Don Bradley wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:19 am
Really--how does your model that Smith compared the Kinderhook plates to Nephite script and found they were the same characters and translated from them by revelation predict or account for him identifying them as
Jaredite? Under your model, that's anomalous.
Stage One:
Paul Osborne wrote:The twenty-four gold plates discovered by the people of Limhi from graves of the Jaredites in the northern land during Nephite times reminds me of the discovery of six brass plates found buried in the Kinderhook grave during Smith’s time. Both graves were accompanied with bones and plates. The first thing a translator will want to do is determine their origin and who was buried with them. The ORIGIN is the key. The plates were buried in a grave with bones of those who perished long ago. WHO were those people and WHERE did they originate? Those are the questions in which a translator must determine. A similar circumstance occurred during the Zion’s Camp march of 1834 when Smith uncovered a grave under a mound and identified the bones of a Nephite general named ZELPH. Smith always seemed to have an answer to everything wherever he went. With regard to the Kinderhook plates, Smith opted for an earlier epic than that of the Nephites and Zelph; even more ancient! He decided to date and associate the origins of the Kinderhook plates to the Jaredites who are described thoroughly in the Book of Ether. Mahonri Moriancumer and the Jaredites originated from ancient Mesopotamia during the great tower which was long before Abraham’s time. It was said they left when languages were confounded but they were privileged to maintain their own language with the vision that they would be taken to a promised land by the power of God. Interestingly enough, the Book of Ether says absolutely nothing about anyone or anything being of Egyptian heritage. We are led to believe in the Book of Ether that the Jaredites were a pure people of one language and one race. But were there?
With that, it could be said that Joseph Smith later imagined Jared and his brother bringing an Egyptian couple along with them as friends of the family and converts to their religion. It’s possible that Joseph Smith was ready to invent and add new stories to the Jaredite account in America, compliments of the Kinderhook plates.
And so it begins.
Paul,
The idea that Joseph was thinking about possible other Jaredite groups is fascinating. Early on in my thinking on the Kinderhook plates (before I saw them connected with the GAEL), the idea occurred to me that maybe the descendants of Ham came to Joseph's mind in 1843 because he was thinking about the lineage of Ham, and particularly the biblical "curse" on that lineage in relation to the question of American slavery. After all, it was less than a year later that he began running for president and proposed a solution to the slave crisis.
If conjecture that Joseph Smith was thinking of new Egyptian lineages of the Jaredites is part of what you're thinking could raise this other model to the explanatory level of the GAEL translation model, let's first be sure we're on the same page. To do that, allow me to say what I said earlier more clearly and fully, and then restate the challenge for an alternative model.
First, we agree that what Joseph Smith reportedly translated from the KPs per Clayton overlaps what the GAEL says in the definition it assigns to the character it calls "ho-e-oop-hah."
So,
If--for the sake of assessing the GAEL translation model's viability, we grant, that Smith identified the boat-shaped "ho-e-oop-hah" as a match with the big boat-shaped character from the Kinderhook plates, this would have identified those plates as pertaining to a king who was a descendant of Pharaoh, etc.
In light of this, how would Smith have or have not related the Kinderhook plates with the Book of Mormon? A Book of Mormon-based anthropology of the ancient Americas provides precisely three groups to whom those plates could have been related. In the abstract, Smith could have connected to the Kinderhook plates to any of these three groups: 1) the Lehites, 2) the Mulekites, and 3) the Jaredites. Yet, although with no prior point of reference Smith could have connected the KPs with any of these three groups, once he matched the boat-shaped character with "ho-e-oop-hah," this would have provided new, limiting data. Since the ho-e-oop-hah connection would relate the plates to a descendant of Pharaoh, and therefore, in biblical and Mormon anthropology, not to an Israelite but to a "Hamite," this would have ruled out the Lehites and the Mulekites, who, as Israelites, were not descendants of Pharaoh or "Hamites." The only group it would not have ruled out from the Book of Mormon is the Jaredites.
So, the GAEL-translation model accounts directly for the identification of Kinderhook plates with the Jaredites
from the very modus operandi of the translation. That is, given the translation MO of connecting this GAEL character with a character on the KPs, there is no other conclusion Smith could reasonably draw. This is the one it leads directly to. Hence, no additional assumptions are needed, nor any additional steps needed. Translating from the Kinderhook plates via matching to ho-e-oop-hah just
means the translation content would imply that those plates were about Jaredites. The Kinderhook plates being Jaredite in nature follows from this mode of translation not merely as one
possible outcome among others but, rather, as a
necessary outcome since the translation content derived in this way
rules out the Lehites and the Mulekites. Since this model for Smith's translation from the Kinderhook plates accounts both for why those plates were identified with the Jaredites
rather than with the Lehites or Mulekites,
and for why Smith said they were about a kingly descendant of Pharaoh and possessor of heaven and earth, it leaves no explanatory remainder. Since it requires no further assumptions or steps, nor explanatory remainder on either of those matters, this a textbook case of a parsimonious explanation.
So, take this as a measure of the challenge I'm laying out for your two hypotheses that Smith compared the KPs to the gold plates transcript and translated from them by revelation. To meet such a challenge, it wouldn't do to speculatively pile stage upon stage, or step upon step, assumption upon assumption to get from Joseph Smith matching the KPs to the Nephite characters and translating them by revelation to them being a Jaredite record about a king descended from Pharaoh and possessor of heaven and earth.
That's too complicated an explanation beside the GAEL translation model. This model--that Joseph Smith compared the KP character with ho-e-oop-hah--disposes of all those data points in one fell swoop, making Smith's character comparison reported by Emmons
the same thing as his translation of them--a simpler explanation for what on your theory are distinct processes, accounts for the reported translation content, accounting for the plates being Jaredite, and even for Smith's otherwise incongruous connection of Jaredites with Egyptians. And it accounts for all this from Smith taking the action of comparing the Kinderhook plates with the GAEL's ho-e-oop-hah.
That's a very economical explanation. So, since history is inference to the
best explanation, the challenge I'm posing is to show that the alternative hypothesis can do the
same explanatory work
as economically. Alternatively, you could abandon that hypothesis in favor of the better one that actually does this explanatory work. If you're aiming for that level of explanation, then I'd propose that positing a complicated series of maybes with all sorts of steps and assumptions, and that doesn't explain why Smith got
this exact Jaredite, descendant of Pharaoh, heaven and earth content won't get you there.
I can see from your other post, and from a lot of your posts over time, that this Mormon studies stuff is a really fun creative outlet for you. You seem to enjoy it quite a bit--good for you! When it comes to the Kinderhook plates, I'm going to suggest--and obviously you don't have to listen to me at all--I'm going to suggest that you channel that creativity into additional areas that require such creativity: first, to, as you've already started to do, explore what the forgers were up to and where they got their ideas; and, second, instead of trying to refute, trying to help
refine and expand the GAEL-translation model. Just because Mark and I came up with a good model doesn't make it perfect. Given our limitations, it obviously can't be. A good model can be made
better.
Pointing in this direction, toward the end of our discussions on the subject before he passed away Johnny suggested to me that Joseph Smith may have compared the KPs to
both the GAEL
and the gold plates transcript. If so, this could account for the text he translated from it, via the GAEL, and could further account for Emmons confusing the GAEL with the gold plates transcript. Obviously the idea's fit with the Jaredite identity of the plates would have to be explored, etc. But it may hold promise as an expansion on what the GAEL model can explain.
You mentioned above the value of looking for new options. You obviously have a lot of experience with that already, but, for the heck of it, I'll give some of my thoughts on weighing models and generating new possibilities.
For me, often a good early step in assessing a model is to look at what it
does account for, and then seeing how much
more it can account for than has yet been recognized. If the model has wide explanatory power, particularly coupled with an economy of explanation (parsimony), then it usually points in the right direction.
If the model lacks explanatory power or parsimony, it may be a good idea to just junk the whole thing. But if it couples explanatory power with explanatory economy, then a best step is often to look for
anomalies in a model. What does it still
not account for? What makes for an uncomfortable fit with the model, or makes it overly complicated? These kinds of considerations can, of course, lead to just junking a model. But for a model that has good explanatory power and economy, for me this usually, instead, suggests
mutations on the model. At this point, as I know you recognize, you generate a lot of "what ifs" to potentially account for the anomaly and start throwing things against the wall to see what sticks.
Along these lines, the discussion has actually resulted in new insights for me that expand my model by suggesting that it can explain things I had not previously considered--such as how you helped me see how parsimoniously it accounts for the Jaredite nature of the plates.
Have fun!
Don