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Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/For my Wife and Children (Letter to my Wife)/Chapter 18
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Response to "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 18 - Facsimile #2
| Chapter 17 - Facsimile #1 | A FAIR Analysis of: For my Wife and Children (Letter to my Wife), a work by author: Anonymous
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Chapter 19 - Facsimile #3 |
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 18 - Facsimile #2
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Response to claim: "the original papyrus for Facsimile #2 was damaged and has been filled-in to make the image appear complete ... the missing portion appears to be incorrectly filled-in"
The author(s) of "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife") make(s) the following claim:
the original papyrus for Facsimile #2 was damaged and has been filled-in to make the image appear complete ... the missing portion appears to be incorrectly filled-in.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event
This is correct, but it wasn't done in order to fool anyone: It was done in order to make the images look better for publication. The missing portions of Facsimile #2 were filled in prior to the image being published in the newspaper. In order to fill in the missing portions, someone (possibly Joseph Smith or the engraver, Reuben Hedlock) selected images from other portions of the papyri and used them to create a "complete" image. There is no statement or indication that these missing portions were filled in by Joseph through revelation - in fact, one will note that the "filled in" portions have no interpretive explanations from Joseph Smith associated with them.Jump to Detail:
Question: Were missing portions of Facsimile 2 incorrectly restored?
Missing portions of Facsimile 2 were filled in with images and characters taken from other parts of the Joseph Smith papyri before being published in the newspaper
Regarding Facsimile 2, it should be noted that portions of the original Facsimile 2 appear to have been missing, and that the missing portions were filled in with characters or images taken from other sources before the image was published in the Times and Seasons. Some material was copied from the Joseph Smith papyri. Among the missing sections may have been the area identified as section #3, which matches a figure which appears on Joseph Smith Papyrus IV. One interesting thing about this restoration is that the figure in the boat actually does appear in this section of at least one other hypocephalus.
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