TONY - The Bible states that Jesus preached to the spirits in prison after his physical death on the cross. If I understand your claim correctly, you believe that this area Jesus visited is called Paradise. Do you believe that all of these spirits Jesus ministered to were saved by believing the testimony of Jesus at this time? If so, when did their baptism occur? The reason I ask this is because, if I understand your view correctly, that baptism must occur before these spirits could ascent to heaven to be with Jesus.

JOEL - We believe that there is a spirit world where the spirits of all people go after death, and that it is divided into two realms; Paradise where the righteous spirits go and spirit prison where the disobedient spirits go(Luke 16:22-26). After Jesus died He bridged the gap between Paradise and spirit prison and preached to the disobedient spirits between the time of His death and resurrection(1 Pet. 3:18-20, 4:6). We don't believe that Jesus did it all Himself but organized spirits from Paradise to also go into spirit prison and spread His gospel there. Our Doctrine and Covenants scriptures explain this in a vision President Joseph F. Smith had on this subject:

27 But his ministry among those who were dead was limited to the brief time intervening between the crucifixion and his resurrection;
28 And I wondered at the words of Peter--wherein he said that the Son of God preached unto the spirits in prison, who sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah--and how it was possible for him to preach to those spirits and perform the necessary labor among them in so short a time.
29 And as I wondered, my eyes were opened, and my understanding quickened, and I perceived that the Lord went not in person among the wicked and the disobedient who had rejected the truth, to teach them;
30 But behold, from among the righteous, he organized his forces and appointed messengers, clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men; and thus was the gospel preached to the dead.
31 And the chosen messengers went forth to declare the acceptable day of the Lord and proclaim liberty to the captives who were bound, even unto all who would repent of their sins and receive the gospel. 32 Thus was the gospel preached to those who had died in their sins, without a knowledge of the truth, or in transgression, having rejected the prophets. (D&C 138:27-32)

Not all the spirits Jesus or His messengers preached to would be saved; only those who, using their own agency, accept the gospel that is preached to them; and the preaching goes on even now for those who are dying today.
The ones that accepted the gospel at the time Jesus went there will some day be able to have their baptisms performed for them. Since we don't know who they were we cannot of course do it for them at this time. We do believe however that during the Millennium, after Christ's second coming, the heavens will be opened and we will have direct communication with the spirit world. We will be informed which spirits accepted the gospel so the baptisms will be performed only for them and not for all people who have died. Until then we are only asked to seek out our own kindred dead and perform the ordinance for them.

TONY - With the discovery of the papyri in the 1960's that are reported to be the source of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price I understand that your belief is that the papyri discovered are not believed by the Mormons to be the ones that Joseph Smith used in translating the Book of Abraham.
However, examination of the papyri show that "on the back of the papyri were drawings of a temple and maps of the Kirtland, Ohio area". This doesn't leave much doubt in my mind that these were the actual papyri Joseph Smith had in his possession. I know that you don't consider this to be a major problem but it actually presents a major problem in that it seems as if Joseph Smith did not have the gift of being a Seer as he claimed. Also, you mentioned that "Also only one of the three Abraham facsimiles(included in Joseph Smith's translation) were among the rediscovered fragments.". However, sources that I have been able to find show that the rediscovered papyri contain all three drawings and that Joseph Smith's explanation of the facsimiles are not even close to being correct regardless of where we stand on the translation of the heiroglyphics. How do you explain this?

JOEL - This is one theory, that the few fragmanets of papyri that were discovered are not the same that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Abraham, although they were with the longer rolls of papyri that he obtained. So yes these papyri fragments that had drawings and maps on them were in Joseph's possession, but they are not necessarily what the Book of Abraham was translated from.
I am not familiar with the sources that say all three facsimiles were found, only that a heavily damaged portion of Facsimile 1 was found.
For most scholars Facimile 1 depicts a typical scene from Egyptian funnary texts and so they claim it could not have anything to do with the Book of Abraham. However, similar viginettes were often used to tell different stories, with minor details changed to represent the desired message. For example, other comparable Egyptian embalming scenes do not show the priest holding a knife, nor do they show a man pleading or praying and kicking his legs as Facsimile 1 seems to show.
We need to also remember that this was not a mechanical translation from Egyptian to English; revelation from God played a large factor in the translation process, inspiring Joseph Smith to write down what God wanted him to record, which might be quite different from what some earthly egyptologist might get out of it.
A lot has been said both pro and con about the Book of Abraham. A lot has been said both pro and con about the Bible. Ultimately it comes down to a matter of faith to accept these things as true doctrine and scripture from God.

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