One of the more diversionary arguments used against the Book of Abraham is the claim that Abraham could not possibly have been the author of scrolls, since they date to many centuries after Abraham's day, yet the Book of Abraham says that it was written "by his own hand." The key is understanding that this phrase, "by his own hand," is a way of attributing original authorship. It does not mean that the copy Joseph received was made by Abraham - only that Abraham was the original author of the text.
Russell C. McGregor and Kerry A. Shirts offer further light on this topic [McGregor and Shirts, 1999, p. 203]:
It is obvious from reading the Hebrew Bible that the phrase by his own hand is a Hebrew idiom beyadh, which means "by the authority of," as we can clearly see in the Stuttsgartensian Hebrew text that Kohlenberger translates. He renders Exodus 9:35 as "just as the Lord said through Moses," while the Hebrew has beyadh, that is, "by the hand of."
nice try, but beyadh (d;y.B) is a hebrew idiom translating to "by the hand of", not "by his own hand". i think most people can agree that those phrases have two different meanings. but no matter what, just look at the context of your example:
"as the Lord had spoken by Moses." (h,vm-d;y.B hwhy r,BiD) the lord is literally/physically speaking through/by the hand (mouth, actually) of moses; it is literally moses who is speaking (and i might add, by the authority of the lord, not any authority of moses'. did moses authorize the lord to speak? no, its the other way around)
apologists are trying to change the meaning so that by his (abraham's) own hand now means by someone else other than abraham, when lindsay's example says that "by the hand of" (which still is not the same as 'by his own hand', but lets assume it is in this case) means literally the named person after that phrase. the lord spoke, physically/literally "by" moses. the BoA papyri was written physically/literally by abraham.
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