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| | #REDIRECT [[Theological Questions Regarding the Book of Abraham#Science]] |
| {{BofAPortal}}
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| {{SciencePortal}}
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| =={{Criticism label}}==
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| "LDS doctrine regarding astronomy is permeated with references to time being measured, or 'reckoned' according to a star's or planet's rate of rotation. Furthermore, this 'reckoning of time' is a prime distinguisher in terms of 'greatness.' From the standpoint of modern cosmology, this makes no sense at all. Rates of rotation are largely arbitrary, and of little comment or concern from a fundamental point of view."
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| {{CriticalSources}}
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| =={{Response label}}==
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| The biggest issue at hand is that the authors of the web page where the above criticism of the Book of Abraham was found is that they have pretended to know the meaning of these scriptures to be able to set up yet another straw man to refute. The problem is, that the Book of Abraham cosmology is so ambiguous that not even LDS people, let alone critics of the Church, can claim to know what it is actually trying to say. Various LDS theorists don't even agree on what this means.
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| One possible refutation of the above criticism is that the authors of that web page have confused <i>rotation</i> with <i>revolution</i>. Though the technical distinction is often blurred today, even by astronomers, at the time of Joseph Smith the two terms denoted technically different things. 'To rotate' means to spin on an axis, like a top or like a planet. It applies only to an extended body. 'To revolve' means to go around a central point and may be applied to any point that moves around another point. The Book of Abraham uses the term 'revolution,' and it is clearly being used in the technically correct sense. According to {{scripture||Abraham|3|5,9}},
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| :5 And the Lord said unto me: The planet which is the lesser light, lesser than that which is to rule the day, even the night, is above or greater than that upon which thou standest in point of reckoning, for it moveth in order more slow; this is in order because it standeth above the earth upon which thou standest, therefore the reckoning of its time is not so many as to its number of days, and of months, and of years.
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| :9 And thus there shall be the reckoning of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord’s time; which Kolob is set nigh unto the throne of God, to govern all those planets which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.
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| So the picture is geocentric (nothing wrong with that — Relativity tells us that one point is as good as another), and clearly refers to the revolution of the heavenly bodies about the Earth. The Earth rotates on its axis once per day and so a point on the surface of the earth revolves about the axis at the same rate. This is the fastest motion in the heavens. The Moon is next, with an orbital period of 27.32 days. The Moon also rotates once per revolution, so it always shows the same face toward the Earth. (This is not a coincidence, but the result of tidal dissipation.) The Sun revolves slower still, with a sidereal period of 365.256363 days. The solar rotation period, by the way, is about 24.5 days at its equator and a little longer as one approaches the solar poles, not that that matters to anything. And, apparently, Kolob revolves about the Earth once per... Well, does Abraham ever give the time for Kolob to revolve around the Earth, as seen from Earth? Remember that God does not live on Kolob. Kolob is only the great star that is <i>nearest</i> to the throne of God. In {{s||Abraham|3|4}}, we read
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| :4 And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the <b>revolutions</b> thereof; that one <b>revolution</b> was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob. (emphasis added)
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| which seems to say that Kolob's <i>orbital period about the throne of God</i> is 1000 years, and that it is used by God as his unit of time. Of course, since Kolob is still far above the Sun, it "moveth in order more slow" ({{s||Abraham|3|5}}). Thus, as seen from Earth, it encircles and "governs" all intervening stars and planets. We are left to wonder. Is the Throne of God at the center of the Galaxy (in which case it would take 220,000,000 years to orbit the Earth) or at the center of the Universe (in which case, observations limit the rotation of the Universe to be very small indeed, maybe even zero) or is it somewhere else altogether?
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| '''Yet Another View On This Issue'''
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| As was stated at the beginning, LDS theorists cannot come to agree on the meanings of these passages in the Book of Abraham. Other LDS researchers and authors interpret the statement in Abraham 3:4 differently, as meaning the rotational period of Kolob's axis (the angular motion) when referring to the "revolutions" of Kolob that take one thousand years. Because in the context, it is speaking of a "day" to the Lord. The word "day" when applied to normal usage refers to the earth rotating on its axis. A "year" (as the term is used normally in English) refers to a rotation of a body around its parent body. Therefore, it is difficult for these theorists to see how a "year" in Kolob, or its rotation around the parent body is a "day" to the Lord. That doesn't seem to make sense, and in this case, it seems that the word "revolution" refers to the rotation on the axis. This is further evidenced by the fact that in the explanation for the Facsimile #2, Figure 1, it says:
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| :The measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies ''one day'' to a cubit. ''One day in Kolob'' is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of this earth.
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| Here we are faced with the fact that it is saying "One day in Kolob." This clearly specifies this one thousand year period as Kolob's day. This is simply not speaking of movement around the parent body. Furthermore, previously, it was noted that the moon always faces the same face toward the earth because tidal forces have slowed it down to the point where its rotation period is the same as its revolution period, so that it is tidally locked to the earth. The reason Kolob seems to move so slowly on its axis is because it is probably tidally locked to the throne of God. In the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, when referring to Kolob, it says that:
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| :. . . Kolob in its motion . . . is swifter than the rest of the twelve fixed stars; going before, being first in motion, being delegated to have power over others to regulate others in their time . . .
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| Now, some LDS people do not consider the Kirtland Egyptian Papers as good material from which to use as a reference for evidential usage, because it is not scriptural like the Book of Abraham. But the fact is, this material is related to the cosmological material in the Book of Abraham, and was produced at the same time period the Book of Abraham was being translated. It won't always do to pass off that material as coming from Joseph Smith's scribes. Joseph Smith was intimately involved in the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar projects, and there is no reason to believe that the Cosmological material in the Alphabet and Grammar portions that so intimately overlap with Abraham chapter 3 and the explanation for Facsimile #2 came from his scribes. It is the view of some that there is no good reason to ignore this material just because it is not in the scriptures, when it has bearing on the subject at hand, and adds critical details.
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| So, anyway, if we say that it is swifter than the rest of the twelve fixed stars, in which way is it swifter? About Oliblish in the explanation for Facsimile #2 figure 4, it says:
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| :. . . answering to the measuring of the time of Oliblish, ''which is equal with Kolob in its revolution and in its measuring of time''.
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| If Kolob is swifter, then it is not swifter on its rotational motion on its axis, because it is equal to the rotational motion of Oliblish. Therefore, it can only be swifter in its motion around its parent body in its orbital path. Now, if we take the center of the Galaxy as a possible model of what is happening, the closest stars to the Galactic Nucleus are moving at incredibly fast speeds in the central parsec of the Galaxy. This is because the Galactic Nucleus is a super-massive black hole with extreme gravity that can easily swing huge stars around it at incredible speeds like a gigantic sling. If we take the star S2 around the Galactic Nucleus as a model, which is the closest, S2 has "the fastest known ballistic orbit, reaching speeds exceeding 5000 km/s (11 000 000 mph) or 2% of the speed of light . . ." ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S2_%28star%29]). Though S2 is probably not Kolob, it stands to reason that a body that is rotating around such an object would have an incredible speed, and that the nearest large one to it would be the fastest of all the large bodies in the system. Therefore, Kolob is swift in its motion on its orbital path, but slow in its rotation on its axis, which takes 1000 years. So 1000 years is a day in Kolob, not a year in Kolob.
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| =={{Conclusion label}}==
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| Once again, a critic of Joseph Smith's revelations has chosen to interpret difficult and ambiguous phrasing in a way that serves his ultimate goal — to set up straw man that is easily demolished. But Abraham's astronomical statements are far more reasonable than the critics claim and fit into a picture that makes sense in the cosmic world view of Abraham's contemporaries, a conclusion that was also reached in John Gee's 2009 FAIR conference talk, [http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_The_Larger_Issue.html "The Larger Issue"]. Yet other faithful theorists disagree with Gee's conclusions, such as Michael Rhodes and others, and believe that the Book of Abraham fits better as a revealed cosmology that is in line with modern cosmology, that Kolob is not a star that is in geocentric revolution around the earth, such as the star Sirius, but that Kolob is a star that gravitationally dominates its neighborhood, controlling the times and revolutions of other bodies through tidal forces. And that the Throne of God is the grand center of a system to which the Earth and Sun belong.
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| =={{Endnotes label}}==
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| ''None''
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| =={{Further reading label}}==
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| ===FAIR Wiki===
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| {{BookofAbrahamWiki}}
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| ===FAIR Wiki===
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| [[fr:Book of Abraham/Astronomy/Revolution Time]]
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