Missing Papyrus

[_Kevin Graham]

Will,

For someone who is a college drop out, who has lied about his profession on several occassions (first a singer, then filmmaker, and now software writer), and who most likely relies on his wife for financial support, you sure are quick to toss about the white-trash slurs.

No go back to your safe haven before some of your followers walk over here and see how duplicitous you are. You know you have no intention of debating anyone here. You'll just tuck tail and run like always. You're too stupid to realize your apologetic has no apologetic value. You fail at apologetics the way you fail at everything else in life.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Will,

I see that you are continuing to misrepresent my position over on MADB in precisely the way I asked you not to. Thanks for being so accommodating.

I am quite confident that such a time will arrive. Then we’ll see if you make good on your promise.

And Chris, if you eventually do this, I will personally fly out to Sacramento and take you out to dinner at a restaurant of your choice – along with all the wine you can drink.

Well, all the house wine you can drink. ;) I’ve seen the prices on some of those wine lists out there.

If such a time does arrive, I just might hold you to that. Might as well get something out of all the work I've put into this.

-Chris

[_William Schryver]

Cracker Graham:

For someone who is a college drop out, who has lied about his profession on several occassions (first a singer, then filmmaker, and now software writer), and who most likely relies on his wife for financial support, you sure are quick to toss about the white-trash slurs.

For the record (and this is the last time I’ll do it):

I am a singer/songwriter/musician. I wish it paid more. I’d do it full time. It is the primary passion of my life.

I have also dabbled in digital filmmaking. It’s fun.

I’m also a horse owner/breeder/trainer. I currently own three fine horses whom I’ve raised since their birth and trained to be superb family trail horses for my wife and daughters.

As far as software development, well … it provides the capital I need to make the house payment, buy guitars, keyboards, recording equipment, high-end Canon video cameras, hay and grain and farrier services, etc.

I’ve been doing it since 1984, mostly IBM mainframe and midrange stuff. I’m currently in the third year of a major web-based rewrite on an IBM iSeries of some old System/38 and AS/400 applications I wrote almost 20 years ago. I’m using .html for the front end, going through the iSeries http server to native RPGILE backend code.

With the exception of a short stint with a big software house in the mid-nineties, I’ve worked exclusively as a “lone-wolf” contractor, either over dedicated lines prior to 1997, or over the internet ever since then.

My beloved wife has two degrees, a BA from San Jose State University in Behavioral Science, and a BS from Weber State University in nursing. She is the nurse educator at our local hospital. She works part time – about 30 hours a week. She deserves to make three times as much as I do for working the same number of hours a week. But, instead, it’s exactly the opposite.

No go back to your safe haven before some of your followers walk over here and see how duplicitous you are.

I don’t know about any “followers,” but I do have many friends who regularly check out what I’m doing here in The Great and Spacious Trailer Park™. As I’ve indicated previously, many of them would probably qualify as “friends in high places,” at least in terms of the world the LDS apologetics. I’m not hardly their peer, but in my peculiarly autodidactic way, I have made a place among them, and they consider me “one of their own.” I have a great deal of affection and respect for many of them. I consider some of them among the finest people I have ever known. I also know they perceive in me nothing approaching the "vulgarity," “duplicity,” and "idiocy" of which I am frequently accused by people like you and many of your friends here.

You know you have no intention of debating anyone here.

I do not, as a general rule, attempt debate here. I consider it futile, albeit not for the reasons you might believe. Nevertheless, for those who desire to debate with me, there is no lack of venue for such a thing, Chris Smith's recent whining about his "mistreatment" on the MAD board notwithstanding. You, of course, can't participate in scholarly debate there because you lack the discipline and temperament necessary to engage in a civilized environment. Just ask the people who have "debated" you about atheism on this board.

You'll just tuck tail and run like always.

Like I have on the Abr. 1:12 insertion, the “Haran” dittograph, the secondary emendations, Abr. 1:1 – 3 in KEPA #1 being copied, and this latest episode concerning the uncut length of the scroll of Horos?

Yep … it’s pretty obvious that my MO is to “tuck tail and run.”

You're too stupid to realize your apologetic has no apologetic value.

The apologists don’t think so. And somehow, I think it’s their opinion that matters most when it comes right down to it.

You fail at apologetics the way you fail at everything else in life.

Although I readily acknowledge your extensive credentials in this particular field, I think your judgment might be just a tad premature.

L'hitraot ...

[Anonymous]

The Book of Abraham was obviously fabricated, not translated, by Joseph Smith, possibly with the help of others. You can wish it were not so, and you can obfuscate and try to mask the fact that this is so, but you cannot change the reality of it, that this is so.

It must be quite comforting for you to finally be able to go through life with such a degree of certainty.

I, of course, see many possibilities where you apparently see none.

The possibilities you seek are the ones that allow someone to continue clinging to a false hope. You put on a show of open-mindedness but in fact you are not open-minded at all, because the one possibility that really matters in this conversation you will simply not accept at all, and that's the possibility that Joseph Smith invented the Book of Abraham, and that the LDS church is just one more manmade religious institution of many thousands that are, or have been amongst homo sapiens.

I actually believed the church was true too, Will. And I accepted on faith that the Book of Abraham was true scripture, etc. Unlike you, I was open-minded enough to consider the evidence with a willingness to accept what it pointed to, whatever that might be. And I changed my mind. You can claim to be as open-minded as you want, but between the two of us, I'm the one who changed his mind upon consideration of the evidence, so frankly, I don't think you have anything on me in the open-mindedness department.

I wasn't open-minded enough to do this for most of my life, however. I remember what it felt like to be so convinced, and to have that cast-iron testimony. The cast iron testimony existed alongside my scientific thoughts and other currents of thought in my mind for decades before a particular confluence of events, thoughts, conversations with people I knew, and so forth opened just large enough of a crack in that cast iron testimony that I was able to decide to take the evidence seriously come what may.

It was not easy for me to get to that point, and so I cannot fault anyone else for not having come to it yet in their life. Everyone's different. You're not there yet. You might never be. Oh well. That's life in a world of very strong viral ideas capable of implanting themselves in people, ensuring their propagation, and survival in the sea of ideas competing for mindshare in the human population. It is what it is.

But the LDS church is not only not true, it's obviously not true, and the reason it's not obvious to you is a matter of central importance in any discussion of not just our faith, but of faith in general.

.

.

[_Kishkumen]

The possibilities you seek are the ones that allow someone to continue clinging to a false hope. You put on a show of open-mindedness but in fact you are not open-minded at all, because the one possibility that really matters in this conversation you will simply not accept at all, and that's the possibility that Joseph Smith invented the Book of Abraham, and that the LDS church is just one more manmade religious institution of many thousands that are, or have been amongst homo sapiens.

Just as I was saying.

[_Kevin Graham]

For the record (and this is the last time I’ll do it): I am a singer/songwriter/musician. I wish it paid more. I’d do it full time. It is the primary passion of my life.

Oh but of course you are. Where can we find one of your CDs? You're name really is Will Schryver, right?

I have also dabbled in digital filmmaking. It’s fun.

Every moron with a camera and a laptop has "dabbled in digital filmmaking." You claimed to be an independent filmmaker. What films have you made? Again, your name really is William Schryver, right? Google pulls up nothing for you as either a singer, filmmaker, or software writer.

As far as software development, well … it provides the capital I need to make the house payment, buy guitars, keyboards, recording equipment, high-end Canon video cameras, hay and grain and farrier services, etc.

Funny how "supporting and feeding my family" didn't factor anywhere in there. You shouldn't have a house payment if you were as rich as you pretend to be.

I’ve been doing it since 1984, mostly IBM mainframe and midrange stuff. I’m currently in the third year of a major web-based rewrite on an IBM iSeries of some old System/38 and AS/400 applications I wrote almost 20 years ago. I’m using .html for the front end, going through the iSeries http server to native RPGILE backend code.

But you can't write html. Remember your "eschatos.com" website (http://whois.domaintools.com/eschatos.org)that consisted of a blank page with "eschatos" written in the bottom left corner of the page. It was a website you tried to make to prove to us you were indeed a filmmaker, calling it "Eschatos Productions." But it turned out you couldn't even make a basic website, so you gave up on it. And we're supposed to believe there is an employer out there somewhere desperate enough to pay you to write html for them?

With the exception of a short stint with a big software house in the mid-nineties, I’ve worked exclusively as a “lone-wolf” contractor, either over dedicated lines prior to 1997, or over the internet ever since then.

Yeah, that is smart. Claim to be a "private contractor" to avoid employment verification. But private contractors typically advertise their resume online, or at least have at some time in the past. Your name pulls up nothing. If you're a computer guy, then why is it that you told us just a couple of years ago that a banned poster could bypass a moderator's restrictions, by simply unplugging the router for ten seconds and plugging it back in to change an IP address? You immediately deleted your post when it became apparent how stupid your comment was, but there are others here who remember it well enough.

As I’ve indicated previously, many of them would probably qualify as “friends in high places,” at least in terms of the world the LDS apologetics.

That's like bragging about being the highest mountain in Kansas.

I’m not hardly their peer, but in my peculiarly autodidactic way, I have made a place among them, and they consider me “one of their own.” I have a great deal of affection and respect for many of them. I consider some of them among the finest people I have ever known. I also know they perceive in me nothing approaching the "vulgarity," “duplicity,” and "idiocy" of which I am frequently accused by people like you and many of your friends here.

Naturally. You constantly bear your testimony and convince them no amount of evidence could sway you from the fold. That alone guarantees your place among them.

I do not, as a general rule, attempt debate here. I consider it futile, albeit not for the reasons you might believe.

No, for precisely the reasons I believe. You tried debating here before, in celestial, until you realized I wouldn't let you weasle your way out of the corner you painted yourself into, so you ignored me and then fled the scene in a huff.

Nevertheless, for those who desire to debate with me, there is no lack of venue for such a thing

You just said you won't debate here. MADB only allows specific people, so where else s there?

Chris Smith's recent whining about his "mistreatment" on the MAD board notwithstanding.

Chris expresses frustration because he gets ganged up on while everyone is msunderstanding him, and you call it whining because you're a school yard thug. Again, Chris outclasses you and your ilk over at MADB.

You, of course, can't participate in scholarly debate there because you lack the discipline and temperament necessary to engage in a civilized environment. Just ask the people who have "debated" you about atheism on this board.

Why not ask the people at MADB who protested the fact that I was banned (including yoruself!) and insisted I had been "gracious" to Hauglid, even though he was complaining to the mods that I was being too rough on him. The reason I was banned was due to the fact that I was putting your prized PhD in his place, and I was winning minds. I knew it, and so did they. So they had no choice but to be rid of me. I've got records of all the original exchanges, even though Hauglid rushed to have the mods delete the relevant posts that made him look stupid, and then they issued threats about copyright violations, if anyone chose to share what Hauglid had said. So don't even pretend I was banned because I couldn't hold my own. Eventually I plan to publish the events as they transpired, along with quotations from Hauglid shortly before his FAIR presentation. You know, citations where he pretended to be "Al Ghazali" and said he had not even seen the KEP, just a month before he was to give a presentation on them.

Like I have on the Abr. 1:12 insertion, the “Haran” dittograph, the secondary emendations, Abr. 1:1 – 3 in KEPA #1 being copied, and this latest episode concerning the uncut length of the scroll of Horos?

Yes, we addressed these things numerous times and you tuck tail and run. You just said it yourself, you won't debate here. You prefer MADB because you know you are protected from real criticism. You will always appear to be the "pundit" because no critics are allowed to challenge you except Chris, who is just too nice to call it like it really is. When he pointed out the dishonest usage of Seyfarth, all hell broke loose and he was suspended. That place is a joke, t only serves as an echo chamber for those looking to stroke their testimonies and that is why you prefer it there.

The apologists don’t think so. And somehow, I think it’s their opinion that matters most when it comes right down to it.

Then let them explain the apologetic value, since you obviously can't. You haven't even begun to explain it. All you have done is misrepresent history when you say the "critics" have mainted so and so, when you're too ignorant of history to understand that the Church maintained it first. The critics simply took it for granted that the Church was telling the truth.

And then many years, here comes Will and his gang of apologists claiming the critics were wrong, but too stupid to realize they are claiming the Church was wrong too. All you could do in this is prove you've disagreed with your own Church!

L'hitraot

Uh huh. Go ahead and pretend you know Hebrew.

[_Kishkumen]

Where'd Will go?

[_William Schryver]

I have gotten Chris Smith to consent to a minimum missing scroll length of at least 8 feet.

Say WHAT??

Not to suggest that you were intentionally dissembling on this point, but perhaps this will jog your memory a bit:

Hi Everyone,

The other day I received exact-size photocopies from the BYU Studies publication of the papyrus photographs. JSP I and XI are published, according to the caption, in "actual size". JSP X is reduced, but the original dimensions are given, so a few minutes ago I blew it up to the stated size. To my surprise, these images provide measurements much closer (though not identical) to Gee's figures. (A very preliminary measurement shows the first wrap to be about 10 cm and the last to be about 9.1 cm.) I am suspicious of the dimensions of the photos, though. Michael D. Rhodes' dimensions for JSP I match the Improvement Era photos. They do not, however, match the BYU Studies photos, despite the claim of "actual size". Rhodes' numbers indicate that the vignette should be about a centimeter bigger in both directions. Similarly, the Improvement Era photos' margin-ruler indicates that JSP X is about 12 inches long. The BYU Studies measurements make it twelve and a half. Thus it seems that BYU Studies may make the first wrapping too small, and very probably makes the last wrapping too big. I am wondering if perhaps here is where Gee got his measurements.

If the photos and their captions are taken at face value, then plugging my preliminary figures for them into Hoffmann's equation gives 285 cm (about 9 1/2 feet) of missing papyrus and an S value of about .13. Still not 41 feet, but substantially longer than either of the other two sets of photographs (one of which includes rulers) seem to indicate.

In any case, I still fully expect my previous findings based on the Larson and Improvement Era photographs, as well as on the statement of Gustavus Seyffarth, to be vindicated by an examination of the originals. If the Church refuses me admission to see them it will be a great personal disappointment.

Best,

-Chris

viewtopic.php?p=235645#p235645

[_Kevin Graham]

Will, what was the circumference of the umbicus used in the scroll? Why hasn't anyone discussed this when it is clearly crucial to the matter at hand?

Why are you admitting your thesis is based on several unproved assumptons, and yet you present a conclusion as though it is proved?

Why can't you understand the fact that the existence of missing papyrus doesn't help the Book of Abraham apologetic until you first provide reasonable doubt that Book of Abraham source is among the extant papyri?

Hoffman's formula can only tell us what the scroll's length might have been two thousand years ago. It can tell us absolutely nothing about what was in Joseph Smith's posession. Why haven't you and your fellow apologists ackowledged this important fact? Why the smoke and mirror job in making people think you've somehow vindicated Gee's argument that the Book of Abraham derved from missing documents?

[_CaliforniaKid]

Will,

It's the word "minimum" that I was saying "say what?" to. I have nowhere conceded that the papyrus was a "minimum" of 8 feet long. Best,

-Chris