Intellectual Bankruptcy of Book of Abraham apologetics

[_William Schryver]

The sound you now hear is all of the text critics in the world laughing at Kevin "Cracker" Graham, the rhetoritician pretending to practice textual criticism.

So that represents your detailed explanation, huh?

Wow! You really haven't a clue about this stuff. It's no wonder Metcalfe was able to destroy you so easily. You just don't think things through all the way. You fire from the hip and scatter crap all over the place and hope that the smoke and dust will hide the fact that you're nothing but a tough-talking blowhard when it comes right down to it.

Anyway, I'm going to sleep now, I'll be busy most of tomorrow, but I'll come back soon enough and deal with your so-called "details" that are supposed to strike fear into the soul of every apologist.

Not that it will matter to your indiscriminate friends here. They never read your posts anyway. They just rubber stamp them because they know that is required in any case.

But, since I know there are others looking in who are curious, I will discuss your "arguments," such as they are, and explain why this is a definitive dittograph in every possible way, and then I'll move on to presenting the arguments in a more formal format and setting.

Then we'll see if Metcalfe has something more to offer on this question than you do.

[_Dr. Shades]

(with thanks in advance for diagrams helpfully linked by Kevin Graham)

I have some questions for you, Will.

But first, let's assume you're correct and that there's, oh, twenty feet of missing papyrus--plenty of space to insert the Book of Abraham. Let's also assume you're correct in a second respect and the Book of Abraham really was translated by the gift and power of God.

Now, let's take a look at the Egyptian characters in the following diagram, paying particular attention to the top three:



Now let's examine the next diagram, whose characters 1-7 show the Egyptian characters that appear down the left margin of the first diagram. As we do so, let's assume that the word "invented" is a poor choice of words and that the word "revealed" would've been the correct labeling:



Why would God need to reveal any characters, when they were merely written on the papyrus? For the answer, let's take a look at where characters 4-7 appeared on the papyrus, and from that, let's deduce where characters 1-3 would've appeared:



Notice anything? The revealed characters would've appeared precisely where a chunk of the papyri is damaged or otherwise missing. THAT'S WHY THEY WERE REVEALED AND NOT MERELY COPIED: They no longer existed on the original papyrus.

Now, if there's an extra 20 feet of missing papyrus that contained the Book of Abraham, why would God need to reveal, to Joseph Smith, Jr., characters from a portion of the papyrii that wasn't part of the Book of Abraham?

[_Paul Osborne]

This has been a very interesting read. I'm afraid Will S. has gone nuts and the whole thing has become a slug fest of just poking, f*****g, and screwing one another for the sake of intellectual fun and games. Sigh! I just hope we all learn to love each other and realize this is just a big experiment in getting to know each other in this crazy earth life. Ok, I admit, I am one of those near-death-experience believer freaks who is just trying to wave the flag of love-one-another.

I'm going to bed and sleep this whole thing off. For years, I've ate, slept, and prayed the Book of Abraham and KEP to death, and all I want is peace. I would to God Joseph Smith would show up set the record straight. For the most part, apologetic Mormonism regarding the Book of Abraham is totally corrupt and and in my view doesn't represent Joseph Smith and his companions at all. It seems Modern LDS apologists don't know a damn thing about Joseph Smith's supernatural faith promoting experiences. Indeed, Mormonism has gone away from Mormonism. Joseph Smith is not happy with how he has been represented by those who should have known him best. Modern Book of Abraham LDS apologetics is apostate and ready to burned in the fire when the Lord comes again.

Joseph Smith believed he was working within the realms of the supernatural and he really wanted his fellow men to come together in love. Really, when you meet him in the hereafter you can ask him yourself. He will tell you that himself.

Paul O

[_harmony]

. Really, when you meet him in the hereafter you can ask him yourself. He will tell you that himself.

Paul O

I have no plans to visit hell.

[_William Schryver]

The Landlord:

Now, if there's an extra 20 feet of missing papyrus that contained the Book of Abraham, why would God need to reveal, to Joseph Smith, Jr., characters from a portion of the papyrii that wasn't part of the Book of Abraham?

I only have but a few minutes this afternoon, but I wanted to reply briefly to you.

You know, Shades, I can’t quite explain it—even to myself—but for some reason I feel a certain degree of sincere affection for you that isn’t aroused by many other of your tenants here in the GSTP™. Maybe I tend to look on you as a younger brother gone alee, and I just can’t help but feel congenial towards you despite yourself.

But to your question.

Your entire query is based upon an assumption that is anything but certain.

You see this image crop?


Recognize it?

You have been led to believe that it comes from something someone has called the “translation papers” of Joseph Smith’s revelation that rendered the Book of Abraham into modern idiom.

It doesn’t. Which is to say these documents are not the original transcript of Joseph Smith’s “translation” of the Book of Abraham.

In fact, in conjunction with my upcoming paper on the visual copying errors in KEPA 2, (which will also contain a rebuttal of Kevin “Cracker” Graham’s “detailed explanation” of the repeated paragraph on page 4 of that document) I will present, for the first time anywhere, my argument and evidence that the exemplar from which KEPA 2 was copied did not contain Egyptian characters associated with the English text.

That’s right.

Again: these documents are not what you have been led to believe they are.

Furthermore, despite many assertions to that effect, there is no persuasive evidence I have ever seen that would support the conclusion that Joseph Smith had anything to do with the production of this particular document (KEPA 2) nor the invention of these “revealed characters” (as you have termed them).

But that is a discussion for another day.

L’hitraot …

[_Paul Osborne]

. Really, when you meet him in the hereafter you can ask him yourself. He will tell you that himself.

Paul O

I have no plans to visit hell.

Oh rats - I guess I'm going to hell.

Will you miss me while you tread in your heavenly blisses above? How about if I blow you a kiss from the smoking coals?

Paul O

[Guest]

Again: these documents are not what you have been led to believe they are.

Yes, that was Hauglid's contention on your youtube video, but I remain unconvinced. We'll see what your future work brings forward in support of it.

Even if what you say is true--namely, that these KEPA documents are copied from a master which did not contain the fake Egyptian characters--that does not explain why these characters were created and why the people who added them to the KEPA documents thought that these characters were the source of the Book of Abraham.

The simplest explanation is that Joseph Smith made up the characters, or received them via revelation, as a restoration of the text, and that he told his scribes that they were the source of the Book of Abraham, which leaves you in a couple of the same binds you guys are already in. For example, this would point to the current extant fragments being the source of the Book of Abraham and not some large missing fragment, as you all would like to have it.

In short, it does not seem to me that your repeated invocation of your yet-to-be explicated theory about the nature of the KEPA documents provides anything close to a complete answer to Shades' question, or could even promise to in the future.

[_Kevin Graham]

LOL.

Every time Will posts you expect him to end it with "and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen"

All he ever does is bear his testimony while pretending this adds value to the discussion. He has no evidence, and he clearly doesn't know evidence when it slaps him in the face.

This nimrod just said he has seen nothing that would lead him to believe Joseph Smith had anything to do with these translaton papers. Yet, less than two years ago he emailed me and told me that he believes that if it weren't for his "testimony" that Joseph Smith had to be a real prophet, he would have to agree with all the critics on this issue because that is where the evidence leads. Nevermind the fact that every testimony by the scribes, speakng about their work with the papyri, speak of involvement with Joseph Smith. Not a single one talks about having worked on this stuff alone, without Joseph Smith. Yet, ths is what Will has to believe, despite the evidence. He talks about t as if it is so obvious and he refers to "experts" who he says confirm everythng he says. Do we really need to drag out all the times when he said the same thing about Haugld, who Will misrepresented more than a few times?

Ths guy is an embarrassment to apologetics, but he will get his time in the spot light because nobody else is dumb enough to risk ther credibility. In that sense, Will has nothing to lose. He sat here and taunted me, claiming I had never addressed his dittocrap argument, and then when I present proof that I addressed it back in 2006 and again in 2007, he switches gears and starts ridiculng the response. He won't address the fact he lied about this. He refuses to address any criticsm. Oh, now he says he'll do it in some future "paper" for the apologetic press, but he doesn't have the balls to do it here.

Likewise, he doesn't have the balls to own up to any of his ignorant statements. Just yesterday he accused me of misrepresenting Hauglid when I said he tried to take credit for identifying the scribe in Ms1a, several years after their nemesis, Ed Ashment, had already done so. I then provided a video clip that Will filmed and edited, that proved I was right. How does Will respond? As he always does. With his tail between his legs. He won't respond to it. We can only suspect he plans to write up another "paper" explaining how Hauglid was actually giving credit to Ashment. He doesn't have the courage to stand up to his own stupidity where and when it counts. He'll wait until the storm blows over, retreat back to his apologetc haven, try to recruit another half dozen posters for help, and then prepare some future rant that starts out misrepresenting the arguments we have put forward. De ja vue.

And no Will, you have not read my detailed response to your dittocrap argument. There is much more than that post mentioned, and I covered some of those other things in the discussion that proceeded from that post. The fact is, the only "text critical" evidence you think you have is the fact that it begins and ends with the same word. Haran. That't all you have and you keep trying to milk it. Trying to squeeze blood from a stone. You ignore the fact that the margin was suddenly ignored and that the Egyptian character was not added, even though we already established beyond doubt that the characters were significant in their placements (which is why you were lying about page one of Ms1a, by saying they were tossed about "at random." You needed them to have no significance, so you just created this non existent evidence from thin air, and then when you're called out for the BS, you try to downplay your goof as if it were just an innocent mistake).

You ignore the significance of the Egyptian characters and breach of the margin. These things count as text critcial evidence, but you ignore it by pretending they don't matter because yo start from the concluson and then filter all the text-critical evidence accordingly. No professonal textual critic worth his salt would follow your dismissal, because it is based strictly on the need to believe in a copyist scenario.

Ok, here is the part where you start bragging about evdence you have never shown, and a devastating presentation you'll never present. We've seen your "wait and see" nonsense. We know BS when we see it.

And we knew you would fail to respond to the seven ponts I mentioned. You won't because you can't. This BS about how you have been gagged by scholars, is ridiculous. You really think you're that important, as if you were a secret agent with classified information. Hilarious.

[_Kishkumen]

Kevin:

Out of curiosity, why do you think that the KEPA manuscripts are so well punctuated when earlier dictation manuscripts of Smith revelations were not? I do note that there seems to have been a progression from less punctuated to more, and so the KEPA would represent the other extreme. I am not particularly persuaded by this line of argument, but it is something to deal with, and I was curious what you, or maybe Celestial Kingdom, thought of it.

Kishkumen

[_Kevin Graham]

Again: these documents are not what you have been led to believe they are.

Let's cut through this BS right now.

WIll would have you follow the typcal apologetic mentality that Metcalfe, Ashment and myself were born from Satan, anti-Mormons since birth. He would have you beleve we have a vested nterest n seeing the Church fall.

Realty check.

Ed Ashment and Brent Metcalfe were faithful LDS members until they were commisioned to study the KEP. They did not go into it like Hauglid and Schryver admittedly do. Meaning, they did not go into it with an agenda of finding fault with Smith, as the apologists try to vindicate Smith. The evidence was just so damn overwhelming, they had to have their personal battle between faith and reason. Reason won. There are others too, who refuse to be named because of the way Mormons respond to those who think critically. One person on my forum was serving as a bishop at the time, and we were on the same page. I believe the same holds true for other Mormon intellectuals such as Michael Marquardt. Mike Reed, a former FAIR apologist, left the faith and I am pretty sure the Book of Abraham controversy played a role.

And as for myself, I was a die-hard apologist, as most people know. Just serach my name at the FAIR website and you'll probably find a dozen links. At ZLMB I fought tooth and nail to prove all the BS Will pretends to be proving right at this moment. For years the primary online apologetc proposing the "missing papyr" was an article I wrote for FAIR. I asked to have it removed, which they finally did after more than a year.

So get the facts right Will. The critical positon has convinced faithful LDS, who stand to gain nothing by accepting it. That there proves the strength of the argument and the evidence. In fact, they stand to lose plenty by allowng themselves to be convinced that Joseph Smith wasn't what he claimed to be. It absolutely devastated me when found out. My world collapsed. I had recently been married in the Temple, and for the first time in 20 years I had a sure knowledge that Joseph Smith was a fraud. That sent shockwaves into my social life as well as my famliy life. I was attacked for being an apostate, first and foremost by Will Schryver at FAIR. But it didn't end there. I had to deal with the constant naggng from Bishops and Stake Presidents in Florida, Atlanta, and then in Brasil. None of whom, could tell you a single fact about the Joseph Smith papyri or the KEP. I was instructed to pray and repent over and over. Nobody could debate the matter because nobody knew anything about it. Amazing.

Now it is a fact that the dictaton theory has convinced people on both sides.

The copyist theory cannot say the same.

How many critics have been convinced by Will's dittocrap argument? How many non Mormons? None. Zilch. Why? Because as Will once said, without a testimony, the most compelling conclusion would always be that Joseph Smith was a fraud. That is the only honest thing I thnk Will had ever said to me.

The fact that he said this and now claims there is no evidence to believe this, proves he is a duplicitous apologist and should not be trusted. It also proves that these apologetic arguments are designed, not to convince rational thinkers who have not been deluded by testimonies, but rather it is intended to minimize the powerful effect the dictation theory is having on strugglng LDS. This is why Will's arguments sound more like a testimony meeting than anything else.

Oh how I would absolutely LOVE to find out through a deduction of evidence, that Joseph Smith really did know how to translate Egyptian. But I stopped torturing myself with that fantasy years ago. And I am sick of the idiots at FAIR attacking me for "apostasy" for breakng my "covenants," bla bla bla. I don't feel a damn bit bad about it because I know for a fact that if I had known what I know now, 20 years ago, I never would have been baptized. And the funny thing is, by his own admission, Will wouldn't have either. The Church encourages ignorance because it knows perfectly well what would be too much for a prospective convert to swallow, and it makes a point not to share it before baptism (or afterwards, for that matter).

So Will, how may non-LDS apologsts have you convinced the KEP do not represent translation manuscripts?

Think Will. Gee didn't have access to the KEP even to publish his book on them, and he was the only LDS Egyptologist on the planet at the time. After Nibley, it was LDS faithfuls, Ed Ashment and Brent Metcalfe who studied them in detail. And then LDS historian Micahel Marquardt obtained a copy of the microfilm. They are now full supporters of the dictation theory. Not looking so good for the Church at this pont, huh? That is why it became extremely difficult to obtain access to the documents, and only those with bullet proof testimonies can do so. What a joke.