Zub Zool oan and Abraham 1:2b?????3

[_Kevin Graham]

You're begging the question here, and it's not just silly, it's irrational.

I agree with this too, but history cannot be ignored simply because people acted irrationally in the past. There is no question begging going on because at that time, among the three scribes, Williams was the most experienced scribe employed by Smith. Do you really think expertise and experience do not weigh on the question of liklihood that a scribal error was made?

Are you kidding? Keep in mind the question is not whether such an error was possible, but rather likely.

This is the heart of the entire issue you've discussed so far. In order to be able to insist that it's more likely that the scribe intentionally copied this section of text twice, you have to be able to show it's even a rational thing to do.

Well it is far more rational than the proposal your argument is destined to be. Meaning, if you insist on calling this manuscript a copied manuscript, you'll at some point have to deal with the irrationality of scribes being hired to "copy" scribbles and cross-outs from a source document, all the while misspelling words. This just makes no sense here. The document was fraught with errors that are best explained via dictation.

Can you give me a logical reason for Smith wanting to have this section of text copied twice on this one piece of paper?

I didn't say that. I said he obviously wanted two copies, and he did. He probably learned from his past mistakes and didn't want another Martin Harris incident. Now I agree that putting the second copy on the same page wasn't the best place for it, but then this all depends on what Smith planned on using it. Joseph Smith could have very well told Williams to make a copy and then left the room. Maybe the three of them got into an argument, Parrish stomped out and then Williams was being a smart ass by copying it on the same page? We can see the session ended abruptly, so it is anyone's guess what was going on in the room at the time. Maybe that was the last sheet of paper he had at the time and he wanted to make it all fit? Who knows? The list of plausible scenarios is endless.

My point is you're not dealing with the main reason why I reject this theory. You keep reiterating the silliness of my proposed explanations, and I agree they do sound silly. But I'm confident that if we were able to travel back and time and be a "fly on the wall", we'd find plenty that was silly and irrational. I remember being told by apologists that Joseph Smith couldn't have possibly believed an entire paragraph of text could derive from a single character, because that would have been completely irrational. But we know this is exactly what he believed and it must be dealt with no matter how irrational we find it to be. Martin Harris once said that while translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith would translate entire sentences from single characters. So this idea that a character = many words, is something we know Joseph Smith believed.

If you cannot, then your argument cannot possibly hold, and homoioteleuton becomes the only logical solution. I invite anyone else reading to explain why that is not the case.

We're going in circles here. You're misrepresenting my argument by not dealing with the weight of the dictation evidence.

When you can provide that reason or explain that you have no reason, then I will respond to the rest of your post. If you cannot provide a reason then you've forfeited this debate. I'm interested in a respectful, objective, and professional discussion. So flippantly tossing my concerns aside violates all three of those standards.

?

With all due respect Dan, there is nothing scholarly about demanding everyone address only the fine details you want addressed, while refusing to address the broader issues raised by others. You keep saying you'll "get to it" and I guess only time will tell. But in the meantime, don't pretend I forfeited the debate and it needs to be emphasized that "getting to it" is key to understanding the rejection of your argument. So until you "get to it," there really isn't much more I can do to help you understand it, and you're being willfully ignorant of it. I've explained this as carefully as I know how. The reason I reject the homoioteleuton is because there is simply too much evidence going against the copied manuscript theory. There are too many textual anomalies that scream dictation, and the initial purpose of the manuscript was either dictation or copying, it cannot have been both because, well, talk about irrational! I can't imagine Joseph Smith telling his scribes to start copying down a text from a document, except during those instances when he is dictating it to them.

[_Kevin Graham]

Typical Graham post-all bluster, misrepresentation, and circular arguments. Watching Smith and Graham (and Metcalfe, by implication) get schooled by maklelan and Schryver is pretty enjoyable stuff.

I also love how Graham complains about Schryver having his findings confirmed by credentialed text critics. In the rest of the sane world, that's called "peer review." Something Metcalfe is not familiar with, never having produced any findings of his own. lol!

Who are these mystery experts, who have expertise in the irrelevant fields of biblical scholarship and lingusitics, who are "confirming" Will's apologetic fantasies? Every one of them are apologists at BYU with a horrible track record of failed apologetics. So they are little more than apologists with academic credentials. The fact is no university press in the world would publish Will's garbage. Only BYU would, because it is owned by Will's Church, who sees some value in his effort to vindicate its foundational truth claims. Gee, ya think this has more to do with political connections than actual scholarship?

So please stop pretending this is anything more than a desperate Church on the ropes, willing to accept submissions from any apologist with imagination.

As far as Mak mopping the floors with us, I will leave you to your own delusions. I think I have clearly demonstrated Mak's familiarity with these documents leaves much to be desired.

At this point we're essentially hoping this isn't some huge prank, and that Will really does plan to formally publish these dumb arguments. We haven't had this much entertainment since the Hauglid meltdown at MADB. ;)

[_Nomad]

Graham-

There are too many textual anomalies that scream dictation ...

Yeah? Like what? Common corrections? I've been able to look at the two documents in question in the past two weeks. All the corrections that were made are obviously secondary, indicating that they were made later rather than in the process of a dictation. Just like the corrections made to the Book of Mormon text, where all the corrections were made later.

..., and the initial purpose of the manuscript was either dictation or copying, it cannot have been both because, well, talk about irrational! I can't imagine Joseph Smith telling his scribes to start copying down a text from a document, except during those instances when he is dictating it to them.

Why can't dictated corrections be made in documents that were just copied? And who says Joseph Smith dictated those corrections anyway? If the original manuscript being copied wasn't edited yet, then I can see exactly why we would see what we do see in these documents. They copied the original exactly as it looked, then they went back and edited/corrected the errors that were reproduced by copying an unedited original. It's not really that mysterious at all.

[_Nomad]

Typical Graham post-all bluster, misrepresentation, and circular arguments. Watching Smith and Graham (and Metcalfe, by implication) get schooled by maklelan and Schryver is pretty enjoyable stuff.

I also love how Graham complains about Schryver having his findings confirmed by credentialed text critics. In the rest of the sane world, that's called "peer review." Something Metcalfe is not familiar with, never having produced any findings of his own. lol!

Who are these mystery experts, who have expertise in the irrelevant fields of biblical scholarship and lingusitics, who are "confirming" Will's apologetic fantasies? Every one of them are apologists at BYU with a horrible track record of failed apologetics. So they are little more than apologists with academic credentials. The fact is no university press in the world would publish Will's garbage. Only BYU would, because it is owned by Will's Church, who sees some value in his effort to vindicate its foundational truth claims. Gee, wonder why?

So please stop pretending this is anything more than a desperate Church on the ropes, willing to accept submissions from any apologist with imagination.

As far as Mak mopping the floors with us, I will leave you to your own delusions. I think I have clearly demonstrated Mak's familiarity with these documents leaves much to be desired.

At this point we're essentially hoping this isn't some huge prank, and that Will really does plan to formally publish these dumb arguments. We haven't had this much entertainment since the Hauglid meltdown at MADB. ;)

Anyone with a brain can see that maklelan has completely destroyed you and Smith. Buried you under Mt. Doom, so to speak. lol! It's not even a competition.

Also, as I understand it, the majority of the trained text critics who have examined and confirmed Schryver's work have never published anything in the way of apolgetics. I've also recently learned that Schryver will be submitting his first article to Church History as a response to their publication of Samuel Brown's article last year. So I guess we'll see if they're as stupid as you seem to think Royal Skousen and others at BYU are.

[_maklelan]

You're begging the question here, and it's not just silly, it's irrational.

I agree with this too, but history cannot be ignored simply because people acted irrationally in the past. There is no question begging going on because at that time, among the three scribes, Williams was the most experienced scribe employed by Smith. Do you really think expertise and experience do not weigh on the question of liklihood that a scribal error was made?

Are you kidding? Keep in mind the question is not whether such an error was possible, but rather likely.

This is the heart of the entire issue you've discussed so far. In order to be able to insist that it's more likely that the scribe intentionally copied this section of text twice, you have to be able to show it's even a rational thing to do.

Well it is far more rational than the proposal your argument is destined to be. Meaning, if you insist on calling this manuscript a copied manuscript, you'll at some point have to deal with the irrationality of scribes being hired to "copy" scribbles and cross-outs from a source document, all the while misspelling words. This just makes no sense here. The document was fraught with errors that are best explained via dictation.

Can you give me a logical reason for Smith wanting to have this section of text copied twice on this one piece of paper?

I didn't say that. I said he obviously wanted two copies, and he did. He probably learned from his past mistakes and didn't want another Martin Harris incident. Now I agree that putting the second copy on the same page wasn't the best place for it, but then this all depends on what Smith planned on using it. Joseph Smith could have very well told Williams to make a copy and then left the room. Maybe the three of them got into an argument, Parrish stomped out and then Williams was being a smart ass by copying it on the same page? We can see the session ended abruptly, so it is anyone's guess what was going on in the room at the time. Maybe that was the last sheet of paper he had at the time and he wanted to make it all fit? Who knows? The list of plausible scenarios is endless.

My point is you're not dealing with the main reason why I reject this theory. You keep reiterating the silliness of my proposed explanations, and I agree they do sound silly. But I'm confident that if we were able to travel back and time and be a "fly on the wall", we'd find plenty that was silly and irrational. I remember being told by apologists that Joseph Smith couldn't have possibly believed an entire paragraph of text could derive from a single character, because that would have been completely irrational. But we know this is exactly what he believed and it must be dealt with no matter how irrational we find it to be. Martin Harris once said that while translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith would translate entire sentences from single characters. So this idea that a character = many words, is something we know Joseph Smith believed.

If you cannot, then your argument cannot possibly hold, and homoioteleuton becomes the only logical solution. I invite anyone else reading to explain why that is not the case.

We're going in circles here. You're misrepresenting my argument by not dealing with the weight of the dictation evidence.

When you can provide that reason or explain that you have no reason, then I will respond to the rest of your post. If you cannot provide a reason then you've forfeited this debate. I'm interested in a respectful, objective, and professional discussion. So flippantly tossing my concerns aside violates all three of those standards.

?

With all due respect Dan, there is nothing scholarly about demanding everyone address only the fine details you want addressed, while refusing to address the broader issues raised by others. You keep saying you'll "get to it" and I guess only time will tell. But in the meantime, don't pretend I forfeited the debate and it needs to be emphasized that "getting to it" is key to understanding the rejection of your argument. So until you "get to it," there really isn't much more I can do to help you understand it, and you're being willfully ignorant of it. I've explained this as carefully as I know how. The reason I reject the homoioteleuton is because there is simply too much evidence going against the copied manuscript theory. There are too many textual anomalies that scream dictation, and the initial purpose of the manuscript was either dictation or copying, it cannot have been both because, well, talk about irrational! I can't imagine Joseph Smith telling his scribes to start copying down a text from a document, except during those instances when he is dictating it to them.

I thought you could be more objective about this. You have failed to support your assertion, but you refuse to be rational and professional about it. This debate is over, and you lost.

Is Chris or Brent willing to take up this dictation argument where Kevin left off, or shall we just consider this particular case closed?

[_Kevin Graham]

Yeah? Like what? Common corrections? I've been able to look at the two documents in question in the past two weeks. All the corrections that were made are obviously secondary, indicating that they were made later rather than in the process of a dictation. Just like the corrections made to the Book of Mormon text, where all the corrections were made later.

I am so glad you said this, because it proves once and for all ywhat little you know on this subject. I knew that if I gave you enough rope, you'd hang yourself, so here goes: Explain to us all how the following were "secondary" corrections:

So Joseph Smith dictated whereunto, and it was written, and then he immediately made the correction of "unto" so the scribe crossed out "where unto" and wrote the correction in transition. This flies in the face of "secondary" corrections theory.

[_Aristotle Smith]

With all due respect Dan, there is nothing scholarly about demanding everyone address only the fine details you want addressed, while refusing to address the broader issues raised by others. You keep saying you'll "get to it" and I guess only time will tell. But in the meantime, don't pretend I forfeited the debate and it needs to be emphasized that "getting to it" is key to understanding the rejection of your argument. So until you "get to it," there really isn't much more I can do to help you understand it, and you're being willfully ignorant of it. I've explained this as carefully as I know how. The reason I reject the homoioteleuton is because there is simply too much evidence going against the copied manuscript theory. There are too many textual anomalies that scream dictation, and the initial purpose of the manuscript was either dictation or copying, it cannot have been both because, well, talk about irrational! I can't imagine Joseph Smith telling his scribes to start copying down a text from a document, except during those instances when he is dictating it to them.

mak,

I have been meaning to say something similar, but I wanted to stay out of the debate, mainly because I am not a KEP expert. But from the point of view of an observer you seem to admit to the following things:

1) You have just started looking at the KEP documents.
2) You are only focusing on a narrow part of the KEP documents.
3) You are only using one toolset, text criticism, to analyze the KEP documents.

I might also add, and this is probably going to sound offensive, but you seem really anxious to throw your weight around as a text critical expert. The insistence on being right about the homoioteleuton almost to the exclusion of everything else seems indicative of this. Yes, it is a piece of data that you may be right about it being homoioteleuton, but at this point you seem to have staked the entire debate on acceptance of your analysis of ONE thing, the homoioteleuton. It seems silly to essentially say that you are going to take your ball and play at home if people don't concede one point you are trying to make. Especially since by your own admission you have just started looking at this stuff.

[_Nomad]

Graham-

I'm saying that homoioteleuton with intention cannot be homoioteleuton.

This sentence proves that you don't even understand what homoioteleuton is.

It has nothing to do with intention! What a phony you are. You don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about! It's so funny to watch you make these huge posts filled with nothing but bluster and ignorance.

All homoioteleuton means is "same ending." There is unquestionably a "same ending." "Haran" ends two separate sections of the text, one of which was copied a second time because the scribe started again at the first instance of "Haran" on the original source text when he resumed copying. You say this was all intentional? Right. Yeah, I can see Williams saying to himself, "Mmmm, I liked that last paragraph so much, I think I'll write it down again ..."

Brilliant. Just brilliant. lol!

[Guest]

Can you give me a logical reason for Smith wanting to have this section of text copied twice on this one piece of paper? If you cannot, then your argument cannot possibly hold, and homoioteleuton becomes the only logical solution. I invite anyone else reading to explain why that is not the case.

Your question makes an assumption that is unsupported - that Joseph wanted the section copied twice on a single piece of paper. What if Joseph only communicated that he wanted the material copied without explaining his motives (e.g., he was worried he would lose a copy like he did with the 116 pages of the Book of Mormon). Williams, not knowing why Joseph wanted it copied, simply followed instructions and copied it on the same piece of paper.

This is how I imagine the scenario. Joseph was dictating to Parrish and Williams. For some reason Parrish stops writing the dictation where his manuscript ends (maybe he had to leave or something). Joseph continued dictating to Williams until he finishes. Joseph, thinking that he doesn't want a repeat of the 116 pages fiasco, tells Williams to make a copy of the material dictated after Parrish stopped but only tells Williams "make another copy of the material dictated since Parrish left" but doesn't tell Williams why.

Joseph then leaves or moves on to other more pressing matters. Williams takes a look at Parrish's manuscript, finds where Parrish stopped writing, and makes another copy of that material on his own manuscript. Joseph didn't tell Williams why he wanted the material copied so Williams simply follows orders by coying the material at the end of his paper.

When you can provide that reason or explain that you have no reason, then I will respond to the rest of your post. If you cannot provide a reason then you've forfeited this debate. I'm interested in a respectful, objective, and professional discussion. So flippantly tossing my concerns aside violates all three of those standards.

Aren't you flippantly tossing Kevin's concerns aside by refusing to discuss them until Kevin provides a satisfactory answer on this one issue?

As I understand Kevin, one of his points is that all of the other evidence informs the analysis of the dittograph so that you cannot simply view the dittograph in isolation. The dittograph needs to be interpreted in a context that fits the rest of the evidence.

[_Nomad]

Yeah? Like what? Common corrections? I've been able to look at the two documents in question in the past two weeks. All the corrections that were made are obviously secondary, indicating that they were made later rather than in the process of a dictation. Just like the corrections made to the Book of Mormon text, where all the corrections were made later.

I am so glad you said this, because it proves once and for all ywhat little you know on this subject. I knew that if I gave you enough rope, you'd hang yourself, so here goes: Explain to us all how the following were "secondary" corrections:

So Joseph Smith dictated whereunto, and it was written, and then he immediately made the correction of "unto" so the scribe crossed out "where unto" and wrote the correction in transition. This flies in the face of "secondary" corrections theory.

In the images I have seen, all of the corrections you see are secondary. At least all of them I looked at, including this one. In other words, they weren't made in the course of dictation. They were added in later. It's not really complex at all.

Besides, if the EAG is dependent on a pre-existing text of this verse, then we know absolutely that this is a copy. The fact that we see evidence of copying in these documents simply confirms Schryver's dependency thesis.

It's all quite elementary, unless you spend lots of time in the MDB Wonderland, where up is down, black is white, etc.