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

[_Kevin Graham]

I'll refrain from responding to more of your posts until you tell me exactly what it is about my argument that does not convince you.

LOL. Just call his bluff like I did, Trev.

Nice rhetoric, but it doesn't respond to the fact that evidence unambiguously supports my position and not Kevin's. I've explained why. Kevin has not been able to engage my concerns.

So says the guy who is admittedly ignorant of the manuscripts as a whole. Only an intellectual fraud would pass judgment on a document he has not read in its entirety. Sorry, but you wanted to play the intellectual authority card, so you'll have to fall by the same sword.

My argument is based on evidence that is found all throughout the document; evidence you refuse to engage because it disrupts Will's theory. So keep posturing Mak, I'm sure you're impressing some people. In Utah.

Funny how Kevin and I are relatively alone until he can't respond and the argument regresses to ad hominem. So many people come out of the woodwork to participate.

I responded numerous times, but the problem is you do not have the intellectual honesty to respond to my actual argument. I've caught you doing this aat least twice now, and I can only conclude it is just a smokescreen to detract people from the fact that you cannot admit being wrong when refuted. Instead of engaging in intelligent, respectul conversation, you condescend to us from your ivory tower and expect us to just give in. You focus on irrelevancies that do nothing to address the primary argument for dictation. And funny how you complain about the company. You weren't complaining a few hours ago when nimrods like Nomad and Droopy were polluting the discussion with emotionally charged rhetoric. But the funniest thing is that you pretend the educated people would agree with you, and yet virtually everyone here who has responded to your whiney "concern" have more education and experience than you do, and can see right through your false representation of scholarly standards.

In the meantime, you're stuck with college drop out Will Schryver and High School students, Nomad and Droopy. So forgive us if we laugh when you insist expertise in a specific field is required before we can dare challenge your arguments.

[_Darth J]

A shift in emphasis by whom?

The critics. Once the sand begins to shift underneath their feet they start to claim they never liked standing there in the first place.

Which critics? How many times have non-believers on this board said, "even if Schryver is right, so what?" Who are these critics who are depending on denying the existence of a homoioteleuton in a certain place in part of the KEP to rationalize their unbelief in the Book of Abraham?

What do you mean "the" theory?

I didn't say "the theory," I said "the position," and I meant the position held by critics here and on MADB that the KEP was a damning piece of evidence.

"The theory" and "the position" is a distinction without a meaningful difference. The existence of the KEP at all is a damning piece of evidence, regardless of the exact nuance of whether they were dictated or transcribed, and regardless of whether they were an attempt to reverse engineer the papyri, a cipher for which no evidence but assertion exists, or a guide for a purported translation of the papyri. Whatever it is, the KEP project is weird, it is babbling, and it does not look in any way prophetic or Godly to most reasonable people. How has this been refuted?

Are you asserting that this was the theory of everyone who does not believe in the LDS Church's claims about the Book of Abraham, or the theory of a small group of people that have studied the KEP, the members of which I probably don't need more than two hands' worth of fingers to count?

I referenced exactly zero theories.

Then let's frame the question in terms of your distinction without a difference:

Are you asserting that this was the position of everyone who does not believe in the LDS Church's claims about the Book of Abraham, or the position of a small group of people that have studied the KEP, the members of which I probably don't need more than two hands' worth of fingers to count?

Shift in emphasis by whom? By everyone who does not believe that the Book of Abraham is a legitimate scripture, or by the handful of people who have studied this particular piece of esoteric Mormon trivia? Are you asserting that nobody said the KEP were irrelevant to their non-belief in the Book of Abraham prior to your and/or Schryver's argument?

Of course not.

Okay, then by whom? Who are the critics, and of what precisely are they critical?

[Guest]

You're uncritically defending Kevin's assumptions. Give me reason to believe you're not in his camp.

When you calm down and start behaving like a rational human being again, let me know. Right now you are behaving like a petulant little creep.

Tell me why. I'll refrain from responding to more of your posts until you tell me exactly what it is about my argument that does not convince you.

Fine. I told you what I disagreed with in this particular observation about the insertion of me. When other issues come up that I take issue with, I'll address them. You're obviously so eager to place me in a "camp" that now you have decided how I must act in order to play my part correctly for you. I won't play along with that, but I'll happily jump in when I feel I have something to add.

Now you can declare victory over the dreaded anti-Mormon. LOL. Go tell Don Bradley all about your victory in slaying Trevor the anti-Mormon who uncritically supports Kevin Graham all of the time. I'm sure he'll have a good laugh.

By the way, next time you talk to Will, you might ask him how vehemently I last opposed him when I encouraged him to submit his article to a respectable journal. People in my "camp" are known to give such abusive advice when we are acting on our dogmas.

[_maklelan]

The graphics he posted provided rather striking and clear illustrations of his points, I thought. Certainly, that's nowhere near as "oblique" as your allusions to this mysterious source document.

No they didn't. He didn't provide a single image from Ab2, page 4, and the images from the other pages are only relevant to those pages.

Well, then: doesn't that other, "perfectly legitimate" evidence show that Joseph Smith & Co. were trying to translate Egyptian?

Not in the least. I've shown that in the case of Abr 1:1-3 and Ab2, page 4, they are working from another text. There's no reason not to conclude that the dictation is just coming from the same text.

But Mak: that's *not* what he's arguing (at least as far as I can tell). That's why he's saying that you're attacking a straw man. What Kevin seems to be arguing is that the evidence, overall, shows that the KEP are translation documents.

That's what he hopes to show in the end, but the evidence he's mustering is designed to try to show that the Abraham manuscripts were only dictated and never transcribed. Of course, as I've pointed out, they don't come close to supporting that notion, and Kevin is unwilling and unable to directly engage the evidence that certain portions were transcribed.

So, if you've got one page that points to copying rather than dictation/translation, how does that *disprove* the argument about the overall mss. constituting a failed attempt at translation?

I don't even know where to begin. First, his evidence doesn't support the notion that the whole thing was an attempt at translation. It supports the notion that portions were dictated and nothing more. Kevin is unable to address the evidence that portions were transcribed. He is also unable to address the probability that another text underlies even the dictated portions.

Know what I mean?

I know what you're trying to say, but you don't have the foggiest idea what's going on here.

I don't know, Mak. Frankly, I think that the idea of some sort of revision taking place seems a lot more plausible than your missing document theory. This is especially so in light of the fact that this document is...well....missing.

Of course, you can't even begin to explain why you think that.

Sure. But for a larger revision, it would make sense to start the paragraph afresh.

Of course, the total number of variations between the two paragraphs does not even constitute a whole sentence. It's not a larger revision.

And if Smith was dictating what he thought was a translation, then the errors and subsequent revisions begin to make a lot more sense. E.g., your example re: the shift to 1st Person. I mean, seriously, Mak: how does your copying theory account for a shift like that?

You're not paying any attention at all. There is no shift. The whole thing is in first person. The notion that the variant in the copied text is intentional is where a shift would have to be introduced. Your theory asserts a shift, not mine. Mine asserts a scribal error. Pay attention!

What, the scribes just somehow magically made the mistake of screwing up the entire point of view? That makes zero sense. But I've you've done translation work before, then you know that sometimes you realize that you've got problems with the case or POV or whatever and thus you revise once you spot the error. (E.g., you misread 3rd person for 1st person.)

I'm utterly in shock. Please tell me this is a joke.

[_maklelan]

No, mak, try again. I had been watching this thread since its inception. And since its inception you came across to me as a snot-nosed grad student who thought way too highly of himself. I thought several times about pointing out that you were coming across as a complete ass wipe.

But, Kevin was playing along so I just assumed that I was missing something. Maybe I was just not being charitable enough. Maybe the discussion was really good and I just wasn't understanding something. I didn't want to derail the thread by pointing all of this out. But then Kevin pointed this out, the thread was quickly derailing, and so at that point I felt it o.k. to let you know what I really thought.

I've never in my life been exposed to such shameless dishonesty, disrespect, and pseudo-scholarship. I'm honestly in shock, and the worst part is that if I put an end to the abuse by leaving everyone is going to be crowing about how Kevin whipped me when each and every one of you knows very well that he simply couldn't answer the question his theory demanded be answered. It does not compute. How can sentient adults function like this? It simply makes no sense how you can all be so irrational and dogmatic. I'm at a loss for words. I've never been so ashamed of the human race. Goodbye.

[_Trevor]

Funny how Kevin and I are relatively alone until he can't respond and the argument regresses to ad hominem. So many people come out of the woodwork to participate.

Gee, sorry, I was in a faculty meeting. I didn't realize I was one of the hordes of ad-hominemers popping out of the woodwork to plow you under. Good grief.

[_Trevor]

I've never in my life been exposed to such shameless dishonesty, disrespect, and pseudo-scholarship. I'm honestly in shock, and the worst part is that if I put an end to the abuse by leaving everyone is going to be crowing about how Kevin whipped me when each and every one of you knows very well that he simply couldn't answer the question his theory demanded be answered. It does not compute. How can sentient adults function like this? It simply makes no sense how you can all be so irrational and dogmatic. I'm at a loss for words. I've never been so ashamed of the human race. Goodbye.

Uh, get a grip, guy. No, you haven't lost perspective. We all stand corrected there.

[_Darth J]

I remember when I was in grad school, when I thought I knew everything and was so much smarter than else, when no one else was capable of evaluating an argument, and when the latest thing I studied answered all the questions in the world, and when my experience was in taking tests and convincing professors, before I had to apply what I had studied to the real world.

Good times, good times.

Nice rhetoric, but it doesn't respond to the fact that evidence unambiguously supports my position and not Kevin's. I've explained why. Kevin has not been able to engage my concerns.

You're welcome to explain why you disagree if you think you're up to it.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I care either way. I don't, and I have made that clear many, many times on this board, starting months before Schryver's presentation. However, welcome to the Manichean world of Mormon apologetics.

My observation of your being a neophyte as to presenting yourself to the real world, instead of your professors, is that you keep wanting to argue in a vacuum. I don't really care whether or not Kevin is able to engage your concerns, and it is the mark of a grad student in any field that they are unable to perceive a real world application for what they're doing.

You're welcome to explain why in the big picture it matters whether you are correct, if you think you're up to it.

[_Kevin Graham]

Now you can declare victory over the dreaded anti-Mormon. LOL. Go tell Don Bradley all about your victory in slaying Trevor the anti-Mormon who uncritically supports Kevin Graham all of the time. I'm sure he'll have a good laugh.

By the way, next time you talk to Will, you might ask him how vehemently I last opposed him when I encouraged him to submit his article to a respectable journal. People in my "camp" are known to give such abusive advice when we are acting on our dogmas.

LOL.

Mak, quit while you're ahead man. You're out of your league here. If you don't want to respond to evidence that you requested, then you're obviously not serious about anything other than posturing. Stop pretending to have interest in a debate. I gave you the benefit of the doubt at first, but seeing your non-response to my thorough refutation (with visuals) I provided this morning just confirms what others have suspected. That you're just another sychophant apologist.

[_Aristotle Smith]

No, mak, try again. I had been watching this thread since its inception. And since its inception you came across to me as a snot-nosed grad student who thought way too highly of himself. I thought several times about pointing out that you were coming across as a complete ass wipe.

But, Kevin was playing along so I just assumed that I was missing something. Maybe I was just not being charitable enough. Maybe the discussion was really good and I just wasn't understanding something. I didn't want to derail the thread by pointing all of this out. But then Kevin pointed this out, the thread was quickly derailing, and so at that point I felt it o.k. to let you know what I really thought.

I've never in my life been exposed to such shameless dishonesty, disrespect, and pseudo-scholarship. I'm honestly in shock, and the worst part is that if I put an end to the abuse by leaving everyone is going to be crowing about how Kevin whipped me when each and every one of you knows very well that he simply couldn't answer the question his theory demanded be answered. It does not compute. How can sentient adults function like this? It simply makes no sense how you can all be so irrational and dogmatic. I'm at a loss for words. I've never been so ashamed of the human race. Goodbye.

No, mak, when you leave I will conclude nothing other than the fact that you are a dick. I will still read and analyze your findings on the KEP and if they are persuasive I will change my mind on the matter. Because, believe it or not, I care more about the arguments you make than the fact that you are a dick.

Seriously, analyze the whole KEP and put your analysis in the open. I promise to give it a fair hearing. And if you do that, I will still offer you free lunch the next time you are Plano, Texas. All you can eat at Fadi's Mediterranean Grill.