The Quincy Account

[Marcus]

I just saw this, and will begin the interaction as soon as I can. Thanks Ryan, GREAT to have ya here and sharing and discussing!

I should have been more welcoming myself, up here in Celestial! (Shulem sets a great example. )

Welcome Ryan, and I look forward to our discussing the Bayesian concepts.
(autocorrect just turned bayesian into 'Batman,' so we're off to a great start! )

[Philo Sofee]

LOL! Yeah, we are in for a fun time here all right. I hesitate to talk a lot here for a day or two since so much of what I want to say I am going to cover in my Sunday Live session. After Sunday I will come back here and share more of my own use of Bayes and see if I am thinking through it correctly. I'm not going to do Bayes stuff this Sunday. Just some straight forward clear analysis since it is fundamentally CLARITY I want in those live videos. I am keeping it simple, not simplistic however, and it is a more complete, powerful way to go. I have some beautiful stuff from Steve Smoot, Kerry Muhlestein, and John Gee to cover, as well as Shulem, and Kevin Graham! It's gonna be a whopping fabulous night on Sunday! I really need to stop reading this week, because every time I read something I find more to include!

[Shulem]

There are multiple heavy hitting threads and arguments on this board showing that the scroll of Abraham was the handwriting of Abraham and the scroll of Joseph was the handwriting of Joseph who was the “better” scribe because his writing was neater. We have covered that in great depth on this board. The Latter-day Saints believed they had in their possession literal autographs of the Patriarchs. That was a universal belief in early Mormonism.

The name “Abraham” is found 21 times in the chapters of the Book of Abraham. Each time it’s written (21) that in and of itself is a signature because Abraham is the one who wrote it. So, while Smith presented the papyrus before Quincy there were no less than 21 opportunities to point out the very name of Abraham which was penned *BY* Abraham. Thus his signature. Like I said, I believe Josiah Quincy.

21 times! Add that to the bayesian interpretations.

It would be entirely amiss of me to not reference the massive thread Philo Sofee generated several years ago about how the patriarchs literally penned the rolls purchased by Smith. That was the position of the Latter-Day Saint Church at that time. The Church announced they had in their possession papyri written by the very hand of Abraham.

Joseph Smith & a LITERAL 3500 Year Old Abraham Autograph

Because the Church originally claimed the papyrus was written by Abraham’s own hand and Smith affirmed that the record was on the order of 3,500 years old it can be stated that the entire record was an actual autograph of Abraham. It can be said that each time the NAME Abraham was inked on the papyrus it was in fact an original SIGNATURE of Abraham himself because it’s his name and *he* penned it. Thus, as I stated earlier, there are no less than 21 signatures of Abraham on the roll which Smith claimed to translate. Any of those could have been the one Smith pointed at or called attention to in the presence of Josiah Quincy while describing the text on the papyrus itself.

I’m afraid that Ryan’s argument or objections are flatter than a pancake and have become totally irrelevant in light of this perspective in showing that signatures of Abraham were believed to be all over the papyrus.

Ryan, my new friend, Philo has cautioned his listeners to tread carefully in having a discussion with me involving apologetics. I am tough.

The Great and Powerful OZ has spoken!

Paul Osborne

[Ryan Larsen]

I just saw this, and will begin the interaction as soon as I can. Thanks Ryan, GREAT to have ya here and sharing and discussing!

Thank you so much for the warm welcome it’s great to be here, as time and energy permit

[Ryan Larsen]

I just saw this, and will begin the interaction as soon as I can. Thanks Ryan, GREAT to have ya here and sharing and discussing!

I should have been more welcoming myself, up here in Celestial! (Shulem sets a great example. )

Welcome Ryan, and I look forward to our discussing the Bayesian concepts.
(autocorrect just turned bayesian into 'Batman,' so we're off to a great start! )

Thank you so much. And I’ve never seen Batman and Bayes in the same room at the same time, so my hypothesis is that they are the same person. How else would Batman always know just what to do?

by the way I probably won’t reply as often as regulars here, but I will try to check in once a day when I’m involved in active discussions that are underway.

As far as Bayes goes, allow me to back up for a second. Before engaging on the board, I had been thinking that BYP was probably going to be the main person discussing things with me, and I was aware about how he feels Bayes helps him. So I was thinking in advance that his Bayes analysis could be a useful way of keeping the discussion friendly (allowing him to assign significance to data, while my main concern would be getting to the bottom of any disagreements and hopefully convincing him that the data doesn’t infer as strongly in the critic direction as his priors indicate.

I even was thinking of asking if he would want to start a Book of Abraham Bayesian Logic Project where we could dissect every Book of Abraham-related data point and keep tabs on how each data point I bring up affects priors for him. I didn’t intend on it being a referendum on the Church ultimately being true, because that puts pressure on each side.

When I said in reference to Quincy’s account that I would explain from a Bayesian view why “it's not as reliable as we might have expected,” I essentially meant that I was prepared to argue, in dialogue, that the new data I’m bringing up displaces the priors regarding the reliability of the account.

I didn’t understand at first why you were thinking that I had claimed to have conducted a Bayesian analysis. But it does make sense as a reasonable assumption in light of me making claims about the way the data should impact the weight of the account (i.e. “not as reliable as we might have expected” is not a reference to a conclusion reached through Bayes, but is saying that certain hallmarks of reliability which would have been counted on in the priors (based on the assumption that the vast majority of journal entries people write are accurate when giving explicit details), can’t be counted on in this case. And the correction for that is necessarily going to favor the view that the account is less reliable.

Another issue which I hoped BYP’s use of Bayesian reasoning (and it doesn’t matter to me how formally he implements it) could help avoid is the all-too-human propensity to assign guilt to someone if we already believe they are bad. In other words, in Bayes, at least in theory, old information has no power over new information. That doesn’t mean the old information doesn’t count; it means the old information doesn’t get to count twice.

I no doubt have some learning still to do when it comes to Bayes, especially since I don’t personally use it, but I hope this clears up a little bit about the context in which I brought up the matter

[Ryan Larsen]

There are multiple heavy hitting threads and arguments on this board showing that the scroll of Abraham was the handwriting of Abraham and the scroll of Joseph was the handwriting of Joseph who was the “better” scribe because his writing was neater. We have covered that in great depth on this board. The Latter-day Saints believed they had in their possession literal autographs of the Patriarchs. That was a universal belief in early Mormonism.

The name “Abraham” is found 21 times in the chapters of the Book of Abraham. Each time it’s written (21) that in and of itself is a signature because Abraham is the one who wrote it. So, while Smith presented the papyrus before Quincy there were no less than 21 opportunities to point out the very name of Abraham which was penned *BY* Abraham. Thus his signature. Like I said, I believe Josiah Quincy.

21 times! Add that to the bayesian interpretations.

It would be entirely amiss of me to not reference the massive thread Philo Sofee generated several years ago about how the patriarchs literally penned the rolls purchased by Smith. That was the position of the Latter-Day Saint Church at that time. The Church announced they had in their possession papyri written by the very hand of Abraham.

Joseph Smith & a LITERAL 3500 Year Old Abraham Autograph

Because the Church originally claimed the papyrus was written by Abraham’s own hand and Smith affirmed that the record was on the order of 3,500 years old it can be stated that the entire record was an actual autograph of Abraham. It can be said that each time the NAME Abraham was inked on the papyrus it was in fact an original SIGNATURE of Abraham himself because it’s his name and *he* penned it. Thus, as I stated earlier, there are no less than 21 signatures of Abraham on the roll which Smith claimed to translate. Any of those could have been the one Smith pointed at or called attention to in the presence of Josiah Quincy while describing the text on the papyrus itself.

I’m afraid that Ryan’s argument or objections are flatter than a pancake and have become totally irrelevant in light of this perspective in showing that signatures of Abraham were believed to be all over the papyrus.

Ryan, my new friend, Philo has cautioned his listeners to tread carefully in having a discussion with me involving apologetics. I am tough.

The Great and Powerful OZ has spoken!

Paul Osborne

Like he said, there’s some fun stuff coming up in the future. I appreciate your research and I’ll dive into it as time and energy permit.

[Marcus]

..BYP. .

Hi Ryan, thanks for responding! Just before starting any conversation, my apologies, but who is BYP?

[Ryan Larsen]

..BYP. .

Hi Ryan, thanks for responding! Just before starting any conversation, my apologies, but who is BYP?

That would be Backyard Professor

[Marcus]

Hi Ryan, thanks for responding! Just before starting any conversation, my apologies, but who is BYP?

That would be Backyard Professor

i should have known that, my apologies, philo!!!!

[Ryan Larsen]

That would be Backyard Professor

i should have known that, my apologies, philo!!!!

GRIN! as he might say