KEP Debate in Pundits

[_dartagnan]

I love the way you just diffused Will's long-winded rant with a simple statement of fact.

It amazes me how he thinks he has in any way substantiated his argument by showing us letters that have been downsized by 30%. All that wasted bandwidth for nothing. As if anyone has every argued against the fact that these lines were intended to be crammed into a tight space.

He simply refuses to acknolwedge the fact that the Egyptian character is what demarked the next line, as has been proved in various instances before. He doesn't even acknolwedge this because to do so puts his pet theory in a tail-spin.

I proved this in the threads here but he never responded to the evidence. He just pretends it isn't there. We know for a fact that the Egyptian characters denote the next string of dictated material.

[_dartagnan]

Will responded:

I consider this suggestion unpersuasive.

LOL! Gee, surprise surprise. And why does he consider it unpersuasive? He doesn't say. It isn't as if he has dealt with the evidence supporting this. He sees it as unpersuasive simply because he needs to. That is why he never addresses the evidence in its favor. That is why he flat out lied by saying the Egyptian never corresponds to new sentences or paragraphs. If he could at least get this simple fact to register in his head, he would have no problem seeing the correlation between the Egyptian and the English texts.

I think it is also apparent that "commencement" consciously rises to avoid the ascender of the "b" in "bedsted," reinforcing the notion that the line below was already present.

In his dreams. "Commencement" simply follows the same angle as the rest of the sentence, flowing perfectly parallel with the line above it. This is perfectly consistent with what I have proposed., and it does nothing to support Will's argument that the line below was already there.

Of course, if it is confirmed that the parenthesis overwrites the "h" below it, then we will have proof positive.

Brent has already provided compelling evidence that the "h" was written after it, which completely destroys Will's silly theory.

Now I am anxious that our readers understand that, unless there were already a line written BELOW this insertion, there would be no need for the scribe to attempt to squeeze this insertion into a limited space. The available space must have already been demarked by the succeeding line, otherwise the scribe would have perceived no need to significantly decrease the size of the letters/words in the inserted phrase.

He can't really be this stupid. Or maybe he just suspects everyone else is?

The scribe already knew another line was in the making, which is all the reason he needed to squeeze the text up into the open cave above. It doesn't logically follow that a line below must have preexisted!

[_Trevor]

Yea, he is just mimicking Dan Peterson. It makes him feel like part of the group over there.

DCP-lite is exactly my impression of him.

[_Who Knows]

I don't have time to make a long drawn out post (i can leave that up to someone else if anyone cares), but has anyone thrown 1:14 into the mix yet? Seems like Will wants 1:12 to be kind of an afterthought - In other words, not part of the translation. However, 1:14 alludes to pretty much the same thing 1:12 is alluding to, but there's none of the "strangeness" (as Will calls it If I recall correctly) with 1:14 as there is with 1:12.

Sorry if that doesn't make sense. Re-read Will's opening post, and you'll get what i'm talking about.

[_dartagnan]

Chris, don't give Will an excuse to keep ignoring the points he needs to address. Frankly I have no idea what you're point is about "vertical compression." I don't see it.

Make him address the fact that commencement "doesn't rise noticeably more than the rest of the insertion." He ignored that point.

[_dartagnan]

Sometimes, as they say, a picture paints a thousand words. The simple act of scoring lines to indicate the plane upon which each of these lines has been written illustrates quite eloquently that we are dealing here with an insertion.

Earth to Will: Nobody has ever denied we are dealing with an insertion!!!!!!!

Stop trying to rack up points by setting straw men on fire.

The fact that the two yellow lines run parallel with one another refutes Will's assertion tat the word "commencement" was moved up to avoid the line below.

[_Wheat]

[dartagnan] Nobody has ever denied we are dealing with an insertion!!!!!!!

I thought that’s what Metcalfe has been arguing all along.

[Brent Metcalfe] I'm convinced that the ink flow indicates that the curved line (Schryver's [and your?] "parenthesis") was inscribed before the h in "the" on the line below.

If the lines indicated by the yellow scoring were written before the line below, how could it be considered an “insertion”? Or is there some nuance of the definition of “insertion” that you’re using?

[Guest]

It was an insertion, but it was inserted before the next line was written. Will is arguing that the line of text below, along with the rest of the page, had already been written and then at some future point, he came back and put those two lines in the gap.

I offered my explanation for this textual phenomenon and Brent agreed with me. Nobody is arguing that it wasn't an insertion, only that it wasn't a later insertion.

If the lines indicated by the yellow scoring were written before the line below, how could it be considered an “insertion”?

Because it was "inserted" into the gap; a gap that was made by the ascending line above!

Or is there some nuance of the definition of “insertion” that you’re using?

Nope.
1. to put or place in
2. to introduce or cause to be introduced into the body of something

This works just fine in the dictation secenario I proposed. Will's entire argument hangs on the baseless assumption that the next line was already there. He has absolutely zero evidence for this. Chris and I keep pounding this point but he doesn't want to acknowledge any evidence against it. Such as the fact that the Egyptian characters correspond to newly dictated text.

And Brent has already provided ink analysis that shows the second line partially overwrites the inserted text.

[Brent Metcalfe] I'm convinced that the ink flow indicates that the curved line (Schryver's [and your?] "parenthesis") was inscribed before the h in "the" on the line below.

Exactly. Brent said it was written before the next line whereas WIll is arguing it was written afterwards! That's teh difference.

[_dartagnan]

This is how I explained it back in November of last year, so Will is without excuse by misrepresenting the critical position:

The insertion of "commencement of this record" was placed in the appropriate gap in order to return the transcription to a balanced format. I've done this on plenty occasions when writing on sheets void of lines. Notebook paper contains lines to help keep the writing horizontal. The scribe clearly filled in the huge gap for the purpose of smoothing the text out and recommencing with a perfectly horizontal line.

And:

I see Williams clumsily letting his sentence drift upwards (for whatever reason that distracted him) until it crashes into the line above. At this point he probably realized he had one of two choices to make. He could 1) continue to write all subsequent sentences with the upward angle or he could 2) try to level it all out again, knowing that if he did this, it would leave a huge gap in the middle of the page. I suspect he went with option two and decided to fill in the expected gap with the rest of the sentence.

In any event, I do not think it a mere coincidence that both manuscripts show these errors in this exact spot, especially since their errors tend to be identical in all other areas as well. If the rest of these errors can only be explained as dictation errors, then this strongly suggests that this error is somehow related to dictation as well.

http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... php?t=3836

[_Wheat]

[dartagnan] Will's entire argument hangs on the baseless assumption that the next line was already there. He has absolutely zero evidence for this. Chris and I keep pounding this point but he doesn't want to acknowledge any evidence against it. Such as the fact that the Egyptian characters correspond to newly dictated text.

I don’t understand. What is the evidence that the next line was not already there? And how does the Egyptian character relate to the idea that the next line was not already written? I’m not following you.

And Brent has already provided ink analysis that shows the second line partially overwrites the inserted text.

Really? I must have missed that. How did he do ink analysis from photographs? How did he prove that the line overwrites the inserted text?