What is most interesting about all of this iis the way everyone insists Will's presentation will be irrevocable, definitive, and end to all criticism. This is strange because for years the apologists tried to posture themselves as scholarly by maintaining that scholarship always changes, and anything can come up later to refute current theories, etc. But they do not treat Will's argument as a theory susceptible to refuting evidence. They treat it as unimpeachable doctrine, which simply blows me away. It blows me away because Will himself has said that he is not presenting any new data whatsoever, and that his entire argument is based strictly on his observation of the cruddy microfilm version of the KEP. Something that the Tanners have been selling for decades. This mean it is merely an interpretation-based argument, which are among the flimsiest of arguments. I also find it interesting the way the apologists misrepresent the "critics" as a group of "frustrated" people who simply don't know how to handle this so called devastating news. This is funny because Schryver told us about this stuff months ago, even a year ago, and we blew it off as more wishful apologetics by Schryver. Only when he's managed to get FAIR and the LDS media to pimp it as an indestructible fact, do the critics get curious as to what's really going on.
Just look at what Deseret News had to say about this:
A Book of Abraham mystery to be solved at FAIR Conference
By Michael De Groote
Deseret News
Published: Thursday, July 29, 2010 3:00 p.m. MDT
William Schryver is onto something big, and it's driving critics of the Book of Abraham crazy.
Schryver is scheduled to speak at the FAIR Conference, an annual event presented by the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research or FAIR. The conference focuses on defending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints against misrepresentation.
This year's conference is Aug. 5 and 6 at the South Towne Exposition Center in Sandy. Schryver's presentation on "The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers" is one of several topics by other speakers such as David Bokovoy, Jeff Bradshaw, William Duncan, Craig Foster, John Gee, Brian Hales, Valerie Hudson, Gary Lawrence, Steve Mayfield, Dan Peterson, Shirley Ricks, Stephen Ricks, Matthew Roper, Royal Skousen and Peter Watkins.
Schryver's topic has garnered the most buzz on the Internet — leading to frustrating speculation by many critics and praise by those who have seen an early version of the presentation. The Deseret News saw a video version of this presentation on July 26. If Schryver, a software engineer, is correct in his analysis, the last 40 years of scholarship about the Kirtland Egyptian Papers will need to be revised.
The Kirtland Egyptian Papers are a collection of documents created in Kirtland, Ohio, by Joseph Smith and his associates. The content of the papers has long presented a puzzle to scholars. Critics have maintained that the papers were used in the process of translating the Mormon scripture called the Book of Abraham — and that the translation is incorrect. Many Mormon scholars, however, have thought the documents show an attempt of Joseph Smith's associates to decipher Egyptian by using the text of the Book of Abraham as a Rosetta stone — a sort of reverse engineering project.
Schryver will argue on Aug. 6 that both approaches are incorrect. "I am purporting to give a comprehensive answer to the question, 'What is the meaning and purpose of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers?'" Schryver said. "That has never been done."
Greg Smith, one online commenter who had also seen the early version of Schryver's presentation, put it this way: "Schryver has, I think, pretty much killed, buried, and nailed the coffin shut on the idea the KEP are the 'translation documents' of the Book of Abraham, and then thrown the coffin into Mount Doom, before dropping Mt Doom under the continental plates."
Other topics to be covered at the conference include the original text of the Book of Mormon, Fawn Brodie's faulty look at Joseph Smith and plural marriage, Book of Mormon geography, the "Big Love" television program, how people view Mormons and more.
More information can be found on FAIR's website, http://www.fairlds.org. Live online audio streaming of the event will be available for a fee during the conference.
Don't they understand that the higher they raise this thing, the harder it will fall? Does this sound like cautious scholarship, or simply a turned up version of the illicit hype from the 2006 Hauglid presentation?
If critics of the KEP are getting antsy or excitied, it probably has more to do with yet another opportunity to shoot down another apologetic theory built upon sand. I mean all of the people who are bragging about it, admittedly know very little about the subject, and Will doesn't even mention the argument by the critics (according to those who previewed it), which means they have no alternative theory to compare it to. This was a deceptive tactic employed by Hauglid as well. The only way he could sell his argument at the 2006 FAIR conference was by pretending the critics had no argument, and then carefully showed slides that seemed to support only his theory.