But even if we say that the GAEL "only" explains 80% of the content of Joseph Smith's translation, that would still be 80% more than you can explain by comparing the text to the Book of Mormon, which doesn't speak of descendants of Pharaoh and such at all.
I'm not the one linking what Joseph did to the Book of Mormon, literally all of those who contemporarily commented about the KP did so. Even when they mentioned the papyrus, they still brought up the Book of Mormon. Why would they do so? Because they were actually speaking with Joseph Smith and this was what he was doing. His closest associates were all claiming there would be more on this. They wrote articles on it, they advertised it. Where would they get this from, if not Smith?
You know as well as I do that to narrowly set the parameters of this to what is
in the Book of Mormon is rather silly. And it is not about what's IN the Book of Mormon. It is about the characters being THE SAME as the Book of Mormon characters which gets repeated again and again. What the text is, is NEW "translation" and wouldn't necessarily be in the Book of Mormon. The question I am trying to answer is why they were linking this to the Book of Mormon and why they felt the KP characters were THE SAME as the ones found on the gold plates. You know as well as I do that Smith had done this before with Zelph. He is not IN the Book of Mormon, but it is about a person involved in that world.
It is JUST AS IMPORTANT to mention what is in the GAEL. I don't gloss over this. It's an IMPORTANT piece of the puzzle and it's a remarkable discovery. But I have to stick to the evidence, all of it, and Joseph was (according to accounts) claiming that what was on the KP was somehow tied to the Book of Mormon. The same characters as the Book of Mormon, and tied to the Jaredites in some way.
It's not the same word, but this is a quibble.
You never quibble? Come now.
If your explanation of Joseph Smith's Kinderhook plates translation is so great, why can't you lay out an explanation of the content that explains any of the wording instead of quibbling over how mine gets as close as "ruler of heaven and earth" is to "possessor of heaven and earth"?
I'm not done yet.
There is a strong connection to the Book of Mormon Caractors. I mean a cottage industry rose up in Nauvoo that made that connection. To downplay it, doesn't answer the plethora of questions that are raised by virtually everyone who came in contact with Joseph Smith over this. You want this to be simple, casual, etc. but it is far from that. Joseph didn't explain himself (about how he "translated" the KP) as he did in the KF Discourse. If he did, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But he did say at least by one account that he would do so by revelation.
Yeah, there is what Joseph said about Ham, etc., and yeah, it is in the GAEL. But most of the content is also in the actual Book of Abraham translation. Joseph had a great memory. What I question is your method of his getting to the GAEL and that he did a casual comparison. I don't see the evidence for that. It is the very weak part of your argument. The strongest part is that what is in the GAEL came out of Joseph's mouth and a lot of it is strikingly similiar. Why though, is that linked to the Book of Mormon, and why do not one of Joseph's contemporaries claim he only did a casual comparison and that it was the same stuff that is in the Book of Abraham and then shrugged it all off? The ONLY evidence you have is Emmons statement, but again, what did Emmons specifically say he was comparing them to? The Book of Mormon characters,
NOT the Egyptian Grammar.They also all linked his translation abilities to special knowledge from God. Where are the other examples of how Joseph translated this way? I've showed the KF Discourse, we have the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon as the way he did it. Your theory hinges on the fact that Joseph saw that boat character and dissected it by looking at the GAEL. That he had the GAEL and KP out side by side and was looking for matches BEFORE he actually did something like that on the 7th. I think it is speculation based on something they tried AND ABANDONED ten years earlier. For example, look at how the Book of Abraham translation was actually done. Look at the original manuscripts.
http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper- ... m-11-218/5Here is a graphic of what he did,
You are claiming that Joseph took the one WHOLE character from the KP and broke it down to get a translation. Even lines that overlapped other lines. If so, then I think you have to explain how Joseph got the rest of it related to Ham which is a whole different grapheme and is not in the character you say Joseph broke down. Why did he tie the kingly powers through Pharaoh to Ham in his "translation"? Kingly powers through Pharaoh is fine. But how do you get that this person was a TRUE DESCENDANT OF HAM? That is a specific grapheme. And if you look at the actual Joseph Smith papyri, it only appears as it is, not as part of a larger character. You can look at the papyri and you don't need to dissect either one to get what you call the graphemes. Let me illustrate:
Notice that they are separate. The one about kingly powers through pharaoh is ABOVE the one that ties it to Ham. So how would Joseph see the picture of the ship as being the same as this? What really blows my mind is that the character you cite, (Haeoophah) isn't a part of the hieroglyphics that were made up to support the text that mentions Pharaoh and Ham in the Translation papers.
Is it wrong of me to analyze all of this to try and figure it all out? I didn't claim that Joseph used one specific character to get the KP "translation". But since you did, I want to know as much about all of this as I can to try and understand it. Was that boat character so noticeable on the actual plates? How much time did Joseph take before spouting off what he did to Clayton? And it was noticed right away that the plates were divided. This is from the Quincy Whig, republished in the Neighbor and in a special Broadside on May 10, by the
Times and Seasons:
There were six plates-four inches in length, one inch and three quarters wide at the top, and two inches and three quarters wide at the bottom, flaring out to points. There are four lines of characters or hieroglyphics on each; on one side of the plates are parallel lines running lengthwise. A few of the characters resemble, in their form, the Roman capitals of our alphabet-for instance, the capital B and X appear very distinct. In addition, there are rude representations of three human heads on one of the plates, the largest in the middle; from this head proceeds marks or rays, resembling those which usually surround the head of Christ, in the pictoral representations of his person. There is also figures of two trees with branches, one under each of the two small heads, both leaning a little to the right. One of the plates, has on it the figure of a large head by itself, with two [===>] pointing directly to it.
This is all evidence to consider.
Here is where Joseph called for his Egyptian GRAMMAR in his diary:
P.M. Called again with Doct[or] Bernhisel and Clayton and read again. After wards called again and enquired for the Egyptian grammar. [rest of page blank] {page 163} Scott H. Faulring, An American Prophet's Record, p.427
This was when he was looking up some Egyptian words to put in a letter to Jas. A. Bennett in November, 1843. It seems that Joseph knew the difference between the two and so did Richards.
The next day, he said,
Wednesday, Nov[ember] 15[th] 1843 At home. 10 A.M. Held court in the office. Erskine vs Pullen. Nonsuit. [several lines left blank] P.M. at the office. Suggested the idea of preparing a grammar of the Egyptian Language.
What brought this on, NOT the KP, but a letter he wrote to Jas. A. Bennett.
What's more, some poster here named GRINDAEL, once argued that "A Gentile" was actually a covert Mormon and therefore would have known the Book of Mormon/Book of Abraham distinction quite well - implicitly acknowledging with that argument that an actual Gentile, such as Emmons was, may not have caught the distinction.
Touche back at 'cha.
I was using your FAIR presentation, not the updated material. (My bad) But what has changed? You now claim that he was showing both of them, but that is something Joseph didn't call it just a few months later. He called it the Egyptian GRAMMAR. Now he's got everything there with him, his Hebrew Bible and Lexicon, the Caractors Document and his Egyptian Grammar. They were not at his office though, so he had to send William for what he asked for and it says nothing about an Egyptian Grammar.
When all the papers have been published and all the Internet discussions have been had, when the dust settles from all this argument, you're going to have lost - because you're not explaining the origin of the Kinderhook plates translation text or why it's so similar to the definition of a GAEL character that shows up on those same plates. Instead, you're like, Wow, look, it's an amazing coincidence that Joseph Smith's revealed text is so damn similar to this GAEL text!
Your emphasis on the idea that Joseph Smith probably did present Book of Mormon characters for comparison with the Kinderhook plates characters could make a fantastic adjunct to the GAEL explanation for the origin of the translation text. In fact, it already does. I've adopted it based on your arguments and acknowledged its probable truth to the world in print. I think you're right that Joseph Smith probably compared Book of Mormon characters to the KP characters along with the GAEL characters.
What I have a problem with is your argument that you say there is evidence that Joseph did an actual GAEL comparison and that is the METHOD he used to get what he did and it was simply a casual secular "translation". I've brought this up before, but it is instructive to show that it isn't Joseph's M.O.
Being solicited by Mr. Chandler to give an opinion concerning his antiquities, or translation of some of the characters, bro. S. gave him the interpretation of some few for his satisfaction.
Joseph obviously could read Egyptian, right? IN 1835! So, if he thought they were Book of Mormon Characters, or even Egyptian Characters, why would he need to go to his own Grammar to read the KP and do an initial "translation"? Why would he need to verify them with something else? You can discount Charlotte Haven all you want, but I don't. She said that Joseph said DAYS EARLIER,
...Joseph...said...that the figures or writing on them was similar to that in which the Book of Mormon was written, ...
A few weeks before, Henry Caswell visited Smith and he got the same thing from Joseph when he showed him a Greek Psalter, (edit out all of Caswell's silly ad libs), and you get this from Joseph
This book is very valuable. It is a dictionary of Egyptian Hieroglyphics." Pointing to the capital letters at the commencement of each verse, he said: Them figures is Egyptian hieroglyphics; and them which follows, is the interpretation of the hieroglyphics, written in the reformed Egyptian. Them characters is like the letters that was engraved on the golden plates."
This is not a "translation" but it is instructive on how Joseph viewed ancient documents and that he had a penchant for thinking everything was related in some way to the Book of Mormon Characters.
Why did Joseph use similar phrases that were in the GAEL? That he did, I'm not contesting, just the method you claim that he got it.
To them, the creators of the KPs would have had to be A (Israelites) or B (Jaredites), and the text translated via the GAEL ruled out A, leaving only B.
What about the Mulekites? Why would they assume it was the Jaredites? And yes, it had to be one of those. Joseph would also know this, so why go to an
Egyptian History to get information that would not be on an ancient American document? (plates). He obviously had a purpose for doing so that goes beyond a simple comparison. Or, he knew what was on those documents and wanted to link the KP to another history that they had tangible evidence for. (Even though it was Joseph's made up "translation"). I don't see Smith as a complete buffoon. He knew he couldn't seriously translate Egyptian, but he may have believed that with help from the Holy Ghost he could. Funny that the Hieroglyphics that Joseph made up that explain the Pharaoh/Ham connection in the actual translation, don't look anything like the graphemes you cite in the GAEL. They actually look like this,
Even though it has a saucer shape at the bottom, it does not have a closing line at the top, but a dot.
I don't accept your explanation about HOW Joseph got the text, but I do acknowledge that the text in the GAEL is strikingly similar. I want to account for all of the evidence, not put aside things I don't think conform to a speculation that Joseph simply had to deconstruct the picture of a ship. To me, its just ad hoc. If the comparisons you cite had taken place on May 1st, it would greatly strengthen your theory. But they don't. And I can't square the illogic of claiming that Joseph compared them to the GAEL (and said they were that very characters on the Egyptian papyrus), but then kept claiming that they were the SAME characters that came from the Book of Mormon plates. Those characters are not in the GAEL. They are on the Caractors document. Is there evidence that Joseph believed that the characters on the papyrus were the same as those on the gold plates?
I'm searching for an answer to
all of it, including the text from the GAEL. It is not wrong or polemic to reject certain parts of your argument based on how I see the evidence.
You could be helping flesh out a fuller picture of Joseph Smith's engagement with Kinderhook plates, showing the role that the Book of Mormon characters played alongside the role that the GAEL played. That would be a very reasonable and worthwhile contribution to our historical understanding of the Kinderhook plates incident. But if you want to stand your ground in a losing battle till the bitter end instead...
I
am trying to flesh out a fuller picture of Joseph Smith's engagment with the KP. Thanks for agreeing that's reasonable. And I've never said ANYWHERE or ANYPLACE that I'm not flexible in changing my opinion about what happened. And what "battle" am I losing? That I agree that the text in the GAEL and Joseph's "translation" of the KP are strikingly similar? Or that I don't ascribe to your speculation that Joseph HAD TO disassemble a character on the KP to get his "translation", and that you have evidence that Joseph actually did a comparison with the KP and the GAEL. I'm not
convinced with either one of those.
My take is that Joseph looked at the KP, and stated that he could read them because they were "the same characters as found on the gold plates of the Book of Mormon" and then to prove it, stated that the KP were a history of the person with whom they were found and that they were a descendant of Pharaoh through Ham. Yes, he used language strikingly similar to that found in the GAEL. But I'm not convinced with your argument about how he came to use that language. Did he need to go to the Bible and read passages when he was on the stand quoting it during the KF Discourse? Nope. He remembered that phrases he wanted to use. Joseph claimed he could translate languages correctly because he had the Holy Ghost, over and over again. He got the KP wrong. If the GAEL is the "wisdom of Zion" it sure is funny that it was abandoned after only a few pages of material.
When Joseph "translated" the Book of Abraham just a year earlier, did he go to the GAEL and reread all that was there? Quite possibly. Why did Joseph produce the Book of Abraham when he did? What was in it, that was so important to his theology? Multiple Gods and the lineage of Ham and the implications of that. Did he want to make some connection to the Book of Abraham to strengthen it? Quite possibly.
How best to do that? Quote from his "translation" material. It isn't until later that he starts making comparisons and it is quite possible that he might have drug out the GAEL at some point. But I don't see it in any of the accounts that you cite. He gets his Hebrew Bible and Lexicon, gets the Caractors Document, etc. The Egyptian
Grammar is just not there. Yup, (and I have mentioned this before) the Book says on the first page, GRAMMAR and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language. No one knows when the label was put on the spine that says "Egyptian Alphabet". That might be why Joseph himself called it his Egyptian GRAMMAR.
I'll keep on working on my theories and take my best shot. It will be up to others to determine if it has any credibility. And I know a lot of this we have discussed in private, I only reiterate here for others.