Zub Zool oan and Abraham 1:2b?????3

[_William Schryver]

... we also know that it was character-based translation, not revelation disconnected from an ancient writing.

How do we "know" this?

What does a "character-based translation" even mean, in your opinion?

How do you know Warren Parrish was not being very specific in saying that Joseph Smith was translating "hieroglyphicks"? I have the 1818 Encyclopedia Brittanica entry for "Egypt". It very specifically distinguishes (and has numerous examples of) hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic characters. This very common resource was almost certainly available in Kirtland in 1835.

Warren Parrish's handwriting appears in the GAEL only in portions associated with Facsimile #2 and other aspects of the material related to the "astronomy of the ancients."

The hypocephalus (Facsimile #2) contains numerous hieroglyphic characters that were given explanations by Joseph Smith, and the GAEL proves that most of Facsimile #2 was translated in 1835. The EA/GAEL also attest a conclusive dependency on Abr. 3 - 5, contrary to your assertion that 2:19ff was translated in Nauvoo (this will be a myth that will soon go the way of Metcalfe as Text Critic Extraordinaire).

The bottom line is that your statement "we also know that it was a character-based translation, not revelation disconnected from an ancient writing" is not based in any evidence, and the evidence you seem to believe supports your conclusion doesn't say what you seem to believe it does, and is actually entirely consistent with the theses I have proposed.

[_sock puppet]

So he was relying on direct revelation to translate the characters rather than using the EAG?

Is that a yes on my question? Also, Smith's claim to have translated the Egyptian hieroglyphs by inspiration is in no way in conflict with the catalyst theory (which does not hold that he didn't look at it or that anyone, including him, understood exactly what was taking place).

Yes, as to at least portions if not all that Warren Parrish was handling the scribe duties, which was after we know from Joseph Smith's diary entries that work was already under way on the KEP, since late July 1835. Parrish wasn't hired until mid-November 1835. And we know from the 10/1/1835 diary entry that as laboring on the EA, the System of astronomy unfolded to them, but Abr 3 was not translated until 1842.

[_sock puppet]

... we also know that it was character-based translation, not revelation disconnected from an ancient writing.

How do we "know" this?

Parrish said he "penned down the translation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks [sic] as [Joseph Smith] claimed to receive it by direct inspiration from Heaven."

What does a "character-based translation" even mean, in your opinion?

I use the term "character-based translation" to describe what Parrish himself termed "translation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks". I suppose that an apologist might think that Parrish meant by that he and Joseph Smith had been skinny dipping in a pond on the outskirts of Kirtland. But others understand.

How do you know Warren Parrish was not being very specific in saying that Joseph Smith was translating "hieroglyphicks"? I have the 1818 Encyclopedia Brittanica entry for "Egypt". It very specifically distinguishes (and has numerous examples of) hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic characters. This very common resource was almost certainly available in Kirtland in 1835.

Warren Parrish's handwriting appears in the GAEL only in portions associated with Facsimile #2 and other aspects of the material related to the "astronomy of the ancients."

The hypocephalus (Facsimile #2) contains numerous hieroglyphic characters that were given explanations by Joseph Smith, and the GAEL proves that most of Facsimile #2 was translated in 1835. The EA/GAEL also attest a conclusive dependency on Abr. 3 - 5, contrary to your assertion that 2:19ff was translated in Nauvoo (this will be a myth that will soon go the way of Metcalfe as Text Critic Extraordinaire).

The bottom line is that your statement "we also know that it was a character-based translation, not revelation disconnected from an ancient writing" is not based in any evidence, and the evidence you seem to believe supports your conclusion doesn't say what you seem to believe it does, and is actually entirely consistent with the theses I have proposed.

But that's the problem, Will, Joseph Smith knew better than to put into his Explanation (translation as he called it in the text) to Facsimile No. 2 any thing purporting to be the English meaning of the hieroglyphs that do appear on Facsimile No. 2.

Very wily of Joseph Smith to only give interpretations of the pictographs that appeared on Facsimile No. 2, not of any of the characters--neither the original, surviving hieroglyphs nor the Joseph Smith-added hieratics that he put upside down. You can glean this fact by reviewing here, http://scriptures.LDS.org/en/abr/fac_2.

So where is this penned translation of hieroglyphics by Parrish?

Just by way of chronology, the System of astronomy was unfolded to Smith and his scribes on 10/1/1835 while laboring on the EA. About 6 weeks later is when Parrish was hired as a scribe. So his scribing for Smith about the astronomy of the ancients was not incident to the initial "unfolding" of the System of astronomy, but subsequent work on the "astronomy of the ancients" part of Abr.

[_William Schryver]

sock puppet:

Just by way of chronology, the System of astronomy was unfolded to Smith and his scribes on 10/1/1835 while laboring on the EA. About 6 weeks later is when Parrish was hired as a scribe. So his scribing for Smith about the astronomy of the ancients was not incident to the initial "unfolding" of the System of astronomy, but subsequent work on the "astronomy of the ancients" part of Abr.

Precisely!

Which is why I have argued that the GAEL astronomy material is dependent on a predecessor source document.

In any case, I will not be coming back here to banter with you people. You simply don't know what you're talking about and you're not amenable to correction, even when it is presented in a completely non-polemical fashion.

I marvel at mak's patience with you, notwithstanding your utter inability to comprehend what he is talking about.

Good luck in your attempts to stem the tide of the ongoing confirmation of my findings as presented on August 6th. Aside from the two dozen or so people who congregate here, I doubt you'll find much of an audience for your tales.

One last note: you insinuated in another thread that my references to trained text critics having affirmed my findings means "Royal Skousen". While it is true that Royal has confirmed all of my findings along the way (and that he is unquestionably one of the most respected and qualified text critics on the planet) Skousen is not a forensic document analyst (whereas George Throckmorton is) nor is Royal the only expert in text criticism who has verified my findings. There are no fewer than five such people (not counting Throckmorton, who only examined the Abr. 1:12 issue).

So, while the denizens of The Great and Spacious Trailer Park will continue to reject everything I have argued, your blind and mindless disparagement will have no effect beyond this small corner of cyberspace.

Good luck in all you do.

I shan't be visiting you again ...

[_sock puppet]

sock puppet:

Just by way of chronology, the System of astronomy was unfolded to Smith and his scribes on 10/1/1835 while laboring on the EA. About 6 weeks later is when Parrish was hired as a scribe. So his scribing for Smith about the astronomy of the ancients was not incident to the initial "unfolding" of the System of astronomy, but subsequent work on the "astronomy of the ancients" part of Abr.

Precisely!

Which is why I have argued that the GAEL astronomy material is dependent on a predecessor source document.

In any case, I will not be coming back here to banter with you people. You simply don't know what you're talking about and you're not amenable to correction, even when it is presented in a completely non-polemical fashion.

I marvel at mak's patience with you, notwithstanding your utter inability to comprehend what he is talking about.

Good luck in your attempts to stem the tide of the ongoing confirmation of my findings as presented on August 6th. Aside from the two dozen or so people who congregate here, I doubt you'll find much of an audience for your tales.

One last note: you insinuated in another thread that my references to trained text critics having affirmed my findings means "Royal Skousen". While it is true that Royal has confirmed all of my findings along the way (and that he is unquestionably one of the most respected and qualified text critics on the planet) Skousen is not a forensic document analyst (whereas George Throckmorton is) nor is Royal the only expert in text criticism who has verified my findings. There are no fewer than five such people (not counting Throckmorton, who only examined the Abr. 1:12 issue).

So, while the denizens of The Great and Spacious Trailer Park will continue to reject everything I have argued, your blind and mindless disparagement will have no effect beyond this small corner of cyberspace.

Good luck in all you do.

I shan't be visiting you again ...

To paraphrase the late Linda Ellerby, "And so he goes"--again, never to return. Off to his Shan'ty town called MAD.

Since Will likes music (even though that too is questionable given his aversion to Kurt Cobain), here's a parting gift Will by the great Peter Tosh (and Mick Jagger): http://www.wat.tv/video/peter-tosh-mick-jagger-walk-22yp1_2flcz_.html

[_Trevor]

So, while the denizens of The Great and Spacious Trailer Park will continue to reject everything I have argued, your blind and mindless disparagement will have no effect beyond this small corner of cyberspace.

Good luck in all you do.

I shan't be visiting you again ...

Best wishes, Will. I hope you are, for your sake, a man of your word on this. I won't fault you if it turns out that you are not, because, well, we have all witnessed far too many final farewells that turned out to be not so final. But, if our off board discussion is any indication of what would be best for you and your project, then perhaps you truly would be better off making it a final farewell.

Having said that, let no one think that I am telling Will to leave.

In the little bit of off board interaction I have had with Will, I have found him to be a reasonable and decent person. His "act" on these boards, however, leaves much to be desired.

I don't know why some apologists believe that this kind of "red meat" approach to apologetics is productive. Indeed, such an approach did quite a bit to turn me off of the Church. No, it did not show me that the Gospel is not true, or any such thing, but it had me questioning whether these are the kind of people I want to be like, let alone spend time with.

Oddly, in real life Will has many wonderful qualities. But you really might not know this from how he has acted here and over on MA&D. Witness the difference in the discussion between mak taking up the debate and Will. Whom would you rather have a discussion or debate with?

In my mind there is no question. If there were a single wish I had in connection with Mormon apologetics, it would be that this style of insult, belittling, condescending, and angry confrontation would come to an end. Now that Will has shown that he is capable of presenting in an academic style, let him rise above the fray and behave like that on the boards too.

I would rather Will were an ornament among the scholars than Pahoran's more witty and entertaining sidekick.

[_maklelan]

Yes, as to at least portions if not all that Warren Parrish was handling the scribe duties, which was after we know from Joseph Smith's diary entries that work was already under way on the KEP, since late July 1835. Parrish wasn't hired until mid-November 1835. And we know from the 10/1/1835 diary entry that as laboring on the EA, the System of astronomy unfolded to them, but Abr 3 was not translated until 1842.

There's that statement again. What is it that leads you to believe Abr 3 was not translated until 1842?

[_Kevin Graham]

I don’t quite know what it is about self-delusion run amok that so compellingly attracts the gaze of even the most disinterested passersby, but watching Kevin Graham spiral down into the depths of his own disordered delusions of triumph now finds me perilously close to crossing the line from amusement to pity.

Even so, I can’t help but review in my own mind the twists and turns of the past four years since I first became involved in the online discussion of Book of Abraham-related issues. Over the course of that time, I have engaged in numerous debates with Metcalfe, Vogel, and Smith, and watch Paul Osborne and Kevin Graham slide into the abyss of a pride-fueled and rage-filled apostasy. Those two I have ignored, for the most part, for the simple reason that … well, they’re nuts—something everyone here recognizes, but is willing to overlook when they think it serves the greater good of the cause of anti-Mormonism.

In any case, I did a quick mental review of the most significant of the arguments and findings I have made over the years. I think it might be appropriate to list some of those findings that now enjoy greater confirmation than ever before, having been subjected to the test of time and the careful scrutiny of experts qualified to confirm or reject them.

So, in more or less chronological order:

• I observed, assembled a body of evidence, and argued that Ab1(Phelps)—the passage of Abr. 1:1-3 about which Dan McClellan has been speaking the past week—attests text critical evidence of having been visually copied from an earlier document.
  
  This finding has been repeatedly confirmed by trained text critics who have assessed it.
  `
• I observed, assembled a body of evidence, and argued that the overwhelming majority of the emendations in Ab2(Williams) and Ab3(Parrish) are secondary, rather than being so-called “in-line” corrections made during the course of a dictation session.
  
  This finding has been repeatedly confirmed by trained text critics who have assessed it.
  `
• I observed, assembled a body of evidence, and argued that Ab2(Williams) attested a text-book case of dittography—a visual copying error—on page 4, thus confirming the hypothesis that the document in question is a copy of an earlier document, rather than a transcript of a dictation session.
  
  This finding has been repeatedly confirmed by trained text critics who have assessed it.
  `
• I observed, assembled a body of evidence, and argued that the phrase “I will refer you to the representation that is at the commencement of this record” at Abr. 1:12 in Ab2(Williams) is, in fact, a secondary, inter-linear insertion.
  
  This finding has been repeatedly confirmed by trained text critics who have assessed it, as well as one of the foremost forensic document analysts in the country.
  `
• I observed, assembled a body of evidence, and have now argued that the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar is dependent on a pre-existing text of the Book of Abraham.
  
  This finding has now been repeatedly confirmed by trained text critics who have assessed it.

My thesis of the Alphabet and Grammar as a species of ideographic cipher and lexicon is now being assessed, and the initial returns are universally favorable. More work remains to be done, but I am confident that the underlying premise of the thesis is correct and that it will yet be confirmed by a growing consensus of those qualified to speak to the subject matter.

All in all, it is a rather remarkable track record, if I don’t say so myself, especially considering how consistently and universally my findings and I have been disparaged and summarily rejected by the “wise in their own eyes” who make their home here in The Great and Spacious Trailer Park©.

Is it any wonder that I now consider the derision and rejection of the people here as the surest indicator of the correctness of anything I propose?

So I want to thank you all for being the one constant amid the changing winds and varying tides of the ongoing Book of Abraham controversy. Armed with the established principle that you summarily reject only that which is ultimately proven true has permitted me to confidently put my theories and findings to the test here, knowing that your rejection is a sure guarantee of eventual vindication.

-WS

Wow, so after that rant, who would doubt Will has ego issues? It was observaed a while back by several people on this forum that in the case of Will, everything is almost aalways about Will.

In Will's presentation he had to essentially deny the testimony of his own Prophet. In order for his thesis to work, translation cannot mean translation, and Egyptian cannot mean Egyptian. It takes a special kind of mental gymnastics to pull this off, but it seems his battle against the English language doesn't stop there. In the above rant he thinks "confirmed" is synonymous with "agreed upon" and he thinks "expert" is synonymous with credentialed apologist. And now he stomps off as he usually does after these kinds of send offs.

[_Paul Osborne]

In any case, I will not be coming back here to banter with you people. You simply don't know what you're talking about and you're not amenable to correction, even when it is presented in a completely non-polemical fashion.

Oh William, you don't have to come back, you edited by harmony: violation of Terrestial Rule #1. But you will. You can't resist. Besides, who else is really going to listen to you? And you can always come here and be nasty with us.

Paul O

[_maklelan]

Oh William, you don't have to come back, you edited by harmony. But you will. You can't resist. Besides, who else is really going to listen to you? And you can always come here and be nasty with us.

Paul O

I don't appreciate that tone at all, Paul, and I'll not participate on this board if this comment isn't removed by you or someone else.