KEP Dictation Argument: The Evidence

[_wenglund]

Let's just assume that the "dictation manuscripts" are really copies of a parent Q document. That does not explain where that parent "Book of Abraham translation" came from, so this theory does not solve the ultimate problem; it just adds an extra step.

No. At least for our side, it simply returns us to the long-standing, authoritative explanation for the provinance of the BoA--i.e. it was translated by way of divine revelation. (How did you not know this?)

I can't for the life of me imagine what the other side may offer as an explanation. Perhaps you are about to give it a try:

The reason he may have created this prop is to prove that he could read all these ancient, mysterious writings---he translated the papyrus by the power of God, and now he's going to show that he knows all these mysteries about the language of the ancients.

Could you please describe for us how this alleged prop will supposedly work as you suggest? In other words, how could an alleged prop containing non-Egyptian characters and sounds be used to show that Joseph knows the mysteries about the Egyptian language? And, what "mysteries" are you imagining he would be showing people about the Egyptian language?

And you also are not talking about who Joseph Smith's audience was: largely unschooled frontier people who believed that a magic rock in a hat was a perfectly acceptable explanation for the Book of Mormon, and who had a very different worldview than any of us.

Actually, to our knowledge, the KEP were only shown once to a single visitor, and it is uncertain what the educational background is of that one visitor, nor is there any indication that the alleged prop was used in the way you imagine. So, you are expecting us to believe that considerable time and energy was put into an alleged prop that was used once in an indeterminate way? Does that make sense even to you?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Aristotle Smith]

May I once again respectfully ask if anyone has looked carefully and found one of the ciphered messages in this image?:



I would prefer not to see a clever illustration go entirely to waste.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

OK Wade, I'll play along:



"IN HERE HID"

Now since I played your game, and got it right, please play my game. I would prefer not to see a clever illustration go entirely to waste. I'm sure you understand the sentiment. Here's my challenge to you:

Please recover the plain text from the following:

$Second Amendment$12$7BH77xkE3mC.1TFxwOYtXem6ZbwFHfRSP1WJ4lo/0omg1iriU6wra

I'll even help you. It's the result of using 12 round bcrypt with a 12 character random salt, which you will find prepended to the string of characters. It's base-64 encoded. I'll give you 5 bucks if you figure it out. Good luck.

Now, please go work on it and come back when you have the right answer. Your previous guess was incorrect. In fact, I'll even give you some more clues:

1) The message is 9 characters long.
2) Google "Rainbow Table."
3) If you can't recover the plain text, do the following: Please explain why this is so hard to do with a 12 round bcrypt hash. Please explain the mechanics of cryptographic hashing and why bcrypt with salt makes brute force attacks not as feasible as MD5 or SHA1, even with salting. Please explain what "12 round bcrypt," "salting," and "brute force" attack mean. Please explain why telling you the message is 9 characters long just made any recovery of the plain text orders of magnitude easier.
4) For bonus points, please explain the relevance of prime number factorization to modern cryptography.
5) For double bonus points please discuss the implications of quantum computing for modern crypto systems.

Links to wikipedia do not count for any of the above.

[_wenglund]

I don't know...

Finally, a direct answer, and one that was apparent all along.

See, you don't want to address my sentiments about the whole KEP issue because you don't have an answer. But also, Wade, you're not qualified to respond to textual criticism questions. Remember?

Oh, darn! You are back to evasive maneuvers again. But, I won't press you any more only to find out the inevitable--i.e. you don't know.

As for your text-critical questions, let me give you essentially the same answer I gave the last time you asked me this: Since I am not trained nor an expert in textual criticism, I am not in a position to say, but will leave that to those who are in a position.

Now, you seem to be saying that no one even knows or understands what the arguments are. If you are not qualified to opine on textual criticism, then how are you in a position to say that Schryver is right?

No one can rationally interpret my statement as suggesting anything of the sort. But, somehow you managed it.

I am sorry. But as usual, after a while attempting to reasonably interact with you, I have quickly run out of energy striving to endure your sustained blizzard of banality and correcting the invarible and continually mounting interpretive mess you make of my simple and straightforward comments. So, I will once again leave you to carry on both sides of the conversation. Take care...

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Darth J]

Let's just assume that the "dictation manuscripts" are really copies of a parent Q document. That does not explain where that parent "Book of Abraham translation" came from, so this theory does not solve the ultimate problem; it just adds an extra step.

No. At least for our side, it simply returns us to the long-standing, authoritative explanation for the provinance of the BoA--i.e. it was translated by way of divine revelation. (How did you not know this?)

I can't for the life of me imagine what the other side may offer as an explanation. Perhaps you are about to give it a try:

Finally, the last chink in the armor is revealed! Joseph Smith could not possibly have made up the Book of Abraham and relied on sources that were available to him for a great deal of its content. Clearly, divine revelation is the only alternative.

By the way, you are making the same argument that Muslims make about the Koran being true because Muhammad could not have made it up.

Also, L. Ron Hubbard said that science fiction is based on real cosmic events from which Scientology derives. So at least you are in good company with this line of apologetics.

Wade, please answer yes or no: does The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claim that the Book of Abraham is a translation of the papyrus that Joseph Smith obtained from Michael Chandler?

The reason he may have created this prop is to prove that he could read all these ancient, mysterious writings---he translated the papyrus by the power of God, and now he's going to show that he knows all these mysteries about the language of the ancients.

Could you please describe for us how this alleged prop will supposedly work as you suggest? In other words, how could an alleged prop containing non-Egyptian characters and sounds be used to show that Joseph knows the mysteries about the Egyptian language? And, what "mysteries" are you imagining he would be showing people about the Egyptian language?

I see you have gotten me again. People on the frontier in the 19th century could have easily Googled all this or looked at Egyptology journals and found out it was just a sham. Damn those 1830's frontier Ohioans, with their computers and libraries and modern research!

And once again, a vexing blow to me, that I would refer to "mysteries." I certainly could not be getting that from Wilford Woodruff.

The Lord is blessing Joseph with power to reveal the mysteries of the kingdom of God, to translate … ancient records and hieroglyphics as old as Abraham or Adam, which causes our hearts to burn within us while we behold their glorious truths opened unto us. Joseph the Seer has presented us some of the book of Abraham, which was written by his [Abraham’s] own hand but hid from the knowledge of man for the last four thousand years but has now come to light through the mercy of God.

And you also are not talking about who Joseph Smith's audience was: largely unschooled frontier people who believed that a magic rock in a hat was a perfectly acceptable explanation for the Book of Mormon, and who had a very different worldview than any of us.

Actually, to our knowledge, the KEP were only shown once to a single visitor, and it is uncertain what the educational background is of that one visitor, nor is there any indication that the alleged prop was used in the way you imagine. So, you are expecting us to believe that considerable time and energy was put into an alleged prop that was used once in an indeterminate way? Does that make sense even to you?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

As I already said, I didn't say this is "my theory." I'm wondering why everyone is stuck on this false dichotomy of either Schryver or "the critics" (whatever that means in any given instant). As is your wont in leaving out facts, you are not mentioning the numerous people who said that Joseph Smith had translated the papyri or was engaging in translating the papyri. Making your scribes/assistants believe this would be important in creating this belief. All I'm doing is restating the reverse-engineering theory. If you have problems with reverse engineering, then take it up with Hugh Nibley or John Gee. It would take work by someone a lot more interested in me to decide if reverse engineering to make people think he knew how to understand all these ancient mysteries holds water.

But no, Wade, I'm expecting you to believe you that considerable time and energy was put into an alleged cipher that was used never in any way. That makes much more sense.

P.S. If you are looking for an example of a hoax where someone claimed to understand an obscure foreign culture and fooled many people, here's a start:

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/arch ... f_formosa/

or here:

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/arch ... afinesque/

[_Darth J]

I don't know...

Finally, a direct answer, and one that was apparent all along.

As only a master apologist can do and expect to be taken seriously, you claim to have an answer by taking something out of context. What I said was, "I don't know, because you never give a straight answer to anything."

See, you don't want to address my sentiments about the whole KEP issue because you don't have an answer. But also, Wade, you're not qualified to respond to textual criticism questions. Remember?

Oh, darn! You are back to evasive maneuvers again. But, I won't press you any more only to find out the inevitable--i.e. you don't know.

I don't know what?

As for your text-critical questions, let me give you essentially the same answer I gave the last time you asked me this: Since I am not trained nor an expert in textual criticism, I am not in a position to say, but will leave that to those who are in a position.

Now, you seem to be saying that no one even knows or understands what the arguments are. If you are not qualified to opine on textual criticism, then how are you in a position to say that Schryver is right?

No one can rationally interpret my statement as suggesting anything of the sort. But, somehow you managed it.

I am sorry. But as usual, after a while attempting to reasonably interact with you, I have quickly run out of energy striving to endure your sustained blizzard of banality and correcting the invarible and continually mounting interpretive mess you make of my simple and straightforward comments. So, I will once again leave you to carry on both sides of the conversation. Take care...

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

So, once again, "even if you're right, so what" remains unanswered. And by the way, you're all a bunch of retards, but Wade is sorry for calling you stupid until the next time he calls you stupid, because your lack of intelligence is what keeps you from being persuaded by whatever his point is (try to find it!) in his exegesis of Schryver's theories.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14002&p=346375&hilit=movie#p346375

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13918&p=345558&hilit=good+people#p345558

[_Darth J]

While we're waiting for more non-answers and rhetorical questions from Wade that he will characterize as clear and straightforward such that only submarginal idiots cannot understand them:

Actually, to our knowledge, the KEP were only shown once to a single visitor, and it is uncertain what the educational background is of that one visitor, nor is there any indication that the alleged prop was used in the way you imagine. So, you are expecting us to believe that considerable time and energy was put into an alleged prop that was used once in an indeterminate way? Does that make sense even to you?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

From the FAIR wiki:

Many LDS scholars have claimed that the Kirtland Egyptian Papers are an example of a backwards translation. In other words, Joseph translated the Book of Abraham prior to the creation of the KEP and then he, and other early LDS brethren, tried to match the translated text to what they believed were the characters that were used to elicit the translation. In this scenario the KEP was not the product of revelation, but was rather an attempt to "study out" the translation, after-the-fact, in what might have been an experiment to create an Egyptian alphabet. In essence, Joseph and his friends were trying to "reverse engineer" the translation of Egyptian script using the inspired translation he had already produced. The men at Kirtland were treating the Book of Abraham as a sort of Rosetta Stone from which they hoped to crack the code for Egyptian (which was largely untranslatable by scholars of the time.)


An alternative "meaning and purpose" may be that the reverse Rosetta Stone would show that Joseph Smith understood all this ancient language stuff; but again, someone a lot more interested than I am would have to look into that.

[_Nomad]

DarthJ:

Now it's back to the circular reasoning. Let's just assume that the "dictation manuscripts" are really copies of a parent Q document.

No assumption is necessary. Both Schryver and maklelan have presented conclusive evidence that the EAG is dependent on a pre-existing text. I have yet to see anyone address that evidence, other than to just summarily dismiss it.

The reason he may have created this prop is to prove that he could read all these ancient, mysterious writings---he translated the papyrus by the power of God, and now he's going to show that he knows all these mysteries about the language of the ancients. An after-the-fact prop is no less magician's patter than before-the-fact talk about the mystical arts of the Orient.

An interesting speculation, but one that has no basis in evidence or precedent.

I know that Schryver and his emissaries, like you, want to divorce history from your cipher mania, but unfortunately Michael Chandler signed a document indicating that Joseph Smith could read the Egyptian characters at the time Joseph Smith first obtained the papyri, and if you're an inspired hallucination fan (though you prefer to call it "catalyst"), the papyri are still what set this "translation" in motion.

First off, does anyone really believe that Chandler was in a position to know whether or not Joseph Smith’s translation was accurate? I think it’s pretty obvious that the only thing Chandler was interested in was getting his money and leaving town. I’m pretty sure he would have signed an affidavit that Joseph Smith could walk on water, if it meant putting $2400 in his pocket for the trip back home.

As for the arrival of the papyri being a catalyst for the reception of the translation of the Book of Abraham, no one is disputing that. Perhaps you can explain why you think Schryver’s thesis is affected either way. I can’t see how the quesiton of the dependency of the EAG on the Book of Abraham is affected at all, nor the hypothesis that the EAG represents an attempted encipherment of Joseph Smith’s revelations.

And you also are not talking about who Joseph Smith's audience was: largely unschooled frontier people who believed that a magic rock in a hat was a perfectly acceptable explanation for the Book of Mormon, and who had a very different worldview than any of us.

Your reading of history is dramatically different than my own. No doubt many early Mormons were, like their neighbors, “unschooled frontier people.” But that hardly describes the majority of them, especially those who rose to prominence in the movement like William Phelps, Oliver Cowdery, Frederick Williams, Warren Parrish, the Pratts, John Taylor, Lorenzo Snow, and many, many others. Not only that, but the “audience” for the EAG appears to have been a very small subset of Mormons-a group that included only the most accomplished people, like Phelps and Parrish.

All your false stereotyping does is reveal you to lack the objectivity necessary to assess the issue without prejudice. No surprise there.

I'm not saying this is my theory; I'm wondering why nobody seems to be considering this.

I’m sure most of the people here will be willing to consider any illogical scenario you can come up with. After all, that’s what they do best.

It's at least as likely as creating the cipher idea out of whole cloth.

Whole cloth? lol! The evidence for the cipher idea is, to use Schryver’s exact words, “abundant and compelling.” There is tons of textual evidence, as well as historical. Only here in Wonderland can such evidence be so easily dismissed. I’m sure it will play a lot better in scholarly circles where blind bigotry and stubborn ignorance are not as prevalent as they are here.

By the way, why isn't Hauglid as impressed as you are? I guess he must be just another moron who doesn't know anything.

Why do you think he isn’t? Did I miss something? As far as I know, Hauglid is convicned that the Schryver theses are 100% correct. Do you have evidence to the contrary? Please share.

Speaking of making things up, have you found that historical evidence about Joseph Smith or his companions thinking they were creating a cipher yet, or an example of them attempting to use this mess to encipher anything?

Schryver has found at least three examples of where the cipher was used. I have seen them. As far as I can tell, the evidence is incontrovertible. They combined the meanings of multiple characters to produce sentences.

But these examples also serve to illustrate how useless the thing would have been, which is no doubt part of the reason they abandoned the project so soon. As Schryver said in the Deseret News article, “It just didn’t work.” That’s why they gave it up not long after they started.

So, Nomad does not know how Schryver decided which words were "unique" and which words were "generic," nor which words Joseph Smith would have considered to be "unique" and which would have been "generic." Does anyone else want to try?

What are you talking about? Sometimes I think you have serious psychological problems.

Why do you think what Joseph Smith thought about “unique” and “generic” words would have any relevance at all to Schryver’s study? You say you’ve watched the video, and yet you still don’t seem to understand the logic behind the substantial word study. It really isn’t that hard to comprehend, if you ask me. He extracted the substantial words from the EA explanations. He categorized those words as either “unique” or “generic.” The classification process was, quite obviously, subjective. But the logic is sound. Words like:

blood
commandments
creation
eternity
follower
glory
government
minister
ordained

Were judged to be more unique in their application than words like:

after
before
end
father
first
God
good
heaven
land

I can see the logic behind the classification here. “Blood” is a much more “unique” word than “before”. “Commandments” much more unique than “end”. “Creation” much more unique than “good”.

I’ve seen the detail analysis of the study. I could not identify any methodological problems with it. In fact, I thought it was a stroke of genius to analyze the Egyptian Alphabet in that way. The study demonstrates rigor as well as a very conservative interpretation of the results. I thought the unique words should have been given a lot more weight than he assigned to them. Even so, just looking at the list of substantial words you can easily see that someone would have had to already know the content of the Book of Abraham in order to create that list. If you didn’t already know the content of the Book of Abraham, it simply would not be possible to create a list of 100 unique words and have over 90% of them be among the words used in the book. It’s a very persuasive study, and I can’t wait to see it published. I think it will be very difficult for anyone to effectively dispute its results and the conclusions that follow from those results.

Nomad, if the "unique" vs. "generic" isn't relevant, then why did Schryver talk about it at all, and why did he use it to introduce his methodology?

Once again we see evidence of the fact that you aren’t paying attention.

I never said the “unique” vs. “generic” classification wasn’t relevant. I don’t believe it isn’t relevant. Obviously, it is relevant, as well as logical.

I tell you what, let’s do a little test. I have in mind a particular short story by a famous American author. It is only 4 ½ pages long. The story takes place in Italy. Two men are the principal characters. I want you to make a list of 50 “substantial words.” Then we’ll compare that list of words to the story, and see if over 90% of the words on your list appear in that story. If you can even achieve a hit ratio of 30%, I’ll be impressed. You can’t include any articles, conjunctions, or prepositions, or any words with only generic application. They have to be very unique words, with very specific applications, similar in nature to the “unique” words as Schryver classified them in his study.

Here’s a list of ten words (selected from my post) that I would consider “unique” in the same way Schryver’s classified the EA words in his study.

• logical
• method
• theory
• audience
• papyrus
• Wonderland
• classification
• dictation
• manuscript
• illustrate

As soon as you complete and post your list, I will compare it to the story and see how successfully you were able to select only unique words that come from that story.

[_wenglund]

OK Wade, I'll play along:



"IN HERE HID"

Close. You got the right words, but in the wrong order. It should read "HID IN HERE".

I won't ask you to find the second encrypted message that is "HID IN HERE" since it would require the proper steganogrphic encryption software and the password for the encryption. Such would be well beyond the point of my illustration, as is the case with your challenge to me.

I have no problem redily admitting that I am far from capable of meeting your challenge. I trust that proves whatever point you intended to make.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Markk]

Wade,

From a post above, i'm not following this like allot of you, but please answer me this question so I can move on from the why's, to the how's? If there is a logical reason for the why's, then the how's will at the least fit in to that logic... fair question?

"Wade why was the code produced, to keep Anthon from reading the words of Abraham, (edit... Joesph), and Moses? Let me know why you believe it was produced?"

Anthon was about the only one around that could read Egyption anyway?

Thanks
MG

[_Nomad]

Wade,

From a post above, i'm not following this like allot of you, but please answer me this question so I can move on from the why's, to the how's? If there is a logical reason for the why's, then the how's will at the least fit in to that logic... fair question?

"Wade why was the code produced, to keep Anthon from reading the words of Abraham, (edit... Joesph), and Moses? Let me know why you believe it was produced?"

Anthon was about the only one around that could read Egyption anyway?

Thanks
MG

And yet another example of someone who is unwilling or unable to understand what Schryver has argued, let alone actually address the substantial body of evidence he presented to support his arguments. This place is chock full of such examples.