KEP Dictation Argument: The Evidence

[_Darth J]

I think it only right to mention that in the portion of the write-up of my research on ciphers that I attached to the thread at MADB, there were several findings that I attributed to Kevin and to Chris. I just wanted them to know that I appreciate some of the work that they have done on the KEP, even if I interpret their findings as pointing to a different conclusion than their's.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

I think it's special that you're working so hard learning about ciphers instead of working to find any evidence at all that Joseph Smith or any of his contemporaries said anything about a cipher.

Your example has inspired me to work on demonstrating how The Lord of the Rings is an allegory for the Teapot Dome Scandal. There is no factual or historical basis for this thesis, but by damn if I'll let that get in my way!

[_wenglund]

Wade, I want you to tell me the name of ONE PERSON who does not believe that Thomas Spencer Monson is a prophet because of some theory about the Kirtland Egyptian Papers.

That isn't something I have made my business to find out. Sorry.

Besides, my comments didn't have anyone specific in mind, which is why I phrased it in a generic and hypothetical way.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_wenglund]

I think it's special that you're working so hard learning about ciphers instead of working to find any evidence at all that Joseph Smith or any of his contemporaries said anything about a cipher.

Your example has inspired me to work on demonstrating how The Lord of the Rings is an allegory for the Teapot Dome Scandal. There is no factual or historical basis for this thesis, but by damn if I'll let that get in my way!

To each their own. Good luck with that.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_CaliforniaKid]

I think it only right to mention that in the portion of the write-up of my research on ciphers that I attached to the thread at MADB, there were several findings that I attributed to Kevin and to Chris. I just wanted them to know that I appreciate some of the work that they have done on the KEP, even if I interpret their findings as pointing to a different conclusion than their's.

Thanks, Wade.

[_beastie]

I find the degree of your misunderstandings and misinterpretations of my arguments to be rather stunning. Or at least they would be did they not proceed from you.

The real beauty of my findings is their simplicity and the way they serve to harmonize all of the textual and historical evidence. This is why they will continue to have potent explanatory value into the future, long after the anti-intellectual rantings of the GSTP have been forgotten.

Here are your statements that I carefully transcribed from your talk, supporting my summary of your "Egyptian=pure language=but nothing to do with pure language concoction". I'm repeating portions of a previous post I made on this matter:

In the mind of Phelps and the others, Egyptian was apparently believed to have somehow avoided the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel. Egyptian, therefore, became a term that, for them, was synonymous with “pure language.”

But then Will ignores his own premise and pretends that Joseph Smith and his cohorts would have recognized the fact that they were including nonEgyptian elements in the KEP and would have realized that meant it wasn’t really Egyptian at all. (insert Scooby-Do “HUNH” here?) Joseph Smith thought Egyptian was the pure language of the ancients because it escaped the confounding of the Tower of Babel. Some elements were missing from the written text of the papyri as well as the facsimiles, and Joseph Smith inserted other elements for those missing portions. No one, including Joseph Smith, had the ability at that time period to correctly identify elements as non-Egyptian, since the cracking of the Rosetta Stone was in its early days. So when Joseph Smith relied on Masonic elements or other elements that he, like so many others, thought were related to the “pure language of the Egyptians”, he most likely thought those elements were Egyptian.

This does not mean that Joseph Smith did not “intend the documents to translate Egyptian”. It means that Joseph Smith didn’t know Egyptian, and neither did anyone else.

In fact, Will’s thesis is dependent on one of the worst cases of presentism that I’ve ever seen. Since we are able to now know what real Egyptian looks like, then Joseph Smith must have known that as well. !?!?!?!?!?!?!?

“In the mind of Phelps and the others, Egyptian was apparently believed to have somehow avoided the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel. Egyptian, therefore, became a term that, for them, was synonymous with “pure language. Thus, they see no contradiction in titling as Egyptian Counting a document that contains not a single element that is Egyptian, nor do they perceive any contradiction in titling the other documents Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, notwithstanding the fact that most of the characters they translate are not Egyptian, nor are the source texts themselves. Again, the evidence strongly suggests that the Alphabet and Grammar was never intended nor designed to decipher anything. Quite to the contrary, it was a short-lived attempt to construct an idiographic cipher and lexicon, whereby those who produced it took selections of Joseph Smith’s body of revelatory texts, written in English, and assigned to them simple character values. In their minds, the capacity of a single character to represent a word, or a sentence, or even an entire paragraph of over a hundred words, was typical of what they believed to have been the pure language of the ancients. Don’t misunderstand – I have encountered no evidence to date that they believe they were actually restoring the language of Adam, although it is possible that they believed that some of the characters they produced had come to them through inspiration. No, it appears they were merely producing their own rendition of what they believed pure language would be like. Deciphering Egyptian scrolls was not their purpose.”

Let me get this straight. Joseph thought Egyptian was synonymous with pure language because it escaped the corruption of the Tower of Babel. Joseph Smith had no way of knowing what elements were or were not Egyptian at that time period. He included nonEgyptian elements from sources that he thought were associated with the pure language of the ancients. And yet that means he knew he wasn’t using real Egyptian characters? So that means he knew this key would not decipher real Egyptians??

If Joseph Smith thought Egyptian was synonymous with the pure language of the ancients because it escaped the corruption of the Tower of Babel, then when he used elements “through inspiration” or by borrowing from sources he thought used the pure language of the ancients… then he thought those elements were Egyptian. And there was certainly no John Gee to correct him.

bumping this up out of frustration.... now we have Wade insinuating Joseph Smith would have had the knowledge to discern between Egyptian, Latin, and Aramaic... add that to this previous completely unjustified leap of Will's.

It seems Will and his defenders are just going to ignore this particular pink elephant having fun in their living room.

[_beastie]

Even better...

Joseph Smith's interest in Egypt was also connected to Masonry. Even before Smith's Canandaigua trial for glass-looking in January 1828, John Sheldon had reportedly written a letter in Masonic hieroglyphics to General Solomon Van Rensselaer, the Revolutionary War hero.79 At the time it sensationally underlined the claim of the Explanation of the First Degree Tracing Board: "the usages and customs of Masons have ever corresponded with those of the Egyptian philosophers, to which they bear a near affinity.… they [p.111] concealed their particular tenets … under hieroglyphical figures."80

The Saratoga Baptist Association at Milton, New York, in 1828 took that claim seriously, charging in the second of its fifteen-point indictments that Masonic rites "correspond with the Egyptian."81 The Egyptian obelisks upon which Champollion and Seyffarth had recently turned public attention were said to have been inscribed with Masonic hieroglyphics.82 Combining the Egyptian on the marble pillar fragments, which Solomon could not translate, with the unknown script in which God's name was written on the gold plate in the Royal Arch might produce "reformed Egyptian," which could only be translated with a key which worked by revelation. Like Solomon, Smith received revelation in the manner of a Masonic priest.

Joseph Smith condemned current expressions of Masonry but nevertheless accepted Masonry as a truly ancient form confirming God's relationships with humans from Adam on. He restored a Mason unencumbered by the corruptions and heresies of the lodges and churches in western New York.83 The high percentage of ex-Masons among Smith's early converts in the 1830s, when the anti-Masonic conflict was still fresh, indicates that many were looking not for rejection but for reform. Masonic legend provided support for Christian tradition and a rich lode to mine in combating deism. Joseph Smith took what he felt was true and transformed it for his own use.84

Joseph Smith's Response to Skepticism

by
Robert N. Hullinger

http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/sk ... apter8.htm

bumping up to demonstrate the size of the pink elephant

[Guest]

First, did Will give any reference for his "Masonic ciphers", or are we left guessing what Masonic ciphers, exactly, he used as a source?

Beastie - Just for your information I have spent the last couple of weeks examining Will's hypothesis that these characters were Masonic, and more importantly that Joseph Smith knew they were Masonic. Many of the characters on the Anthon transcript, specimen of the pure language, and the EA are indeed from a Masonic cipher known as the Royal Arch cipher. For this find Will should be commended. You are also correct that Joseph Smith would have thought that the Egyptians were Freemasons and thus the presence of Royal Arch cipher characters in the these documents would have been a foregone conclusion for Joseph Smith. As for the other conclusions that Will draws from the presence of the Royal Arch cipher in these documents, well, I find these highly problematic.

Would this legend have been known to Joseph Smith? YES
1. Joseph Smith's Uncles, father, and brother were Freemasons.
2. This Masonic legend was not sensitive Masonic information and thus was probably a topic of conversation around the dinner table.
3. This Masonic legend was repeatedly published in public newspapers.

The Escritoir, a Masonic newspaper available in Palmyra, made frequent references to the Egyptian-Masonic connection. For example the following quote from the Escritoir might be of interest to you.

When the Egyptian priests had, in this manner, procured admission into the Society of Freemasons, they connected the mythology of their country, and their metaphysical speculations concerning the nature of God, and the condition of men, with an association formed for the exclusive purpose of scientific improvement, and produced that combination of science and theology which, in after ages, formed such a conspicuous part of the principles of Freemasonry.

The knowledge of the Egyptians were carefully concealed from the vulgar; and when the priests did condescend to communicate it to the learned men of other nations, it was conferred in symbols and hieroglyphics, accompanied with particular rites and ceremonies, making the value of the gift they bestowed. (Escritoir, 1(15):113)

The Royal Arch cipher was readily available via exposes prior to the 1828 production of the Anthon transcript; and most Master Masons, despite this being a part of the higher degrees, were well aware of its existence and usage. Prior to either Brigham Young's or Joseph Smith's initiation into Freemasonry, Joseph had Brigham record one of his plural marriages in Royal Arch cipher. Mike Reed has a great writeup of this on his blog. The presence of characters from the Royal Arch cipher in the Anthon transcript before W. W. Phelps became a Mormon, the use of these characters by Brigham and Joseph to record sacred events, and the fact that W.W. Phelps published the anti-Masonic newspapers the Lake Light and Ontario Phoenix which Quinn says ridiculed the antiquity of Freemasonry, provide strong evidence that Joseph Smith was the primary instigator of their use and the belief that they were ancient.

[_Paul Osborne]

George,

I suggest you spend the next two weeks investigating another Masonic cipher -- the one that turns a powerful Egyptian god into a slave and tags him with a false name, Olimlah. From this creative cipher you can plainly see that Joseph Smith was falsely representing Egyptology and didn't know jack about its gods or its language.

If the Book of Abraham is really a true story then it must also follow that the mighty god Anubis was nothing but a slave in the kings court. If the Book of Abraham is a true story then we feel quite at ease knowing that Abraham parked his ass on the throne of false priesthoods while the royal family dressed up like women showing off the latest fashions.

Good luck in your research.

Paul O

[_George Miller]

I suggest you spend the next two weeks investigating another Masonic cipher -- the one that turns a powerful Egyptian god into a slave and tags him with a false name, Olimlah. From this creative cipher you can plainly see that Joseph Smith was falsely representing Egyptology and didn't know jack about its gods or its language.

If the Book of Abraham is really a true story then it must also follow that the mighty god Anubis was nothing but a slave in the kings court. If the Book of Abraham is a true story then we feel quite at ease knowing that Abraham parked his ass on the throne of false priesthoods while the royal family dressed up like women showing off the latest fashions.

Good luck in your research.

Please Paul don't give Wade any ideas :-)

Next he will be telling us that he ACTUALLY has come up with a such a code:

A=O
N=L
U=I
B=M
I=L <CRAP>
S=AH ????

[_wenglund]

Lovely Beastie and Bro. Miller,

It helps to keep in mind that, as pointed out several times before, Will's cipher hypothesis is secondary to his primary thesis (which is: that portions of the Book of Abraham were translated prior to the KEP project being inaugerated, and that the explanations in the KEP were thus dependant upon that prior translation of portions of the Book of Abraham and other passages of scriptures).

This means that the KEP were not intended to be used to translate the Book of Abraham from the Egyptian papyri. This means that even if you are correct about Joseph not being able to tell the difference between Egyptian and Latin and Arimaic (a point open to serious question given that Joseph was studying at the time in Latin and Hebrew, and could thus tell the difference between those two languages if not also Egyptian), it really doesn't matter in terms of transalting the Book of Abraham. At best, you may argue that the KEP was an effort by Phelps and Joseph to restore the "pure language" for FUTURE PURPOSES using what they may have thought to be Egyptian characters. In other words, the supposed pink elephant in the room is made moot in relation to the Book of Abraham translation.

Besides, while it may be true that Joseph considered Masonry, or elements thereof, to be very ancient, with Egyptian ties, if not Egyptian in nature, this does not mean that he considered everything about Masonry to be Egyptian. Certainly, he didn't consider the English lauguage used by English-speaking Masons to be Egyptian.

I mention this because if you look carefully at the "Masonic Cipher", you will see that it contains English letters separated by a grid. This grid is similar to other ciphers that are classed by cryptographers as "pig pen" (presumably because they have the appearance of a pig pen). The grid is clearly not hieroglypic or heiretic in nature, and would likely not be confused as such. This means that characters derived from the "Masonic Cipher" would not be confused for Egyptian linguistic characters. At best, if the "Masonic Cipher" were thought to have originated in Egypt, or to have been used by Egyptians, then one may consider the cipher characters to be Egyptian in the sense of cipher characters, though not in the sense of Egyptian in language.

Think of it as analogues to the stenographic (or shorthand) characters created by the Englishman, Samuel Tayor, in the late 1700's, and used extensively by English-speaking people at the time. For that reason, one may rightly call the characters "English" because of their origin and predominate use, but not "English" in terms of language. The English stenographic characters are different from English language characters, just as the "masonic Cipher" characters are different from the Egyptian language characters. Do you understand this very important distinction?

In other words, the alleged pink elephant in the room that was rendered moot by Will's primary thesis (which is being substantiated further by Will and by accredited textual critics), is now rendered irrelevant by the realization above.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-