KEP Dictation Argument: The Evidence

[_William Schryver]

Paul Osborne:

The differences between these two words (son & sun) are like night and day.

Unfortunately, for your argument, Metcalfe has long been misrepresenting the evidence, and no one has ever bothered to verify his claims.

The first instance is not "son" at all. It is "sun." Indeed, what we're really dealing with at that locus is either another dittograph, or (if not a dittograph) merely a case where Parrish wrote "sun" poorly and therefore decided to re-do it. In any case, there is no "o" between the "s" and the "n". It is clearly a "u". It is not a case of homophonic mishearing.

And so another of the so-called "evidences for dictation" bites the dust--along with all the rest.

I have now carefully analyzed each of the alleged evidences for dictation as they have frequently been cited by you and Graham. All of them are examples of what I talk about in the post I linked above: Secondary Emendations in Ab2 and Ab3

[_William Schryver]

LOL!

I just love it when the resident would-be Mesoamericanist of The Great and Spacious Trailer Park© waxes astounded by things she doesn't even remotely understand.

That's the reason I'm astounded, Will. It doesn't take any expertise to recognize that your theory, in certain areas, is quite awkward, and even inconsistent.

For example: what expertise does it require to recognize the inconsistency in this:

a - you assert that Joseph Smith et al viewed Egyptian as synonymous with "pure language"
b - you assert that Joseph Smith et al were attempting to construct a "pure language"
c - that had nothing to do with Egyptian
d - because elements contained no Egyptian characters

There is no expertise required to recognize that if Joseph Smith et al believed Egyptian was synonymous with pure language, and they were attempting to construct a pure language, then it absolutely had something to do with Egyptian AND it didn't matter if it didn't contain Egyptian characters because no one was there to tell them that the characters they were including were not Egyptian characters. So if Joseph Smith, through revelation or relying on sources that he believed had Egyptian roots (Masonry), added characters he believed, or claimed, to be Egyptian, no one could prove that they weren't.

And what expertise does it require to recognize that Paul and Will are correct when they assert that your theory requiring the scribes to insert a mistake immediately followed by a correction but only later inserting the strike-out is odd on its face, and quite illogical. Why would the scribes only go back later, when they would have to wade through the text, to insert the strike-out? That makes no sense. That's why I said "at what point is common sense allowed to intervene?"

Now, maybe your theory will actually turn out to be correct. I don't know. I'm not qualified to judge that, and neither are your cheerleaders, with few exceptions. My point is that your theory isn't an obvious slam dunk, because it does contain inconsistencies such as above, and it does require the existence of a mysterious, previously unknown document. That's not a slam dunk, and yet your cheerleaders act as if you've delivered a massive slam dunk that critics are ridiculous not to concede. If your theory is correct, it is yet to be proven, and you have to deal with these inconsistencies and other issues pointed out. And you know that, because you keep alluding to your future work which will, supposedly, deliver the REAL slam dunk.

If you have yet to deliver the REAL slam dunk, why do your cheerleaders act as if it's already been scored?

We all know the answer to that, don't we?

You mentioned earlier that you believers "know what is at stake". I think that you, and other defenders of the faith now quivering in ecstasy over your imaginary slam dunk, actually realized that the critical arguments against the Book of Abraham are devastating, despite your bluster otherwise. So you, and other believers, are extremely emotionally invested in this theory because you think it's your only chance to make a dent in those devastating critiques. Your emotional investment is just too high to recognize that what you've presented, to this point, is far from a slam dunk precisely because it contains problems that even someone with only cursory knowledge on the issue can recognize.

OTOH, for critics, this issue is by and large peripheral. If your theory turns out to be correct, its impact will be minor. The papyri still don't match the Book of Abraham. That's why this has been one of the most entertaining episodes in As LDS Apology Turns in a long time, and for that I thank you.

I find the degree of your misunderstandings and misinterpretations of my arguments to be rather stunning. Or at least they would be did they not proceed from you.

The real beauty of my findings is their simplicity and the way they serve to harmonize all of the textual and historical evidence. This is why they will continue to have potent explanatory value into the future, long after the anti-intellectual rantings of the GSTP have been forgotten.

[_Paul Osborne]

And so another of the so-called "evidences for dictation" bites the dust--along with all the rest.

It’s not over, William. If I wanted to I could fire a whole arsenal of weapons against you at anytime and overwhelm you.

Now, I trust you are somewhat familiar with the contents of MS 1b, page R. You think that Parrish was simply copying from a parent document and I think he was writing by way of oral dictation. Now, perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me who Warren Parrish had in mind as he wrote the word “THEY” on line 22. Does the “THEY” refer to the virgins or the priests?

Hint: Do notice the word and location of the word “WERE” on the same line. Now, go think about it for a while. That way I have some time to laugh at you while you scratch your head.

Paul O

[_William Schryver]

Osborne:

If I wanted to I could fire a whole arsenal of weapons against you at anytime and overwhelm you.

LOL!

Sure you could, Paul. Sure you could.

Isn't it happy hour yet?

[_William Schryver]

And so another of the so-called "evidences for dictation" bites the dust--along with all the rest.

It’s not over, William. If I wanted to I could fire a whole arsenal of weapons against you at anytime and overwhelm you.

Now, I trust you are somewhat familiar with the contents of MS 1b, page R. You think that Parrish was simply copying from a parent document and I think he was writing by way of oral dictation. Now, perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me who Warren Parrish had in mind as he wrote the word “THEY” on line 22. Does the “THEY” refer to the virgins or the priests?

Hint: Do notice the word and location of the word “WERE” on the same line. Now, go think about it for a while. That way I have some time to laugh at you while you scratch your head.

Paul O

By the way, Paul, why do you believe that a supralinear insertion is evidence of a manuscript being the product of oral dictation? Upon what text-critical principle is your conclusion based?

[_Paul Osborne]

By the way, Paul, why do you believe that a supralinear insertion is evidence of a manuscript being the product of oral dictation? Upon what text-critical principle is your conclusion based?

Are you trying to pull me into this argument, William? I don't want to fight about the KEP anymore. I have other interests and Crown Royal Black is one of them.

You managed to answer my question with a question. I guess that means you're not a critical thinker on the same level as me. Could it be you dropped more acid than I did? Gee, I'd cut my blotter hits with a razor and make em last.

Paul O

[_beastie]

I find the degree of your misunderstandings and misinterpretations of my arguments to be rather stunning. Or at least they would be did they not proceed from you.

The real beauty of my findings is their simplicity and the way they serve to harmonize all of the textual and historical evidence. This is why they will continue to have potent explanatory value into the future, long after the anti-intellectual rantings of the GSTP have been forgotten.

Here are your statements that I carefully transcribed from your talk, supporting my summary of your "Egyptian=pure language=but nothing to do with pure language concoction". I'm repeating portions of a previous post I made on this matter:

In the mind of Phelps and the others, Egyptian was apparently believed to have somehow avoided the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel. Egyptian, therefore, became a term that, for them, was synonymous with “pure language.”

But then Will ignores his own premise and pretends that Joseph Smith and his cohorts would have recognized the fact that they were including nonEgyptian elements in the KEP and would have realized that meant it wasn’t really Egyptian at all. (insert Scooby-Do “HUNH” here?) Joseph Smith thought Egyptian was the pure language of the ancients because it escaped the confounding of the Tower of Babel. Some elements were missing from the written text of the papyri as well as the facsimiles, and Joseph Smith inserted other elements for those missing portions. No one, including Joseph Smith, had the ability at that time period to correctly identify elements as non-Egyptian, since the cracking of the Rosetta Stone was in its early days. So when Joseph Smith relied on Masonic elements or other elements that he, like so many others, thought were related to the “pure language of the Egyptians”, he most likely thought those elements were Egyptian.

This does not mean that Joseph Smith did not “intend the documents to translate Egyptian”. It means that Joseph Smith didn’t know Egyptian, and neither did anyone else.

In fact, Will’s thesis is dependent on one of the worst cases of presentism that I’ve ever seen. Since we are able to now know what real Egyptian looks like, then Joseph Smith must have known that as well. !?!?!?!?!?!?!?

“In the mind of Phelps and the others, Egyptian was apparently believed to have somehow avoided the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel. Egyptian, therefore, became a term that, for them, was synonymous with “pure language. 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. Again, the evidence strongly suggests that the Alphabet and Grammar was never intended nor designed to decipher anything. Quite to the contrary, it was a short-lived attempt to construct an idiographic cipher and lexicon, whereby those who produced it took selections of Joseph Smith’s body of revelatory texts, written in English, and assigned to them simple character values. In their minds, the capacity of a single character to represent a word, or a sentence, or even an entire paragraph of over a hundred words, was typical of what they believed to have been the pure language of the ancients. Don’t misunderstand – I have encountered no evidence to date that they believe they were actually restoring the language of Adam, although it is possible that they believed that some of the characters they produced had come to them through inspiration. No, it appears they were merely producing their own rendition of what they believed pure language would be like. Deciphering Egyptian scrolls was not their purpose.”

Let me get this straight. Joseph thought Egyptian was synonymous with pure language because it escaped the corruption of the Tower of Babel. Joseph Smith had no way of knowing what elements were or were not Egyptian at that time period. He included nonEgyptian elements from sources that he thought were associated with the pure language of the ancients. And yet that means he knew he wasn’t using real Egyptian characters? So that means he knew this key would not decipher real Egyptians??

If Joseph Smith thought Egyptian was synonymous with the pure language of the ancients because it escaped the corruption of the Tower of Babel, then when he used elements “through inspiration” or by borrowing from sources he thought used the pure language of the ancients… then he thought those elements were Egyptian. And there was certainly no John Gee to correct him.

[_William Schryver]

beastlie dear,

The point that seems to be eluding you is that most of the characters to which explanations were given are not taken from the papyri. And, seeing as how several of them were clearly selected from the Masonic cipher (with which Phelps, at least, was certainly familiar) it is therefore obvious that they knew these characters were not Egyptian.

There is much more I could highlight in the way of your misapprehensions of my arguments, but I don't really see the point in it. Do you?

[_Kevin Graham]

Will is a glutton for punishment, that's for sure. He can't hold his own against anyone on this forum.

[_beastie]

beastlie dear,

The point that seems to be eluding you is that most of the characters to which explanations were given are not taken from the papyri. And, seeing as how several of them were clearly selected from the Masonic cipher (with which Phelps, at least, was certainly familiar) it is therefore obvious that they knew these characters were not Egyptian.

There is much more I could highlight in the way of your misapprehensions of my arguments, but I don't really see the point in it. Do you?

Are you even reading what I'm posting?

You have offered zero evidence that Joseph Smith and his cohorts did not believe the figures were Egyptian. Your entire sum of evidence on this point, unless you've shared more elsewhere, is that the figures did not come from the papyri. Then you make the unsubstantiated leap that this meant Joseph Smith knew the figures weren't Egyptian. Like I said, this is a severe case of presentism. It was - and still is - commonly believed that Masonry is deeply entwined with ancient Egypt, so it is quite logical that someone with Joseph Smith's background would believe those figures were, in fact, Egyptian. After all, he had GOD telling him these things, didn't he? If he, and others, mistakenly believed the Masonic figures were Egyptian, which, again, would not be surprising given the myths surrounding Masonry and ancient Egypt, there was no John Gee to set him straight.