Schryver Responds

[_dartagnan]

Much more to come I promise, but just this for now -

Will said:

I only visit the Shady Acres Trailer Park to play, mock, and maybe knock down a few virtual beers with people like The Dude.

That's funny, because last November you came here and said:

I’ve started this thread for the express purpose of inviting people like Kevin Graham, Chris Smith, Brackite – and anyone else who is so inclined – to delineate to the best of their ability the arguments that they believe support the premise that the KEPA Mss. #2 and #3 (Metcalfe’s 1a/1b) are the simultaneously-produced transcripts of Joseph Smith’s original dictation of the first chapter and a half of the Book of Abraham.

I want to do it here instead of on the MA&D board so that Kevin and others can participate who can’t do so over there. And I figured I’d do it in the Celestial Kingdom in order to encourage everyone to just keep it dispassionate and as scholarly as possible.

And now that you got what you asked for, you want to pretend you won't debate this stuff here because you "only visit the Shady Acres Trailer Park to play, mock, and maybe knock down a few virtual beers with people like The Dude"?

Again I ask. Will the real Will Schryver please stand up?

[_dartagnan]

Kevin also quotes extensively from posts I made in May 2006 on the old FAIR message board. Looking back on those posts, I recognize several inaccuracies – almost all of them due to the fact that I was, at the time, relying on what others had written concerning the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. I think that perhaps Graham would be sympathetic in such things, since he produced one of the papers I read at the time – a paper which he now vigorously disavows.

I am sympathetic to that, but you and I responded to the apologetic nonsense differently. You allowed it to feed your arrogance; I allowed it to change my mind. But a reliance on bad information isn't the only problem with your documented history. The record shows that you suppose some level of expertise by having viewed select photos passed along to you from Hauglid. You wish to set yourself apart from the rest of us and assume your opinion should carry more weight because of the inner circle from which you work. You have made specific arguments based on your analysis of what is assumed to be an informed perspective. For instance, when you made this remark about the characters in Ms1a:

The characters are not always associated with a discrete paragraph. It is especially evident with Williams' Ms. #2. The final two characters at the bottom of the first page are not clearly associated with the text. They appear to have been placed entirely at random in relationship to the text. They are not aligned with a paragraph break, nor the beginning of a sentence, nor even a specific line...In several cases in Williams' Ms. #2, the characters appear to be placed with much uncertainty -- as though the scribe didn't have any idea what their specific relationship was to the English text in the body of the document.

Virtually everything you said in this assertion packed rant is demonstrably false. So why did you say it? Please justify your misleading commentary above, because everything from page one of Ms1a completely contradicts your claims. These comments you made after you were privy to hi-res scans that no one else can verify. And I do not see how you can blame Nibley or anyone else for these comments. They originated from your brain, based on your familiarity with the KEP. SO when it turns out to be nonsense, your familiarity with the KEP should not been given much credit.

Would he think it appropriate if we were to hold his feet to the flames of the statements he made in that paper? Or is it more likely he would insist that we accept his subsequent intellectual evolution in regards to these questions?

I see no intellectual evolution on your part even though you have backed away from some previous false statements. While you keep changing your arguments, they all try to prove the same things as they always have. Your presuppositions and conclusion remain firm. For you it simply cannot be that Joseph Smith translated Egyptian characters that do not really mean what he said they did. Because that would prove he was a false prophet, as you yourself admitted in your opening post last week at MADB.

And I don't see how a documented history of "getting it wrong," lends itself credibility. The difference between us is that I confronted the evidence with an open mind and allowed it lead me to an uncomfortable truth, whereas you have confronted the evidence with hostility and have tried to "change your paradigm" so you won't have to face that uncomfortable truth.

Although I might have been more explicit in my description, and can therefore appreciate the origins of the misunderstanding, I meant nothing more or less than that I had examined the inventory of the KEP – not the documents themselves.

Sorry, I don't buy it. The thrust of your point was that you had "examined the contents of the KEP at length."

As Graham correctly notes, nothing else was available at the time.

Yes, including an "inventory" list. What kind of inventory information were you prepared to share with us? "Uh, it includes a bunch of papers written by some people." You didn't know who the scribes were, remember? What inventory list was available to you at the time that didn't list the names of the scribes?

The inventories I read provided me with a list of the various documents, along with their respective authors, and a brief summary of what each document contained.

The only thing resembling an "inventory" in print was Nibley's brief description in his "Meaning of thr Kirtland Egyptian Papers" article, which you had clearly not read at that point or else you never would have questioned whether or not these guys were really scribes who worked for Smith.

Since then, I have been fortunate enough to obtain and examine images of some of the KEP inventory – specifically KEPA #2 and #3 (Metcalfe’s 1a and 1b).

Yes, and you obtained these before making the ridiculous claims about Ms1a, listed above. These claims are demonstrably false, so why should anyone assume you are prepared to make informed analyses on the rest of the KEP? So far everything that you have said, that can be verified, has been shown to not only be wrong, but to not even reside in the vicinity of truth.

Evidence for Dictation – Common Emendations As indicated above, I acknowledge these common emendations, and the strength that they lend to the simultaneous dictation argument.

Saying they "lend to" or "are consistent with" a simultaneous dictation, are both understatements. These evidences strongly demand this conclusion because the only alternative - they were copying a missing Q document - is just too unrealistic to even entertain.

OK, I see now you attempt to address your false statements above. Good. Let's do it.

I criticized your comment: "The characters are not always associated with a discrete paragraph." To which you now respond:

Although I do not consider this issue an important one in any substantive respect, it is an observation that I still consider accurate

I already conceded that they are not always associated with a new paragraph. Now what about the rest of that argument?

Graham’s attempted rebuttal is based on an incomplete survey of the evidence.

Wait a minute, what about the rest of that argument? My response to this was first postedhere. I posted it almost a year ago and to this comment I responded: "Associated with paragraphs? No, not always."

But your argument contained numerous subsequent assertions that are just flat out false. You're not going to make an attempt to address these?

But until I am at liberty to post images from the documents in question, I am unfortunately unable to prove my assertion.

You want to prove something I never disagreed with?

What I clearly disagreed with were the subsequent false assertiosn such as:

False statement #1 - "The final two characters at the bottom of the first page are not clearly associated with the text."

As was illustrated in my scan of the microfilm, the two characters to which you refer clearly do associate themselves with the text. The first one corresponds to the beginning of a new paragraph and the second corresponds to verse 13.

False statement #2 - "They appear to have been placed entirely at random in relationship to the text."

On the contrary, the page to which you refer contains eight different characters. Five of them come immediately before new sentences, two of them come immediately before new paragraphs and one corresponds to a break in mid-sentence. This argues overwhelmingly against your assertion that they appear to have been thrown out "at random." What are the chances that by throwing four pair of dice on a dissertation, that all eight would land right in front of the beginning of a sentence or paragraph? You had a one chance in eight to land an example that would be consistent with your theory, yet all eight instances on page one are consistent with the dictation theory. So with your wild assertion, you just pointed out another piece of evidence in favor of dictation.

False statement #3 - "They are not aligned with a paragraph break, nor the beginning of a sentence, nor even a specific line."

Again, as I have demonstrated, seven of eight correspond to one of these while the other corresponds to a break in a sentence, which again, can only be explained in the dictation scenario.

False statement #4 - "In several cases in Williams' Ms. #2, the characters appear to be placed with much uncertainty -- as though the scribe didn't have any idea what their specific relationship was to the English text in the body of the document."

Ditto above.

So in total, you made five statements that I noted, one of which I didn't disagree with. So why do you now choose to respond to my critique by defending the one stament I agreed with? What about the other four falsehoods?

In any case, I do not believe this to be a very important issue. It was merely an observation that I have made during the course of my careful examination of these two documents

It is important to the extent that it shows your analysis cannot be trusted. That was my point, and I think it is a good one.

Why exactly Graham chooses to characterize my statement as “bombastic” must be left to you readers to decide. I will consent that my approach is almost certainly irenic.

I emphasized the fact that you said the evidences "establish" your copyist theory. To say something has been established is to speak in absolute terms. You also refer to them as "overriding" the various evidences for dictation. Well, overriding to whom? Until you back this up with specific examples and allow your audience to judge for themselves, these kinds of comments come across as empty.

Perhaps he missed the extensive thread wherein Dan Vogel and I debated some aspects of this question. The focus of the discussion eventually centered on what appears to be an obvious case of visual dittography on page 4 of Ms. #2. I had identified the homoioteleutons that demarked the dittograph, and subsequently presented my analysis to Dr. Royal Skousen, whom I considered a reliable source of text-critical expertise. Dr. Skousen replied as follows, in an e-mail which he specifically authorized me to publicly cite

Until Royal Skousen makes his argument himself, and provides his own reasons and explains what it is he has examined, your use of his authority is entirely premature. How do we know you just didn't cut and paste the portion of the dittograph that suits your argument, and then sent it to him and asked his opinion?

And for the record, I was observing this discussion as it played itself out. I even started a discussion on the Book of Abraham forum where your claim was easily explained within a dictationscenario.

The only rebuttal attempted by anyone, to my knowledge, has been to insinuate that Dr. Skousen’s confirmation was apologetically motivated, and that visual dittography never manifests itself in such a fashion.

There is no need to rebut anything since Skousen has not presented an argument. All we have are snippets from an email passed along the usual grapevine. Untile Skousen publishes his arguments or makes a presence on one of the forums, there is no need to rebut anything.

This particular dittograph is probably the single strongest piece of evidence in Ms. #2 that argues for the hypothesis of visual copying.

If that is true, then the visual copyist theory is in worse shape than I thought. I had actually assumed Brian came up with something better.

If there is an explanation for this dittograph within the oral dictation paradigm, I have yet to hear it.

Are you kidding? Then this says more about your unfamiliarity with the critical response.

The salient point in all of this is that it is insufficient to merely present the arguments for dictation without taking into consideration the evidence that conflicts with that conclusion

But you guys don't present any. It has been two years, and what is new? Since the Hauglid/Metcalfe debate of 2006, I have delineated close to a dozen hard hitting points that suggest a dictation scenario. I have outlined them online in several places, none of which have been addressed by a copyist theory proponent. During the Hauglid/Metcalfe debate Brian has suggested a couple of things that Brent pretty much shot out of the water. The only consistency for the copying theorists is that they consistently get things wrong. This is because they jump to too many apologetic conclusions and then try to make the evidence fit those paradigms. The critical KEP argument has pretty much been claiming the same thing from start to finish, and to this day, we find not a single definitive, indisputable refutation.

Unfortunately, that is what Graham has done here.

On the contrary, unlike you and Hauglid, I have dealt with every single piece of evidence you guys have provided. Just wander on over to my forum and you'll see we have been keeping pace with every claim you guys have thrown out on the table for examination. Nothing you have presented so far as gone uncontested.

You on the other hand, have not addressed any of the evidences that support the dictation scenario. Even in this thread we see you addressing one comment that I agree with, and avoiding the numerous comments I disgareed with!

Nowhere on MADB will we find posts presented by you, Hauglid or anyone else for that matter, that detail the extent of the evidences for the dictation theory. You guys never do this. You allude to them in teh context of dismissive and mocking rhetoric, but you never present them in a manner that does them justice. I posted them shortly before I was banned, and I almost begged Brian to explain them as he kept beating about the bush. All he could say was that they were consistent with his copyist theory. When I asked him to explain how they were consistent, he got indignant, criticized my "tone" and then the mods accused reprimanded me for breaking the "asked and answered" rule. What a joke!

So don't even think about pretending that I am not willing to share your evidences with anyone. I posted the dittograph photo had you edited, in all its glory, for the whole world to see. But this issue had already been addressed by Ashment. The problem isn't that we do not tell people of your evidences; the problem is that you haven't presented any. You just keep asserting things. You keep telling us that behind closed doors, somewhere, there are textual critics applauding you and Hauglid in everything you assert. That isn't an argument.

You once said that if the Book of Abraham were on trial that the KEP would have been thrown out of court. Well, what do you think the judge would do with all these hearsay testimonies from mystery scholars?

Quite frankly, Graham is ignorant of everything except those controlled bits of information that Metcalfe has carefully portioned out over the years.

Even if this were true, unlike you, I have never been shown to misrepresent what information I have been given. So what little I do have, I will be sure to analyze properly and not mislead people down apologetic bunny trails. That is my track record, and I will put it up against yours any day of the week. I'm not the one on a mission to save a religion from imploding on itself due to historic evidences. You are. Yes, the consequences for both sides should not be ignored. If Brent is wrong, he goes on with his life as usual and you guys move on to another apologetic. If Brent is right, he goes on with his life as usual but your entire world collapses, as does the world of Hauglid and the hundreds or thousands of people who are counting on him to vindicate their prophet. This bigger picture dealing with the reprecussions from any given outcome, should be considered when trying to determine just how high the stakes really are, and for whom. It tells us everything we need to know about the level and liklihood of subjectivity from either side.

But regarding my dependency on Metcalfe, it should be noted that I obtained the entire microfilm collection of the KEP without any help from Metcalfe. The microfilm scans are closer to crap than perfect, but they serve their purposes in refuting many apologetic assertions such as your several false statements above. And I was tackling this dittograph issue without any help from Metcalfe. We rarely correspond with one another, and we never work together in debating forum topics.

He cannot speak to the issues because he is not familiar with the source materials.

According to Hauglid, you are only privy to "inferior images" as he sees fit to share with you. Do you have unfettered access to the KEP collection? No, you don't. I doubt you even have the entire microfilm set. But in any event, as I have already illustrated, we know what you do with the information you do come in contact with: you manipulate it and/or misrepresent it for apologetic purposes. This is what I have proved, and this is what you completely dodged above.

I acknowledge having been informed incorrectly, at the start, by assuming that everything written in The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers was accurate. It clearly was not.

I already knew Nibley was full of hot air. I only learned through later experience that so were you. I don't give either of you the benefit of the doubt for pretty much the same reasons.

Brent Metcalfe has had an excellent photographic collection of the complete inventory of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers since the early 1980s. If the case for oral dictation is as certain as many of you are inclined to believe, why do you suppose Metcalfe has not used his photos to prove this before now?

He already has. Not that anyone really needs color photos to be convinced of the obvious dictation scenario. He started providing the color photos when he saw John Gee make false statements regarding "two inks." He only reveals as much is necessary to refute a published apologetic claim. His claims are already established.

But you guys are the ones who are making the claim that the entire weight of the evidences rests on the "hi-res" analysis of the KEP. So why aren't you providing these evidences? The pressure is all on Hauglid, not Metcalfe. Hauglid knows he is up against the ropes. Hauglid's academic credibility is the one that will suffer if his argument turns out to be a circus. It will haunt him the rest of his career, and I think that pressure explains his unwarranted attitude towards Chris. But Book of Abraham apologetics is in desperate times, and someone has to be a martyr for the cause.

Dr. Hauglid is able to greatly magnify – digitally – his super-high-resolution uncompressed image files. It was in this fashion that he viewed the question “under greater magnification” and gave a tentative confirmation to my observation. It remains to be confirmed with the originals.

So why not present the evidence? Every time we make an argument from the KEP we provide a cut from the corresponding page for everyone to examine themselves. We don't simply offer sermons with dogmatic assertions and expect people to just take our word for it. That is what the apologetic front is doing. Why don't you and Hauglid just present the evidence? You have in the past provided portions of the KEP that served your arguments. So why not do it again?

[_Yoda]

Hey, Chris: you're a good guy. Of course, I think you're wrong about a number of things. But, by and large, I still think you're a good guy. (Is that bombastic? I sincerely meant it to be irenic.)

You're such a smartass, ;)

[_Chap]

Why do I find Book of Abraham apologetics so interesting, when I am a nevermo?

Well, for a start, I just like discussions about ancient texts, and about the interplay between religious claims and historical evidence. That is a rather minority taste, though, and could be satisfied in many other ways.

I think the real reason is related to the horrid fascination one felt when the Iraqi information minister was being interviewed during the run up to the Iraq war, and during the time when the coalition forces were methodically destroying or scattering Iraqi forces on their drive to Baghdad. Do you remember it? However bad thing were, he was always assuring us that 'secret weapons' and new tactics of unparalled effectiveness were just about to be deployed, and then, boy, just you wait! "The invaders will commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad".

The grimly humorous nature of his appearances became more and more marked during the last stages of the assault, when he became more confident than ever. Eventually, of course, the poor man was captured, and I do not recall what became of him.

That is basically the situation of the LDS apologists for the Book of Abraham. The main battle was lost when it emerged that:

1. The text of the Book of Abraham has nothing at all to do with the extant papyri, which seem very likely to be the ones that were in Joseph Smith's possession when he claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham from Egyptian.

2. Despite his obvious willingness to give the opposite impression, Joseph Smith did not understand Egyptian.

The position that is currently being defended by Schryver and his allies relates to the so-called 'Kirtland Egyptian papers', which appear to have been papers used or produced in connection with the original publication of the 'Book of Abraham'. See here for a description of these from an LDS point of view:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Kirtland_Egyptian_Papers

As this source says:

The KEP comprise 16 documents encompassing a total of about 120 pages. They are typically divided into two categories:

* so-called Egyptian alphabet and grammar documents (KEPE), and
* Book of Abraham manuscript documents (KEPA).

As I understand it, two of these documents parallel one another quite closely. The point that Schryver wants to maintain is that these documents are not, as might seem at first sight, the reslt of simultaneous dictation by Joseph Smith to both of the scribes known to have been working for him, but are instead copies of a single 'lost' document, to which no other reference apparently exists.

Reviewing what Schryver and his allies and critics have posted, I have to say that this does not seem very likely. But even if it is true, fighting over this issue is the equivalent of a battle to control a sewage processing plant in the Baghdad suburbs. The battle for Joseph Smith's credibility in relation to the Book of Abraham was lost long ago, and the only result of not losing the sewage plant immediately will be to keep a few loyalists fighting elsewhere for a bit longer. Meanwhile, the information minister keeps promising us that Saddam has a 'heavy blow' in preparation, but of course he won't tell us what that blow is, or where it will fall.

I think dartagnan has this about right:

I'm not the one on a mission to save a religion from imploding on itself due to historic evidences. You are. Yes, the consequences for both sides should not be ignored. If Brent is wrong, he goes on with his life as usual and you guys move on to another apologetic. If Brent is right, he goes on with his life as usual but your entire world collapses, as does the world of Hauglid and the hundreds or thousands of people who are counting on him to vindicate their prophet. This bigger picture dealing with the reprecussions from any given outcome, should be considered when trying to determine just how high the stakes really are, and for whom. It tells us everything we need to know about the level and liklihood of subjectivity from either side.

[_Who Knows]

”I think this is very definitely a question of visual dittography arising from copying from another manuscript. Your analysis seems perfectly correct, with the scribe coming back later and thus making the mistake. This kind of long dittography can definitely occur when someone is coming back to copying after some delay.”

Royal Skousen, personal e-mail to William Schryver, 10/21/2006 2:12 PM

The only rebuttal attempted by anyone, to my knowledge, has been to insinuate that Dr. Skousen’s confirmation was apologetically motivated, and that visual dittography never manifests itself in such a fashion.

This particular dittograph is probably the single strongest piece of evidence in Ms. #2 that argues for the hypothesis of visual copying. If there is an explanation for this dittograph within the oral dictation paradigm, I have yet to hear it.

I believe this has been debated before. I simply see it as williams making a copy of what was just dictated.

- The copied paragraph is cleaner (not messy and 'jagged' like his paragraph above - it's obvious when you look at the entire page).

- It doesn't have the corresponding egyptian character (no need for the character when you're simply re-writting the same paragraph as above). Plus, if this was a dittograph, you'd think he would have copied the character from the mysterious source document.

- Williams knew how much remaining space on the page he would need to finish up the paragraph (writing is a bit more compressed, and he violates the previous margins that were reserved for the egyptian characters).

Could it be a dittograph? Sure, if the other evidence pointed towards a copying theory. But since the majority of evidence points toward the dictation theory, I don't believe so. Well, I believe this paragraph is a copy, but an intentional one.

Will - did you ask skousen for his opinion on the mss. as a whole? What about the evidences that point to the dictation theory? What did he have to say about those? I'm curious what his opinion about this paragraph would be, if he were given the entire picture.

I'm not the one on a mission to save a religion from imploding on itself due to historic evidences. You are. Yes, the consequences for both sides should not be ignored. If Brent is wrong, he goes on with his life as usual and you guys move on to another apologetic. If Brent is right, he goes on with his life as usual but your entire world collapses, as does the world of Hauglid and the hundreds or thousands of people who are counting on him to vindicate their prophet. This bigger picture dealing with the reprecussions from any given outcome, should be considered when trying to determine just how high the stakes really are, and for whom. It tells us everything we need to know about the level and liklihood of subjectivity from either side.

I don't agree. If the apologists haven't 'lost their testimony' yet (after examining this issue in depth), I don't believe this issue will make a dent. This is only one small piece of the Book of Abraham fraud. Life goes on, regardless of how this issue is resolved. And while the apologists focus on 'beating' the 'critics' in this one area, they ignore the elephant in the room - Joseph Smith couldn't translate egyptian, and made the whole thing up.

[_dartagnan]

Concerning the so-called dittograph, Will suggested that this was something he discovered that no critic ever addressed it. Will raised this issue on the FAIRboards in Octber of 2006. Had he been paying closer attention to the exchange between Hauglid and myself, which took place in August of 2006, he would have realized that this had already been addressed by me:

Brian, you bring up the issue of the truncated portion of one manuscript. Though this is interesting, as I said before, it can be easily explained because the second scribe takes over at the precise spot where the first scribe leaves off. One only needs to consider that Smith wanted two copies of the dictation - as evidenced by the fact that he had two scribes working on it - and wallah, "problem" solved - Graham to Hauglid, Aug 7, 2006

Now there is no question that the last page of Ms1a contains a copied paragraph. But what hasn't been established by Will is why it exists. A dittograph is understood as an unintentional duplicate of a copied text. This is why Will and Brian like to use this term so much; it throws in all sorts of unwarranted assumptions and takes their conclusion for granted. Instead of actually arguing this was an unintentional copying error, they just rely on the term "dittograph" to assume the argument. This is laziness. It takes more than unsupported assertion this to establish a dittograph. In all the KEP manuscripts, there exists no other examples of sloppy scribal copying, and these scribes were professionals. Yet, Brian and Will would have us believe that Williams was so clumsy that he overlooked more than a hundred words covering half a page! And since we have already established the fact that the Egyptian characters were placed in the margin as the English text was being written, how do they explain the fact that this double-paragraph contains no corresponding character in the left margin? Naturally it wouldn't, if it were an intentional double-post. But they don't consider this, and I seriously doubt Skousen and their mystery team of scholars have either. They don't even acknowledge the fact that the repeated paragraph starts precisely where Parrish stopped transcribing in Ms1b. But they don't deal with this either because they have already dismissed the connection to Ms1b, out of hand.



For some reason Parrish had to excuse himself from the process before finishing. By following the sequence of characters that correspond to the papyrus, we see that the scribes stop once they reach the very end of line two. That is a convenient place to end that session.

The fact is Ms1a and Ms1b provide us with numerous evidences suggesting the two were transcribed in concert. Will and Brian want to thwart this mountain of evidence by relying on this single piece of evidence for a copying scenario. And I say single, because that is all they have provided so far. The rest of their evidences amount to a bunch of empty promises and "wait and see" rhetoric. But Will has just deflated most of the suspense because he said this "dittograph" is the strongest piece of evidence they have.

So the question should be this. All of the other evidence pointing to a dictation ... do we simply turn it on its head and say they're unexplainable? They have to account for these other evidences in the same model for a copyist scenario. But Will and Brian never want to do that. Instead, they just assert the dictation theory is "fatally flawed" in sporadic faith promoting rants, and then when it comes time for them to account for the evidences, they concede they don't have any answers. So they really explain nothing.

Brian concluded with his intended purpose which I already knew. He went into this thing with the intention, not to provide a plausible model that explains the KEP, but rather to argue in any way he can that the critics cannot be right:

"Although some questions will be left unanswered it will be very clear what these mss are not."

As did Will:

"Now, what does this all mean? That is a good question, and I don’t pretend to have a complete answer."

No of course not. It is just a mystery which they know nothing about. But they know the critics are wrong because, well, they have to be. I mean didn't Metcalfe strangle three guards to death before stealing the microfilm of the KEP? Wasn't he best friends with Mark Hoffman? Isn't he just an expert in playing video games?

This for me proves they are not really interested in getting to the truth so much as they are interested in trying to come up with any kind of excuse to dismiss the conclusions drawn by the critical argument. This is not respectable scholarship. In scholarship one of the worst things you can be considered is an apologist, and these guys prove why.

Brian's precious copying theory leaves at least a dozens questions unanswered, while the dictation scenario leaves only one question left open (What were the circumstances that fully explain the double post of Abraham 2:3-5?). In scholarship, which model, then, would be considered the more reasonable one to follow? I have an extremely difficult time believing any scholar outside their apologetic circle, would buy into any of their nonsense.

In scholarship, models are proposed to explain how and why things happened, while reducing the number of unanswered questions. Hauglid's apologetic is the antithesis to this. While he never really offers a model to explain much of anything, one can be inferred by his dismissive attitude towards every facet of the critical argument. What he offers is just a lazy conclusion that the whole thing is really just a mystery. He chooses a path that is constantly raising more questions than it ever intended to answer. This is by design. All the scholarly jargon aside, this is not a scientific model that one would expect from a scholar operating within the parameters of textual criticism.
I see Will and Brian scrambling for books on Texual Criticism and immediately running to the sections dealing with copying errors. They then pull out technical terms that most people don't even understand, and then they plug them into their copyist model where they think they can force them.

WK:

I don't agree. If the apologists haven't 'lost their testimony' yet (after examining this issue in depth), I don't believe this issue will make a dent. This is only one small piece of the Book of Abraham fraud. Life goes on, regardless of how this issue is resolved. And while the apologists focus on 'beating' the 'critics' in this one area, they ignore the elephant in the room - Joseph Smith couldn't translate egyptian, and made the whole thing up.

Yes, you're right of course. But apologists are not doing these things for themselves so much as they are trying to keep people faithful to the Church. Their first objective is to keep the thing unknown. IF people find out about it, well, then you appeal to mystery. It has to be as mysterious as possible to make the critical perspective seem more and more speculative. They do not want anyone knowing just what the critical argument really is, and why it exists. This is why you will never see Will or Brian properly representing our position in its full context. They are afraid to.

These evidences are clearly not enough to change the already made up minds of those wearing bullet-proof testimonies. Though I suspect that in time, more and more will be coming around to reason as did Mike Reed, Chris Tolworthy and myself. But I think we all know that if prospective converts knew of these evidences against Smith's professed ability to translate ancient documents, then the Church would have to rely strictly on procreation of its existing members, to secure the survival of the Church. This really is a death blow to the Church, moreso than anything else I believe. Missionaries simply do not have the tools to defend the prophet against these arguments. They don't even have a basic grasp of what the Book of Abraham is, and those who actually do, understand the Book of Abraham to be a literal translation of the documents in question; something the latest wave of apologists are trying to deny.

[_CaliforniaKid]

For everyone's reference, here are the relevant portions of each manuscript.

First is Manuscript # 1, in the handwriting of Warren Parrish:



Next is Manuscript # 2, in the handwriting of Frederick G. Williams. This is the end of the manuscript.



And finally there is Manuscript # 3, again in the handwriting of Warren Parrish. This, too, is the end of the manuscript.

[Guest]

I accidentally deleted my post. Here's the gist of it, reconstructed from memory.

Will's argument is that the doubled-paragraph in MS 2 is a visual copying error known as dittography. Here is Marquardt's transcription, tweaked a bit thanks to Kevin's image posted below. I have highlighted some of the differences between the two paragraphs.

[Egyptian characters] Who was the daughter of Haran
[Egyptian characters] Now the Lord [] said unto me Abram get thee out of
[Egyptian characters] thy country, and from thy kindred even from
[Egyptian characters] thy fathers house, unto a land that I will show
[Egyptian characters] thee: Therefore I left the land of Ur of the Chaldees
[Egyptian characters] to go into the land of Canaan; and I took Lot
[Egyptian characters] my brothers son, and his wife, and Sarai my
[Egyptian characters] wife and also my father followed after me unto
[Egyptian characters] the land which we denominated Haran. And the
[Egyptian characters] famine abated, and my father tarried in
[Egyptian characters] Haran and dwelt there, as there were many
[Egyptian characters] flocks in Haran; And my father turned again
[Egyptian characters] to his idolitry: Therefore he continued in
[Egyptian characters] Haran
[Egyptian characters] Now the Lord had said unto Abram ^me get thee
[Egyptian characters] out of thy country and from thy Kindred and from thy
[Egyptian characters] fathers house unto a land that I will show thee Therefore I left
the land of Ur of the chaldees to go into the land of Canaan and I took Lot
my bro son and his wife and Sarah my wife and also my father followed []
me into the land which we denominated Haran and the famine
abated, and my father tarried in Haran and dwelt there as there were
^many flock in Haran: and my father turned again unto his idolatry
Therefore he continued in Haran but I Abram
and Lot my brothers son prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared

In addition to the differences I highlighted, note that spelling and capitalization are considerably more haphazard in the second instance of the paragraph. Note also the absence of the margin characters in the second instance, as well as the loss of margin. The scribe seems to have rewritten the paragraph very hastily and to have tried to cram it in at the bottom of his page. The most significant difference is the placement of "Therefore he continued in Haran" in a new paragraph and the tacking on of another short sentence fragment after that ("but I Abram and Lot my brothers son prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared").

-Chris

[_dartagnan]

I would only add that the first paragraph says Sarai while the second Sarah and the first says flocks while the other flock. That amounts to at least seven discrepancies, which seems pretty high for such a tiny area of copied text. One thing is for certain here, and that is Williams began to rush through this thing immediately after Parrish left. The fact that he wrote "bro" instead of brother is proof of this I think.

[_CaliforniaKid]

I would only add that the first paragraph says Sarai while the second Sarah and the first says flocks while the other flock.

I'm not so sure that "flock" is a correct transcription. It looks like "flocks" to me. But from these crummy black and white copies it's really next to impossible to tell for sure.

One thing is for certain here, and that is Williams began to rush through this thing immediately after Parrish left.

Do you agree with my assessment that the second instance seems more rushed than the first?