Eyewitnesses of the Papyri and Memory

[_William Schryver]

How much do you want to bet it has something to do with Shinehah?

How much you got?

Not to diminish the significance of that one item, but it is just one item, isn't it?

It would take more than that for the argument to be persuasive, wouldn't it?

In fact, I think it would take several such things ...

[_Kevin Graham]

You said the book will be published before the end of the year. Can you be more specific? WIthin a certain month perhaps? I'd like to get it while I'm still in the country, if its going to be available.

[_Kevin Graham]

I think it is clear the apologists have learned their lesson about providing historical accounts. As is custom in a legal system, one side discloses all evidence so the opposing side can examine it and offer a counterargument.

Apologists have been doing this for years, only to watch it blow up in their faces when the "critics" put their so-called evidences into their proper contexts. Haven, Nibley and Blanchard are just a few examples of this.

So now they claim to have found some other "historical accounts" that they say prove the point they want to make, accounts probably mined from the Church archives. But they don't want to let us cross examine them. They don't even want to tell us what they are.

Gee, I think we can read the writing on the wall here. With Gee's duplicitous history, it would be in the interest of the apologists to just come clean.

[_Dr. Shades]

You said the book will be published before the end of the year. Can you be more specific? WIthin a certain month perhaps? I'd like to get it while I'm still in the country, if its going to be available.

I think Will's bluffing. I don't think there will be any book, either before the end of the year or otherwise.

[_Kevin Graham]

Book of Abraham apologetics is reminding me more and more the The Onion Network, and how people can with a straight face, present a case that is so obviously absurd. Watch this clip, I promise you'll laugh.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/d ... videoembed

[_William Schryver]

You said the book will be published before the end of the year. Can you be more specific? WIthin a certain month perhaps? I'd like to get it while I'm still in the country, if its going to be available.

I think Will's bluffing. I don't think there will be any book, either before the end of the year or otherwise.

The Big Schryver Book of Abraham/Kirtland Egyptian Papers Bluff

Well ... time will tell, won't it?

In any event, lest anyone get the incorrect impression, I should probably disabuse you and others of incorrect conclusions you seem to be entertaining:

I have made occasional reference to my knowledge that a "critical edition" of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers is in the publication "pipeline." And so it is. I understand that it should appear in print sometime around the end of this year. It should be a fabulous resource for those interested in this topic.

But people should not confuse this "critical edition" with some kind of in-depth analysis of the KEP and the various issues (text-critical and historical) surrounding the "translation" of the Book of Abraham. I think the KEP book will be more or less like Michael Rhodes' Hor Book of Breathings--all raw data and very little, if any, analysis/interpretation/apologetics. That will come afterwards. And when it does, I expect it to represent the combined efforts of many different people who have been involved with this ongoing project, not just those who are the frequent targets of the ridicule endemic to this message board.

[_CaliforniaKid]

I don't think there will be any book, either before the end of the year or otherwise.

There will be a book, but whether it will be what Will claims it will be or do what Will claims it will do is another question entirely. I am expecting something on the order of a Joseph Smith Papers-style critical text, not a polemical volume.

EDIT: Sorry, posted before reading Will's post above. I guess he's not making the claim I thought he was.

[_Dr. Shades]

I don't think there will be any book, either before the end of the year or otherwise.

There will be a book, but whether it will be what Will claims it will be or do what Will claims it will do is another question entirely.

Looks like I successfully called his bluff. He's been saying that some upcoming volume will blow Metcalfe and Ashment out of the water and all-but-prove that the manuscripts were created by copying, not by dictation.

But now he says this:

I think the KEP book will be more or less like Michael Rhodes' Hor Book of Breathings--all raw data and very little, if any, analysis/interpretation/apologetics.

So that's the one coming out by the end of the year, not the text-critical thing he's been touting.

Speaking of a hypothetical text-critical work which he's hitherto been claiming that he's contributed ideas toward and which is being worked on by upteen cutting-edge LDS scolars, he says:

That will come afterwards. And when it does, I expect it to represent the combined efforts of many different people who have been involved with this ongoing project, . . .

Now he only "expects" it to represent what he's hitherto been claiming the end-of-the-year volume will represent.

EDIT: Sorry, posted before reading Will's post above. I guess he's not making the claim I thought he was.

Correction: He's no longer making the claim you [knew] he was.

Did I call it, folks, or didn't I?

[_William Schryver]

I don't think there will be any book, either before the end of the year or otherwise.

There will be a book, but whether it will be what Will claims it will be or do what Will claims it will do is another question entirely. I am expecting something on the order of a Joseph Smith Papers-style critical text, not a polemical volume.

Which is precisely what I've always said--at least for the past year or so since I've known the first volume would be a critical edition sans interpretation.

The problem isn't with me, it's with what people read into what I write. And I am seldom inclined to disabuse them of their misconceptions.

That said, the interpretive/apologetic/polemical work (with contributions, I'm sure, from many different people) will also appear shortly, just not along with the critical text/images/etc. The one must necessarily precede the other, don't you think? I do.

But I'm sure Dr. Shades will continue to believe what he wants to believe. He always does. And that's fine with me. Book of Abraham apologetics are not working on your timetable, and never have been. But I'm sure there is already more material at hand than Metcalfe has assembled during his years and years of promising some forthcoming book. So, if you want to complain about things not happening on the schedule you'd prefer, I think you need to look elsewhere before you come gunning for us. Professor Hauglid has been working with the KEP for about four years or so. And a critical edition is about to appear. That's pretty good time, if you ask me. Others associated with the project have had access to good images of the KEP for even less time, and although several angles of argumentation and interpretation have already developed and are ready for formal articulation and publication, I'm sure that the publication of the critical edition will signal a flood of analytical production from people who, up until now, have had no access to good images of the documents.

He's been saying that some upcoming volume will blow Metcalfe and Ashment out of the water and all-but-prove that the manuscripts were created by copying, not by dictation.

I've never used language like that, but if it serves you as a strawman, go ahead on ...

I will say, again, that the simulataneous dictation theory is fatally flawed; the reasons why will be demonstrated, and at least that much will come to be widely recognized by serious and objective students/scholars.

What you people fail to appreciate is that, when it comes right down to it, very few people are even aware of your little message board here, and of those, even fewer really care much what you think. As much as you'd like to believe otherwise, you're not driving this process with your criticisms. As far as I know, Ashment is the only one, so far, to make any specific and formal arguments concerning the KEP. People, including myself, will respond to his published claims (e.g. the simultaneous dictation theory). After that, if there are contrary opinions, people who share them will have opportunity to rebut the arguments that are made. All the posturing in this little corner of cyberspace is essentially meaningless. But I'm sure that won't stop you from pursuing your diversions however you please.

[_Kevin Graham]

Professor Hauglid has been working with the KEP for about four years or so.

More like three. He appeared on the FAIR message board in the summer of 2006 as Al Ghazali, and he clearly knew next to nothing about the subject. After observing the debates on the matter, he decided Book of Abraham apologetics was in shambles, and decided he would address the matter. So he quickly obtained color copies of the KEP just shortly before his FAIR presentation in August 2006.

I always wondered how he (an Islam expert) managed to convince the Church that he should have access, for an apologetics conference, when John Gee (Egyptologist!) didn't get access for the publication of his book. There must have been a serious "sit down" with the powers on high, to convince them that the KEP situation wasn't going to go away until they could get access to them and come up with apologetic theories to divorce Joseph Smith from the project.