DiscussMormonism.com

In the other thread here I reported my opinion that Kevin and George were destroying Wade over there. I want to be sure I'm understanding the issues correctly, so that my opinion is grounded properly. I'm going to post what I think has happened in that thread so far, in order to hash out whether I did in fact "get it". Please feel free, anyone, to chime in with either substantive answers to questions I raise, or to raise substantive questions of your own.

I'm not an expert on the subject of the EA and GAEL, and I have not read most or even all of the papers in the bibliography that Kevin posted. In my mind this was all lumped together under the heading "Kirtland Egyptian Papers" (KEP). I understand that documents called "Egyptian Alphabet" exist in the hands of WW Phelps, Joseph Smith, and Oliver Cowdery. Another document, called "Grammar & Alphabet of the Egyptian Language" exists, in the hand of WW Phelps.

I admit that I don't know the difference between the EA documents and the GAEL document - like I said, until these were just lumped together as part of the KEP collection.

So Will puts forward a theory that says that the symbols on the EA were intended to be used to encipher English text by Joseph Smith or Joseph Smith with his helpers. Will says that the characters did not seem to bear any relation to the scrap of papyrus from which Facsimile 1 (the lion couch scene) is taken.

Am I understanding this correctly so far? Please, anyone feel free to elaborate if I'm misunderstanding this.

So Kevin and George post a bunch of photographs of the papyrus, and also of the relevant pages from the EA and GAEL documents, showing that columns, or blocks of Egyptian symbols were copied, en masse, from the lion-couch papyrus.

In the EA document, a lot of symbols are listed, and some of them have an accompanying English explanation. These are referred to by Wade as the "explained" symbols. Others are listed, but not explained in English. Some have fake Egyptian names given but no English "translation", so are not "explained" according to Wade.

Apparently, if one only considers the characters in the EA that are "explained" by Wade's definition, then you cannot find a block of Egyptian symbols on the lion-couch papyrus that directly corresponds to them. George points out, however, that apparently some or most of the "explained" symbols are just dissected parts of some symbols that are, in fact, found on the lion-couch papyrus.

The crucial gyst of Kevin and George's posts is this: between the EA and GAEL documents, practically all of the symbols shown in these documents originally come from the lion-couch papyrus, or else were made up (invented by Joseph Smith or his partners) to "fill in" for places in the character sequence where the original Egyptian symbols were no longer extant due to loss of papyrus bits, or else were invented by dissecting symbols that came from the papyrus into their sub-parts, and interpreting these sub-parts as characters in their own right.

Now, if I'm understanding this correctly, then it appears that Will's attempt to divorce the symbols of the EA or GAEL from the papyrus is blown out of the water. Obviously these symbols, by and large, really were copied over from the papyrus. I think Kevin and George did a fantastic job of highlighting that.

The desire to limit the conversation to "explained" symbols only seems to be motivated by a desire not to have to admit that the bulk of the rest of the symbols were obviously copied from the papyrus. Since Will's theory is trying to divorce the EA and GAEL from the papyrus, by limiting the discussion to "explained" symbols he can come as close as possible to achieving his aim. However, George pointed out that some "explained" symbols did in fact come from the papyrus, and here's where Wade achieves his major (apparently only) triumph.

Wade tries to say that George claimed that "explained" symbols from the EA came from the papyrus, and that this isn't true. That's pretty much Wade's one point, and he tries to claim victory on that one point. Apparently, however, characters that were "explained" in the GAEL did come from the papyrus, and George was talking about the union of the characters from the EA and GAEL as containing some "explained" characters. Wade ignores this and continues to revel in his glory at having apparently found a nit in George's words to pick.

Am I getting this correct? Is Wade's massive victory over George nothing more than attempting to show that George claimed that an "explained" character came from the EA, when it in fact came from the GAEL?

Meanwhile, Kevin and George's victory in the thread stems from demonstrating that the apparent claim of Will that the symbols in the EA (and/or GAEL, I'm not sure) were divorced from the papyrus is totally and utterly incorrect - indeed, they seem to show that the reality is exactly opposite what Will claims.

It does appear to me, based on my understanding of the thread so far, that Will's and Wade's requirement that only "explained" symbols be discussed is arbitrary and contrived, and appear to be a gerrymandering of the data set under discussion, calculated to give Will's theory the best chance of success. I can see no good justification for this, however. A lot of symbols are copied over from the papyrus - some are interpreted into English, some are given fake Egyptian names, and some are merely listed on paper in the order in which they are found on the papyrus.

I can see no good reason to discussing the provenance of only that subset of the symbols in the EA and GAEL which were "explained" in English, while ignoring all of the symbols obviously copied from the papyrus, especially if one's point is to show that the symbols aren't related to the papyrus. It's obvious cherry-picking.

Am I understanding the gist of Will's theory, the rebuttal of it by Kevin and George, and the great "victory" Wade thinks he's enjoyed over George by attempting to pick a nit with some small aspect of what George said?

If so, then Wade looks like a very small man indeed. He seems to have truly ignored the beam of Kevin and George's argument sticking out of his eye, while attempting to point out the mote he thinks is in George's eye, but which in fact really isn't.

Is this a fare appraisal of that thread so far, for the benefit of us vast majority of EA/GAEL neophytes?

So, uh, I guess I'm going to go with the assumption that the OP was pretty much on target then. ;-)

Sethbag wrote:So, uh, I guess I'm going to go with the assumption that the OP was pretty much on target then. ;-)

I'll weigh in with my view of the discussion. But I haven't been paying attention for the last few weeks, so in all likelihood I'm in left field.

Will's primary point is that the Book of Abraham was translated in its entirty before the GAEL was written. This is important because it leaves the door open for the Book of Abraham being the product of revelation. His hypothesis that the purpose of the GAEL is a cypher is essentially a side-note.

Wade thinks that the critics are arguing the following: Joseph Smith first created the GAEL. After the GAEL was created, it was successfully used as lexicon to "translate" the papyri into the Book of Abraham.

Whenever Wade argues about this, it sounds like he is trying to make sophisticated arguments about how the made-up mess that is the GAEL couldn't work as a functioning lexicon because it is a made-up mess, and made-up messes can't serve as functioning lexicons to translate a real Egyptian manuscript into a coherent story such as the Book of Abraham.

That's my perspective, for what it's worth.

Every time I read Wade's posts, I hear Walter Sobchak in my head, saying, "You're out of your element, Donny!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dky_V_3izXI

Analytics wrote:Whenever Wade argues about this, it sounds like he is trying to make sophisticated arguments about how the made-up mess that is the GAEL couldn't work as a functioning lexicon because it is a made-up mess, and made-up messes can't serve as functioning lexicons to translate a real Egyptian manuscript into a coherent story such as the Book of Abraham.

That's my perspective, for what it's worth.

Wade connected with a made-up mess sounds normal to me.

I really think the apologists have done a smashing job here. I mean, here we are, discussing KEP/GAEL/WTF relationships when the real issue should be that the fact that Joseph couldn't translate a single word of Egyptian. Now that's how you do misdirection.

Buffalo wrote:I really think the apologists have done a smashing job here. I mean, here we are, discussing KEP/GAEL/WTF relationships when the real issue should be that the fact that Joseph couldn't translate a single word of Egyptian. Now that's how you do misdirection.

Precisely. Misdirection has been the goal ever since the papyri resurfaced in the sixties. The facsimiles are really all you need to know.

The more I read about Joseph and his worldview, the more I accept that he may have thought he could figure things out, make connections between characters and what he imagined was on the papyrus, etc. But he was still making stuff up, and what he claimed was the translated story of the Book of Abraham was still cobbled together from his brain, his partners' brains, and the books they were reading at the time or had read already.

I'm amenable to the idea that Joseph Smith "knew" that Abraham had been in Egypt from the Old Testament, and that some details of Abraham's stay there were elaborated in Antiquities of Freemasonry. Joseph may well have seen the characters and the figures on the papyrus and his imagination went wild, and he may actually have even believed that he'd had the incredible good fortune to receive records that talked about Abraham. Then his problem-solving and imagination skills combined forces to deliver explanations of the figures in the drawings, the characters on the papyrus, etc.

But in the end he still represented the Book of Abraham as a translation of the papyrus that he had, and it clearly wasn't. Whether this deception was 100% charlatanic, or 50% charlatanic and 50% self-deception, or 50% charlatan and 50% wide-eyed believer in ancient and mystic writings, it doesn't change the fact that his translation of the papyrus is an invention.

Sethbag wrote:The more I read about Joseph and his worldview, the more I accept that he may have thought he could figure things out, make connections between characters and what he imagined was on the papyrus, etc. But he was still making stuff up, and what he claimed was the translated story of the Book of Abraham was still cobbled together from his brain, his partners' brains, and the books they were reading at the time or had read already.

I'm amenable to the idea that Joseph Smith "knew" that Abraham had been in Egypt from the Old Testament, and that some details of Abraham's stay there were elaborated in Antiquities of Freemasonry. Joseph may well have seen the characters and the figures on the papyrus and his imagination went wild, and he may actually have even believed that he'd had the incredible good fortune to receive records that talked about Abraham. Then his problem-solving and imagination skills combined forces to deliver explanations of the figures in the drawings, the characters on the papyrus, etc.

But in the end he still represented the Book of Abraham as a translation of the papyrus that he had, and it clearly wasn't. Whether this deception was 100% charlatanic, or 50% charlatanic and 50% self-deception, or 50% charlatan and 50% wide-eyed believer in ancient and mystic writings, it doesn't change the fact that his translation of the papyrus is an invention.

I wonder if the reason Joseph didn't quote the Book of Mormon in sermons is because he wrote it during a time when he was consciously aware of being a charlatan. So, he tried not to talk about it later when he was convinced he really was a prophet, perhaps because it caused him cognitive dissonance.

Runtu wrote:

Buffalo wrote:I really think the apologists have done a smashing job here. I mean, here we are, discussing KEP/GAEL/WTF relationships when the real issue should be that the fact that Joseph couldn't translate a single word of Egyptian. Now that's how you do misdirection.

Precisely. Misdirection has been the goal ever since the papyri resurfaced in the sixties. The facsimiles are really all you need to know.

Yes. You don't even need to worry about nonsense like missing scroll theories. Just point to facsimiles in the Book of Abraham and the game is over.

Really, well-done, apologists. Richiardi couldn't have done a better job of misdirecting attention.