If nothing else, you’ve established your unvarying reliability to be predictably incapable of reassessing your conclusions. And that’s fine with me.
Will, just because you and Hauglid are constantly in a state of apologetic flux, doesn’t mean you’re open-minded. It just means you guys haven’t the foggiest idea what you want to argue. It strikes us as disorganized and desperate, to be frank. Your various theories have contradicted one another over the course of the past year and you seem to be in a transition only in the sense that you’re trying to figure out which one works best for you. But your conclusion has never changed because it is theologically driven, and not based on empirical evidence. At least the critical side is consistent with the
same exact arguments ; for which you guys have not been able to dent.
You guys keep changing your counter-arguments because you haven’t figured out a way to persuade people with them.
And I have to tell you Will, I am disappointed in you guys. I mean it is really sad that your position has decided to fall back on the ultimate cop-out: “Joseph Smith
really couldn’t translate Egyptian, then maybe the word translate means something else.”
The apologetic position has traditionally dictated to the critical world that there can be no proof that Joseph Smith couldn’t have translated Egyptian like he claimed, yet here you are now conceding the point without actually acknowledging the concession, and still back-slapping any critic who points this out.
And although I remain sincerely sorrowful for you, your family, and what I see as your future as an apostate, I fully support your right to reach your own conclusions based on how you interpret the evidence.
The feeling is mutual.
I’m not going to engage you or anyone else on this board in a protracted debate on this issue. Frankly, I’m convinced that none of you are capable of moving away from your viewpoints.
Will, just because you haven’t been able to produce a compelling apologetic to persuade, doesn’t mean we are incapable of persuasion. Again, who outside the apologetic community is impressed with your arguments? Is the entire world closed-minded too, or is it just possible that you guys are praising your own arguments beyond their own merits? Drink that in. Because an apologetic void of any persuasive power, is really just self-congratulatory window-dressing. Unfortunately, I find much of this at FARMS.
I can understand and even empathize with your inability to see other possibilities than fraudulence absent a spiritually-based conviction of the divine origin of the text of the Book of Abraham.
Again, are you sure it is my “inability”? These kinds of comments seem to be made more for your benefit than for mine. As if you’re constantly assuring yourself that your arguments really are super-duper, and that those who aren’t convinced must have some kind of cognitive deficiency going on.
Just like with the Book of Mormon, a belief in the divine origin of the Book of Abraham is absolutely dependent on spiritually-based experiences. And in my estimation, that’s exactly how it ought to be.
Will, if you guys stuck to that position you would never hear from me. What drives me nuts is when you guys pretend the truths of the Church clams can be reasonably demonstrated through natural, logical means. This is where you guys go into unchartered waters, and end up sinking the ship. Because after a long drawn out debate that pretends reasoning is actually encouraged, you guys are ultimately left with the final cop-out as the Trump card: go pray about it.
Let us then briefly revisit the developments from last year. During the process of my analysis of Ms. #2, I recognized on page 4 the classic elements of a dittograph – probably the most telling sign of visual copying. I initially reported my findings in this post:
I don’t know why you’re bringing up this dittograph point. Is this your ace in the hole? Your sole claim to fame? The anomaly you identified had already been noted by the critical viewpoint as early as 1990. Brian Hauglid brought it up over a year ago at FAIR and I addressed it. I don’t remember his exact words, but he said my explanation was something to think about.
Before he had time to be influenced by a sophistic “explanation” by Brent Metcalfe, Chris Smith initially responded as follows
Yes I made the same mistake too because I didn’t realize you were referring to a manuscript whereby evidence for a transcription process had already been demonstrated. If you don’t believe me you can check out my statement in October of last year where I said, “this seems to be a clear case of a copying error.” But as I said, it was a quick comment before I had time to look into it and realize which manuscript we were dealing with. Calling us victims of sophistry really doesn’t do you much credit Will. I mean really, this seems to be your own explanation as to why you are unable to convince us.
Further, Chris Smith has a tendency to be too charitable, but I do not believe he still accepts your premise that these represent copies. Bill Hamblin seemed excited about your comment, and I remember that one well. But then he immediately backed out of the discussion. Here are Brent’s comments:
So, Will thinks that the replication of 100+ words in BoAbr ms. 1a (fldr. 2), page 4 is a dittograph?! What unbridled nonsense.
A dittograph occurs when the eye of a scribe skips from a letter, letter grouping, word, or word grouping to another that is similar -- if not identical -- in appearance. Scholars consider this an _accidental_ scribal error that is facilitated by the _close proximity_ of the similarities.
Yet Will would have us believe that Williams' eye skipped approximately a half page back from where he was allegedly copying! Will's hypothesis also assumes that Williams was so oblivious to his mistaken replication that he rewrote the paragraph _in its entirety_; and although Brian postulates that Williams later corrected his manuscript in darker ink, somehow Williams misses -- yet again -- the duplicated text and lets it stand in lieu of striking it out.
I chose my words carefully when I told Brian in our "Pundits" exchange:
<<To simplify without oversimplifying, I'm persuaded that rigorous scrutiny of the BoAbr manuscripts (resencio) yields a lucid, high-level stemma: 1) the bulk of ms. 1a (fldr. 2) and all of ms. 1b (fldr. 3) are simultaneous transcriptions from oral dictation ...>>
Again, <<the _bulk_ of ms. 1a ... and _all_ of ms. 1b ... are simultaneous transcriptions from oral dictation>> -- this, in my judgment, best accounts for the textual evidence.
When I spoke with Brian at FAIR 2006 he was clear that he didn't know what to make of Williams' replication. I do, and I plan on discussing the redundant text in a forth coming publication. In the interim, rest assured that Williams' redundancy would not be considered a dittograph by anyone who understands even the rudiments of textual criticism.
Brent makes some good points, the main reason why I reject your theory is because of the overwhelming evidences in favor of a dictated transcription process, in the same manuscript. You point out one piece of evidence in favor of a copying process, and if it were the only piece of evidence under examination, then I can see how people would naturally jump to that conclusion. In this case you are persuading via omission. You’re not giving everyone the whole picture, and you certainly haven’t dealt with the numerous pieces of evidence for a dictation. Neither has Hauglid for that matter.
You guys don't even bother to respond to simple questions like, why in the hell would anyone hire two different people to simply "copy" a short text like this? It makes no sense. And what are the chances thet two professional scribes would make
any errors in a copying project, let alone the
same exact errors. You would hire two scribes to do a dictated transcription for the same reason Brigham Young often employed numerous people to write his sermons in short-hand. But it is inconceivable and unprecedented to have two men work on such a small text, by simply
copying it.
I then submitted my finding to Professor Brian Hauglid, who is also a trained textual critic. He enthusiastically confirmed the analysis.
Do us all a favor and stop bloating their credentials. Hauglid is a trained textual critic? He took classes in textual criticism? He was trained by whom? The guy’s expertise is in Islam for crying out loud, and Royal Skousen is a linguist who has an
interest in textual criticism since that is what he has been commissioned by the Church to do. The Church had to have faithful Mormon analyze the Book of Mormon’s Original and Printer manuscripts, and of the candidates at BYU, the shoe fit Skousen best. Ever since then he has bee praised for his work in this area mainly by the LDS community. It isn’t because he is the most qualified person on the planet in an academic sense; it is because the Church limits its sensitive materials to faithful Mormons with apologetic tendencies. So give us a break already by trumping up their expertise” in this area. It isn’t like they present their apologetics for peer review among the nation’s leading textual critics.
These guys jumped into this field because of their own hobby in apologetics. Their primary evidence that they are experienced in any of this is based strictly on their apologetic endeavors. This doesn’t give someone a basis as an “expert” in anything but apologetics. Hauglid’s limitations as an expert textual critic became shockingly clear in the exchanges I had with him.
Now, the presence of a definitive dittograph in the manuscript, in and of itself, is proof of visual copying.
How absurd. It is a dittograph sure, but why a dittograph is manifest doesn’t always have to be because of an accidental copying mistake. Are you truly going to hang your entire argument on this? Good Lord, Will. As we have demonstrated over and over again, this manuscript shows examples of dictated transcription. You and Hauglid have never bee able to explain how these evidences could ever be explained in a copying context. So given the premise that this is a diatcted transcription, one must account for this dittograph in other ways, and this is fairly easy to do. So when it al boils down to it you have one single piece of evidence for a copying process. We have several pieces of evidence from the same manuscript, that this is a dictated transcription. Wha’s worse, you guys cannot explain our evidences or make them fit reasonably into your scenario whereas your precious dittograph is easily accounted for given the facts.
But there are also other indicators of visual copying in both Ms. #2 and #3.
No there aren’t. If there were you would have explicated them by now and Brian would have done so as well. He presented a couple of ideas in the pundits forum last year ut Brent quickly shot them down with dozens of photos that refuted Brian’s theory. Again, Brian was pulling a Nibley, taking advantage of the fact that his audience couldn’t verify his claims. Every time Brent provides photos, we are able to see through the charade you guys are playing.
As I indicated in my previous post, I am not at liberty to elaborate further on the specifics of the additional corroborating evidence. But it will form a portion of the upcoming critical edition of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, as well as being the primary focus of a paper I will submit to the Farms Review of Books next year. I am confident that the evidence presented will leave little room for doubt in the minds of all reasonable observers that these manuscripts, whatever they may be, cannot be considered simultaneous transcripts of an oral dictation.
De ja vue Will,
de ja vue. We’ve been at this point before, remember?
But I don’t think it is possible to pursue any serious intellectual discussion here.
Oh put a sock in it Will. Nobody is buying this.
There is far too much acrimony emanating from those of you who are certain that portions of your lives have been wasted, and your spiritual selves violated by the alleged charlatan Joseph Smith and his legacy, the big, bad Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I don’t think that way at all. Life is never a waste; just one big experience. You can either control it or let it control you.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein