, and may this soul and its
   possessor never be desecrated in the Netherworld.

        It seems obvious to me that Joseph Smith's claim to be a
"translator" of Egyptian is shown by the facts to be utterly false -- a
gross and incredible deception. He knew nothing of Egyptian, and had no
"gift" to translate it, as we have seen.

Mark
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