JS translated many things without an original - the Urim and Thummim regularly translated from corrupt nth generation copies back to original meaning - the Pearl Of Great Price contains the JS translation of the bible - he wasn't working from originals. There is a whole section in the DC that contains a letter written by Paul ( I think ) which doesn't even have a source.
Daniel in the bible got a whole set of words and sentences out of one word written by God on the wall. The papyrus doesn't contain enough words for the Book of Abraham - either JS was yanking our chain or he was following the prophetic model.
If anyone reads the history of JS they will find someone who is uneducated but almost incredibally talented - to make up the Book of Abraham would have been abject folly - no-one joined the church because of it, it was not used as a book to preach the gospel (the BOM and Bible were used for that) it has little or no purpose for a fraudster, in fact it was only published in magazine format as an interesting point and was only later added into the canon once its doctrinal importance was found.
As for #1... how is there any way to verify these claims? The claims that something was corrupted, or that he was translating from the originals, how can these things be proven? It opens the door for someone to write any letter and claim it was a lost original...
#2... The interpretation, mene, mene, tekel, parsin... (count, count, weigh, divide) with the understanding of why these words applied to the king is something we can 'get'. The prophecy of the kingdom being divided was fulfilled, and proved Daniel's ability as a translator. JS has not seen vindication as a translator yet. The prophetic model seems to require vindication at some point!
#3 We can only speculate JS's motives; perhaps it had less impact than they imagined it would. It may not have seen so absurd to them at the time. If JS were a fraud, the BOA could serve purpose to bolster faith in him among his own community (at least, until a refutation came), for he was confident and charismatic. And it seems to have done that.
I must say, though, that if the BOA is authentic, why is this not given to international scrutiny so that all may appreciate this historic writing? Really! It cannot, actually, hold up from the very first; to at least be understood by the researchers as something other than an Egyptian funeral document. There is no legitimate way to verify the LDS claims that it was originally from Abraham. It all rests upon a priori faith in JS.
Your argument seems to go: because JS has faithfully translated other documents (whose translations also cannot be verified!), we must accept by faith that the BOA was also faithfully translated(?). From my point of view, it must go this way: because we can verify how the one document should have been translated--and wasn't--we have serious cause to doubt JS's truthfulness as being a true translator.
bebu
