KEP Dictation Argument: The Evidence

[_wenglund]

So, in other words, the bad criticisms of your opponents set your agenda.

I wouldn't call it "bad". In fact I have found the KEP criticisms over the years to be fairly reasonable, though I disagreed with much of it. Even now I consider it reasonable, just incorrect because it is based on false premises.

Besides, the very nature of apologetics is such that our opponents essentially set the agenda.

Well, it is not clear to most people how the evidence is "mounting" as you say. Since we have yet to see a single publication, and most of the argument has concerned the dittograph, you'll have to excuse me if I don't follow you in your exuberance. And, no, I don't think this is simply a matter of "critics being desperate;" it is a matter of people who have studied the documents for some time not being persuaded yet. In other words, this drama is largely one of Will's manufacture.

I can respect that you see it that way.

If egos are behind any of this, it is the critics. Will and I and others who came late to this game, are simply having a bit of fun at the critic's expense.

Please don't tell me that you really believe this.

[/quote]

Perhaps our wry sense of humor is lost on you.

Hmmm... well, I can't say that the video clip of you repeating the same idea over and over regardless of any explanations or challenges to the contrary gave me the impression that you have a "let the chips fall where they may" attitude.

I can see how my feeble attempts at clarifying and reclarifying might be mistaken this way, particularly if someone is prone to making sweeping judgements based on the limited context of a single instance. Part of the reason that I kept pressing the point is because it was the very point that had escaped me prior to viewing Will's presentation, and which caused me to go with that chip where it fell even though it fell contrary to part of my own position at the time. I felt that the explanations and challenges that were being raised were because the implications of what I was saying had yet to fully dawn on them. At that point they may not have had time to sufficiently process the realization that many of the KEP characters and sounds were not Egyptian--or at least that is the way it appeared to me (though I could be wrong).

You know, I would like to believe that, but when so many apologists accuse my friends of simply being biased by their hate not to accept Will's theory enthusiastically, well that kind of lays bare the inaccuracy of your contention. Have you asked Don what he thinks? I am sure he would do what Trevor did (not surprising, since the two are friends); he would express praise for interesting observations, but likely would say he was not persuaded, at least yet.

Even were these unidentified apologist to have done as you said, that is entirely irrelevent to whether or not I and other apologists have consistently argued that the KEP issue is meaningless to the verity of Joseph as a prophet.. I haven't asked Don what he thinks, but I suspect that given his reconversion to the restored gospel, that he would agree that the KEP is irrelevant to the verity of Joseph's prophetic calling, regardless of what position Don may take on the KEP.

And that has nothing to do with anti-Mormon bias... since Don was recently baptized LDS.

I have yet to use the words "anti-Mormon" or "bias". Instead, I have carefully and intentionally chosen the terms "critics" and "vested interest". And, with as highly as I have long thought of Don, I don't consider him immune to "vested interests"--though perhaps he is considereably less affected thereby, and prone to resisting change, than some of the critics.

I am asking you that, because your behavior and the behavior of other apologists, makes it a pertinent question.

You are evidently reading my behavior quiet wrong, and evidently not rightly considering the behavior of critics over the last 40 years. But, no matter. You get to decide to whom you will address your questions. I just thought you would want to direct that particular question where it by far is best suited.

So you are now committed not to assume immediately that disagreement with all or part of Will's thesis is all about anti-Mormon bias?

Your question mistakenly presupposes that I have assumed that disaggreement with Will is because of anti-Mormon bias. I haven't. Again, I have yet to use the term "Anti-Mormon" in these discussions. Please understand, I don't fit the stereotypical pigeon-hole you seem intent on shoe-horning me into,.

[Edit: I will consider your more resent consiliatory comments to be more representative of your prevailing sentiment towards me, and as such you can ignore the many of comments in this post]

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_beastie]

Ignoring for the moment the modest change in what you said here as contrasted with what you said before, perhaps you didn't realize it, but you have now inadvertantly contradicted yourself. You have been claiming all along that Joseph wouldn't know an Egyptian character from Latin or Arimaic. Right? So then how is Joseph supposed pick out characters from a non-Egyptian cipher grid that he believes look like Egyptian characters, when he doesn't know what the Egyptian characters look like, particularly if they are missing from the Egyptian papyri.

And, if you are going to suddenly change you mind once again and figure that Joseph did know what Egyptian characters look like, then if he wished to use Egytian characters in the KEP, then there would have been no point to using a non-Egyptian cipher grid. He could have just drawn characters that looked Egyptian to him..

Either way, your modified version isn't any less insipid that your previous version.

But, let me be of some help here. If you wish to retain your unbelief in the restored gospel, that doesn't require you to make yourself look ridiculous coming up with alternative explanations for things like the KEP. All you have to do in response to apologetic theories is to say that you are unconvinced. You need not come up with a counter theory or hypothesis of your own. In fact, given you abismal track record, it would be in your interest to not float your own hypothesis, which you will then be obliged to substantiate, and will likely fail.

Really, I am just trying to make things easy for you and for me (I grow weary pointing out all the inanity).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

If you think I changed or contradicted myself, you still are not understanding my point, as your post makes painfully obvious.

I never said Joseph Smith successfully picked out Egyptian characters, for bleep's sake. The whole point of Will's theory is that he didn't pick out real Egyptian characters. The fact that Joseph Smith did not successfully pick out REAL Egyptian characters doesn't mean Joseph Smith, himself, didn't believe they were real Egyptian characters. He probably used "revelation" to do so. Maybe he forgot to try to shake the hand of the angel that pointed out the real Egyptian characters to him.

[_beastie]

Beastie,

A third scenario is that it was just a bunch of hot air, a scam. Kind of like the two guys in Huck Finn, when one was pretending to be deaf and dumb to get the dead mans fortune. Joseph Smith was a street smart man who was taking it as it came, always one step in front of disaster until it caught up with him. My guess is he wasn't even sure what he was going to do with the KEP. The biggest thing the Book of Abraham and the KEP did, whether he realized it or not, was to solidify to the saints that he was indeed a prophet worth following. Beastie I could be wrong here, but I think your giving him way too much credit? The real answer as to why, is very simple, and not a "scholarly" effort, the KEP was a PR production for the prophet to build his persona.

Look at how the Fair crowd was in anticipation for the WS presentation, he was, and still is a demigod of sorts to these guys. Can you imagine how it was back in Joseph Smith days with the word out that Joseph the seer was working on the translation of a document actually signed by Abraham and Joesph, and how his scribes would feed the choir of this incredible work Joseph had them doing? Right or wrong I believe this is the most likely senerio.

Take care
MG

True, that is another possibility. I admit I tend towards the pious fraud theory, which biases my comments.

[_beastie]

This is an expected, though ignorant scoff. It not only fails to consider situations where the information may only be sensative temporarily (human history is replete with such instances--in fact, if the scoffers will take a moment to recall that in some of the sections of the D&C, the names of leaders of the church were disguised for reasons of temporary secrecy), but it also mistakenly presumes that what-all ended up in the KEP was all that was intended to go nito the KEP, whereas there is strong evidence that the project was far from being completed when it was abandoned several month after it was started. Who is to say that there wasn't other information that may have been considered worthy of more perminent hidding that would have been included in the KEP had the project continued.

This also ignores the point I made about the KEP having a dual function--a function other than hidding information.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Please share the specific sensitive information they were compelled to hide. Thanks in advance. I have no doubt you can answer this immediately and clearly, since you would never make such an assertion without good evidence backing it up.

;)

[_beastie]

Do the KEP contain any genuine Egyptian hieroglyphs that can NOT be found on the papyri?

Actually, yes. At least a couple. They are astronomical symbols, possibly borrowed from a contemporary almanac.

Interesting. How certain is it that the almanac was the source?

[_beastie]

Besides, I believe you are asking the wrong questions. What you should be asking yourself is why does the KEP contain a number of non-Egyptian and non-papyri characters and sound, as well explanations that don't correctly match the right translations of the few Egyptian characters that were used in the KEP, if the KEP were intended to be used to academically translate that Book of Abraham?

Because Joseph Smith et al actually believed the figures were Egyptian. To be painfully clear for you, since you are so prone to distorting my comments, I don't believe that the figures were really Egyptian. I just think it's likely Joseph Smith et al believed they were - erroneously, of course.

Better yet, given Will's thesis and supporting evidence, which is being corroborated by trained textual critics, if portions of the Book of Abraham were translated prior to the KEP, and the KEP is dependant upon that translation, then why would the KEP be produced to academically translate what had already been translated?

For what feels like the millionth time: have you ever heard of the Rosetta Stone? Do you have any understanding of how it worked?

People can use already translated documents to help them create keys to translate future documents. I can't resist adding: d'oh.

[_William Schryver]

beastlie:

The whole point of Will's theory is that he didn't pick out real Egyptian characters.

LOL!

Oh, beastlie, go back to pretending to know something about ancient Mesoamerica before you expose yourself any further.

Suffice it to say that "the whole point of Will's theory" has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not "he didn't pick out real Egyptian characters."

But hey, it's going to be a lot easier for all of you to defeat the straw men you've been constructing than it will be to defeat my actual arguments, so, by all means, stick with the straw men.

[_beastie]

beastlie:

The whole point of Will's theory is that he didn't pick out real Egyptian characters.

LOL!

Oh, beastlie, go back to pretending to know something about ancient Mesoamerica before you expose yourself any further.

Suffice it to say that "the whole point of Will's theory" has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not "he didn't pick out real Egyptian characters."

But hey, it's going to be a lot easier for all of you to defeat the straw men you've been constructing than it will be to defeat my actual arguments, so, by all means, stick with the straw men.

I admit the "whole" was hyperbole. But are you seriously denying that it was apparently an important part of your theory that the KEP contains figures that are NOT Egyptian??????? Shall I go back and count the number of times you mentioned it? Here's just one of the times:

Thus, they see no contradiction in titling as Egyptian Counting a document that contains not a single element that is Egyptian, nor do they perceive any contradiction in titling the other documents Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, notwithstanding the fact that most of the characters they translate are not Egyptian, nor are the source texts themselves.

If you're already backpedaling from your own points, why, that is just plain entertaining. Even delightsome.

[Guest]

I wouldn't call it "bad". In fact I have found the KEP criticisms over the years to be fairly reasonable, though I disagreed with much of it. Even now I consider it reasonable, just incorrect because it is based on false premises.

Really? Maybe we are on different pages here, but I have a hard time believing that you would see the argument that the KEP proves Joseph Smith was a fraud as "reasonable."

Besides, the very nature of apologetics is such that our opponents essentially set the agenda.

Just one of the many reasons I prefer scholarship unencumbered by an apologetic agenda.

I can respect that you see it that way.

When I see more arguments than announcements about things that can be now conclusively demonstrated without conclusively demonstrating them, then I might join you in your enthusiasm.

Perhaps our wry sense of humor is lost on you.

Wade, I may be willing to concede the possibility that you are not driven by your ego. No one can be reasonably expected to believe the same about Mr. Schryver. And that has nothing to do with the fact that both of you have a sense of humor.

I can see how my feeble attempts at clarifying and reclarifying might be mistaken this way, particularly if someone is prone to making sweeping judgements based on the limited context of a single instance.

Maybe you are not aware of the fact that I have been reading your posts for years. LOL. So, fair or not, my judgment was not based on that clip in isolation. I shouldn't be teasing you about it, though.

I felt that the explanations and challenges that were being raised were because the implications of what I was saying had yet to fully dawn on them. At that point they may not have had time to sufficiently process the realization that many of the KEP characters and sounds were not Egyptian--or at least that is the way it appeared to me (though I could be wrong).

I can understand that you may have felt that way, but knowing some of those guys as well as I do, I am pretty sure they picked up on your perspective fairly quickly.

Even were these unidentified apologist to have done as you said, that is entirely irrelevent to whether or not I and other apologists have consistently argued that the KEP issue is meaningless to the verity of Joseph as a prophet.. I haven't asked Don what he thinks, but I suspect that given his reconversion to the restored gospel, that he would agree that the KEP is irrelevant to the verity of Joseph's prophetic calling, regardless of what position Don may take on the KEP.

At the very least, it shows that apologists are prone to treat everyone who does not agree with Will's new theory like an anti-Mormon, and that clearly is not the case.

I have yet to use the words "anti-Mormon" or "bias". Instead, I have carefully and intentionally chosen the terms "critics" and "vested interest". And, with as highly as I have long thought of Don, I don't consider him immune to "vested interests"--though perhaps he is considereably less affected thereby, and prone to resisting change, than some of the critics.

Well, I am not sure what you are insinuating about Don by your reference to "vested interests." Would you care to enlighten me? And, whether one uses the term critic or anti-Mormon, you are still, in my mind, suggesting that the only reason one does not fully embrace Will's views now is because of some non-believer bias. And again, Don's example should be enough to disabuse you of that mistaken notion.

Your question mistakenly presupposes that I have assumed that disaggreement with Will is because of anti-Mormon bias. I haven't. Again, I have yet to use the term "Anti-Mormon" in these discussions. Please understand, I don't fit the stereotypical pigeon-hole you seem intent on shoe-horning me into.

I will refine my question: do you believe not accepting Will's theory right now is the result of not believing that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God?

[_Kishkumen]

If you're already backpedaling from your own points, why, that is just plain entertaining. Even delightsome.

I really wouldn't take much of what Will says on these boards seriously. He is begging everyone not to. I am only too happy to oblige.