KEP: A Quasi-Forensic, non-theory-ladened, Analysis

[_Kevin Graham]

I am not sure where you got your digital copy of “The Sample”, but I appreciate you posting it so I can download it to my computer.

This isn't exactly earth shattering news. I thought you were on the cutting edge here?

http://beta.josephsmithpapers.org/paper ... march-1832

What I find interesting are the notable differences between the “Sample” and the “Specimen”.

I didn't say they were the same, but the characters are the same and presented in the same order in the specimen and in the GAEL. The point is Joseph Smith had worked on translating the "Pure Language" three years before Phelps shared a snippet with his wife, and the two resemble enough to attribute providence to Smith.

Aside from the spelling differences, the characters are different

The sample doesn't contain characters. What you see in the left column are Q's and A's representing Question&Answers.

and the formatting is different (the “Sample” is broken out into two columns, and takes the form of Q&A; whereas the “Specimen” has four columns, and reads more like an grammar, and includes the addition of sounds along with the names/words and explanations.)

So what? No one ever said they were identical. I said the specimen in Phelp's letter was almost exactly as the example provided in the GAEL.

Is there any substantial evidence to suggest that Phelps couldn’t be responsible for the change in characters, columns, the addition of sounds associated with the names/words, and formatting as a grammar rather than Q&A?

Just what I've already presented, which should be more than enough for most reasonable folks who understand how to weigh evidence. Of course, we know that doesn't include you.

Please look a little closer, Kevin. While the same symbols from the specimen appeared in the EA's and GAEL, the sounds/names and English explanations were in many respects markedly different.

That's why I said "ALMOST" exactly, idiot.

not to mention that there are two columns in the specimen containing what appear to be sounds and names/words, whereas with the EA’s and the GAEL, there is only one column

So what? Will relies heavily on the specimen found in Phelp's 1835 letter to his wife to suggest Phelps was in the business of doing pure language projects on his own. Yes, there are differences in translation between this and the GAEL, but it is clear the meanings found in Phelp's specimen relate to those provided by Joseph Smith in March 1832.

For example, the specimen says the first character is pronounced "ah ahman" and says its meaning is "God." Compare this to Smith's 1832 explanation, even though no character is provided in the document:

Q- The meaning of the pure word A[w]men
A- It is the being which made all things in all its parts.

Likewise, the second character in the Phelps letter is described as "Son of Ahman" or something similar, whereas the second answer given by Smith three years prior was:

Q-What is the name of the Son of God.
A-The Son Awmen.

This is enough to establish a source for the data in Phelp's letter. There is simply no reasonable basis for asserting Phelps came up with this on his own. He clearly borrowed what Smith had already provided. Now as to why the definitions differ in the GAEL, well this probably has to do with it being represented in the "second degree"but it doesn't rerally matter either way, as your apologetic is sufficiently refuted.

Again, is there any substantial evidence to suggest that Phelps couldn’t be responsible for these differences between the specimen and the EA’s as well as between the EA’s and the GAEL?

Is there any substantial evidence to suggest Will didn't beat his wife last night? The way you approach problems and evaluate evidence is downright scary. You begin everything by looking for negative proof, and then draw your illicit conclusions accordingly. All for the cause of defending the Church, of course.

I don’t know who those apologist supposedly are, but I have not suggested that Joseph Smith couldn’t have been behind the GAEL.

I never said you did say he COULDN'T. But you're clearly vested in this notion that he didn't.

Rather, I believe the evidence is more compelling that Phelps was the driving force behind the GAEL

That's because you're an apologist who flips his brain into irrational thinking mode whenever it comes to defending your precious prophet. You know these documents are full of damning evidence against him, it is best to pretend he had nothing to do with them. And your ignorance of your ownn Church history and Church scholarship doesn't change the fact that both have traditionally accepted the "anti-Mormon" argument that Joseph Smith was responsible for this. Ever since this was published a few years ago, more and more Mormons are coming to recognize it because it is the most logical conclusion: http://latest.mormonletters.org/post/20 ... Smith.aspx

I am not a linguist, nor do I teach language for a living, but even I know that the English language is derived from a number of other languages, including ancient languages. You can read about it HERE.

Languages are not created in a vacuum, but your argument is asinine because it avoids the incident at Babel entirely. Yes, the epistemic tree leading to English branches from West Germanic, to Old English to Middle-English, etc... but you're an idiot if you think "Son" in modern English could possibly have meant "Son" to the first human being while "son" meant nothing in the languages just below. Want to find out what "Son" meant in Old English, Middle English, Germanic, etc? There are online translators for this, and the meaning doesn't even come close linguistically or phonetically. But according to Joseph Smith, it was miraculously restored by the first English speakers who somehow managed to leap through thousands of years of lingustic transitions, to discover the original meaning. And if Joseph Smith believes three words survived in modern English, in such a short text example, then just think if he were given the chance to restore the pure language. He'd probably maintain that 30-40% of all English words resembled the same language Adam spoke. Kinda makes you wonder how successful the Babel incident really was!

Besides, even were the English language not derived from the most ancient known languages, this does not mean that it can’t share, coincidentally, certain words and meanings with those ancient languages.

So it is just a blind coincidence for Smith that Son means Son, Man means Man, Angel means Angl, etc?? With this comment you again illustrate why you cannot be taken seriously.

As such, the only way that Joseph may be deemed a false prophet in this insignificant regard, is for us to know the Adamic language.

Sigh, not even close. And if you understood how languages form, you'd know this. There are no similarities between English and languages much closer to English, such as Chinese or Hebrew. And yet you think it is reasonable to assume reasonable overlap between languages separated by more than 60,000 years? Yes wade, you're a moron. And Joseph Smith was a fraud, as proved by the document above. No linguist in the world would agree to what you just said (quick, go email Skousen!).

[_Darth J]

Considering that you think that handshakes and secret passwords plagiarized from Freemasons are the way to get past the angels who stand as sentinels on the way to the Celestial Kingdom, no, I am not surprised that you don't see Joseph Smith looking like a crackpot here.

Yes, I do already know the answer: the Book of Abraham is a hoax, and that would be the case whether or not the Kirtland Egyptian Papers had ever been discovered. I was just wondering if apologists intend to address this at some point vis-à-vis this nail in the coffin that was buried under Mt. Doom, etc. So far, neither William Schryver nor his disciples appear willing---or more importantly, capable---of doing so.

And yes, Wade, I am very well aware that "what's the point of all this?" is irrelevant to your thread.

Oh, good. I was hoping that you would, in your uniquely lame way, perform your Pee Wee Herman immitation before I left this thread. I wasn't disappointed.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Wade, a person with no credentials who starts a website to cure homosexuality by analogizing sexual behavior to locksmithing is in no place to start calling people Pee-Wee Herman.

And signing off with playground comebacks is an especially transparent way to show that you can't address an issue.

[_Kevin Graham]

When it comes to secular enterprises like constructing new languages, one would expect there to be a huge disparity in quality between the scholastic-related work of an Oxford linguistics proffesor in the early 1900's, and the brief hobby of either an uneducated farm boy and/or a prairi-educated newspaper editor in the early 1800's.

Nice try, but Smith never claimed to be constructing a "new" language. He claimed to be restoring the oldest language ever. There is nothing "secular" about this enterprise since he relied on his power as "prophet seer and revelator" as the means of production. That is what's so great about this 1832 sample. It renders Will's ad hoc, "it was a secular endeavor" apologetic, untenable.

The fact is Smith's "sample" of the pure Adamic language is further proof that he was a fraud.The more information that comes to light, the more problems the apologists have trying to force feed their arguments to beings with cognitive abilities. There is no possibility that modern English could retain similarities, let alone entire words that are identical to what was spoken tens of thousands of years ago.

God = Awman
Son = Son
Angels = Angls-men

Moreover, in the temple we learned that the name of God as spoken in heaven is "Elohim" and the son's name is "Jehovah." So which is it? Seems like Joseph Smith couldn't quite make up his mind what kind of BS he wanted to feed us.

[_wenglund]

Some of us are capable of grasping simple concepts like: restoring a presumably long extinct language is little different than creating a new language (both are "new" to us); and that a given person may be called by a number of names: William, Bill, dad, father, brother, son, friend, sir, Dr., boss, president, Elder, bishop, etc.

Be that as it may, it might be interesting to look at the comlexity of the English explanations in the EA, and see what this might tell us about whether the EA may be dependant upon a pre-existing text or the origination of the text.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Kevin Graham]

Some of us are capable of grasping simple concepts

The only thing you're grasping are straws.

restoring a presumably long extinct language is little different than creating a new language (both are "new" to us)

So because they share this one thing in common (being new to us) this means they are "little different." Creating a new language from scratch requires imagination at every level of its development, whereas a restoration requires nothing more than "revelation." LIttle different? Hardly.

a given person may be called by a number of names: William, Bill, dad, father, brother, son, friend, sir, Dr., boss, president, Elder, bishop, etc.

?????

Be that as it may, it might be interesting to look at the comlexity of the English explanations in the EA, and see what this might tell us about whether the EA may be dependant upon a pre-existing text or the origination of the text.

This is an apologetic fishing trip, without a shred of evidence to justify the effort. The only motive behind it is to support a presumed apologetic value, which supposedly the results might yield.

In the meantime, you and Will have totally screwed the pooch on this subject every way imaginable. You have yet to make a single valid point that in any way distances Joseph Smith from the project. Your so-called ace in the hole, Phelps's letter, further proves Joseph Smith was the source of the content found on both documents. Will's argument about a preextisting translation is based on nothing more than an unscholarly method which he created from whole cloth: His idiotic "Substantial Word Analysis."

[_sethpayne]

Tolkein's elvish makes Smith's Adamic look like the scribblings of a child with ADD.

But at least the compelling narrative and literary strength of the Book of Mormon compares favorably with Tolkien, right?

In all fairness, the Book of Mormon narrative from Mosiah onward is pretty impressive/complex and contains some insightful theological expansions of 19th century New England Protestantism. In that sense, the Book of Mormon is a very important piece of religious literature. It is only fair that we credit Joseph Smith with being, as Harold Bloom states, "a religious genius."

I don't find the Spalding/Rigdon theory compelling but rather, I find Grant Palmer's thesis much more plausible: Joseph Smith had an incredible memory and was very familiar with the KJV text. The notion that Joseph Smith was a stupid farm boy is an untenable claim. One not need be highly educated to be a genius with an incredible gift for reworking texts and developing complex narratives.

Does the Book of Mormon compare to Tolkein? No. At least not in my estimation but this is comparing apples to oranges. Tolkein was a highly educated linguist and took years to craft his English mythology. Joseph Smith likely developed the Book of Mormon narrative in his mind over the course of several years and then dictated it to his scribes.

That is my best guess, at least given the primary sources we on the dictation process.

P.S. sorry to go off-topic

[_harmony]

Joseph Smith likely developed the Book of Mormon narrative in his mind over the course of several years and then dictated it to his scribes.

Which lands him solidly in the "fraud" department.

[_Kevin Graham]

As is always the case with Will Schryver apologetics, the only way he can even begin to lure fellow believers down his line of thinking and convince them he is actually on to something, is by lying to them. From his much hyped presentation:

"William Phelps was extremely interested in the notion of something he termed, Pure Language. His interest was contagious and both Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery manifest a similar longing for what they imagined was the purity of language as delivered by God to Adam."

As you can see, Will has to operate from the premise that William Wines Phelps was responsible for this notion of a pure language, saying he was the one who "termed" it. He said that Joseph Smith only became interested later, because Phelps made it "contagious." His evidence for these assertions? The letter Phelps wrote to his wife, which I have already shown to be based on a previous document provided by Joseph Smith.

This will just get added to the long list of attempts by Schryver to deceive his audience.

[_wenglund]

Ignoring for the moment the banal and dogmatic well-poisoning and false conclusion jumped to in relation Will's FAIR presentation, let's take a look at the English explanations in the EA, starting with Part 1, the First Degree.

The first thing that strikes me as odd is the very existence of the explanations--and this in a document that is titled as an "Alphabet". Perhaps the word "Alphabet" meant something different in 1835 than it does today, but what I would expect from an alphabet would be, well, an alphabetical list of the english letters corresponding with Egyptian characters, rather than explanations.

From what I can tell, it appears that at least Phelps started out his EA that way (associating English alphabet with the characters), but stopped after the second or third letter, while Joseph didn't include the letters at all (which I find instructive--Phelps evidently took it upon himself to assign letters that Joseph had not, thereby evincing at least some level of independent action on Phelps' part).

So, the existence of the explanations draw into question the use, or at least the meaning, of the word "Alphabet", in the title.

Perhaps the intent (innitially or eventually) was to produce an alphabetized list of words with explanations, similar to a dictionary. But, there are no English words listed and associated with the Engish explanations (as would be expected in a dictionary), just non-English, seemingly un-alphebatized sounds, and an inexplicable admixture of characters.

The only place I recall seeing anything of this sort was the English version of the Kabbalah Alphabet--which applies layers of meaning to each letter of the Hebrew Alphabet.

The second thing that struck me was that the explations in Part 1 appear to be all (with one or two possible exceptions) descriptions of persons, places, or things. It is a list of nouns.

Third, the list of nouns don't seem drawn indiscriminately from across the full gamut of language, but appear to be restricted to, as Will pointed out in his FAIR presentation, a very narrow subjectmatter.

For the most part, the list of nouns in Part 1, the First Degree, are in reference to things that are, in various respects, first: first in power, rank, creation/time.

Other less common themes include: royalty, women, earthly things, etc.

And,, even though each of the explanations don't all fit any one of the themes, the themes overlap, and thus seem inter-related in a fairly narrow way--made even more narrow by some of the explanations that don't fit the common themes, but logically seem to be connected.

Is this a coincidence? In other words, according to the previously agreed-upon internal production sequence, after the list of characters were written down in the EA, and then assigned non-English and non-Egyptian sounds (derived from who knows where), were the list of explanations pulled individual out of the air at random and just happened to end up being narrowly related nouns?

Or, was there something intentional driving the narrowly focused order and design? Could the explanation have been drawn from pre-existing texts--scriptural narratives, perhaps?

Something to consider.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_sethpayne]

Joseph Smith likely developed the Book of Mormon narrative in his mind over the course of several years and then dictated it to his scribes.

Which lands him solidly in the "fraud" department.

Well, unless Joseph truly believed he was being visited by angels and being told stories of Nephites etc...

Lots of people claim religious revelation. Are they all frauds or are they just sincere people who truly believe what their mind is telling them?