Markk wrote:kevin,beastie,chris,
Curious, what is your opinons of what the Book of Abraham and the KEP are? I'm sure you guy's covered it somewhere here but this is a loooong thread. What do you think was Smiths motive?
Thanks
MG
Please remember I am relatively uninformed on this issue, which I proved earlier with my Willards gaffe. I rely mainly on the more informed opinions of others to form my own tentative opinion.
I tend to think Nibley was right, and this was a reverse-engineered document with the intent of providing a sort of template for the translation of future Egyptian documents. I also tend towards the pious fraud theory, in which Smith's first gullible victim was himself: I think he really believed in the supernatural, and really believed he had some "gift" of translating ancient languages. Even if he didn't really believe it himself, he realized how important it was to present that front to his followers. Joseph Smith "filled in" the missing gaps with other figures he obtained either from the Anthon document or from other sources, like the Masonic cipher and other sources of Egyptian figures. He also likely believed future Egyptian documents would be found containing elements of other "truths" he'd received through "revelation", so wanted to be prepared to translate that, as well. That would explain the elements Will says are influenced by Smith's other "revelations". I think Smith was fascinated by ancient languages and loved to look learned, so it makes sense he wanted to figure out the phonetic portion, as well: how to actually "speak" these words.
I think Smith likely suffered from some mental disorder like bipolar or a delusional grandiosity disorder. In both, it would be quite consistent for him to take on such a bizarre project as this. In short, I think Smith's motive was that he really believed in his ability to translate Egyptian, and was excited about translating future potential finds. But it is possible that he knew he couldn't, and was simply doing it to persuade his followers that he could.