KEP Dictation Argument: The Evidence

[_beastie]

If you're already backpedaling from your own points, why, that is just plain entertaining. Even delightsome.

I really wouldn't take much of what Will says on these boards seriously. He is begging everyone not to. I am only too happy to oblige.

Yes, he certainly gives lots of little clues...

Say it’s a game and I’ll come to no harm …

[_William Schryver]

If you're already backpedaling from your own points, why, that is just plain entertaining. Even delightsome.

Oh, beastlie, I'm not "backpedaling" at all. It's just that you obviously don't understand! You can't seem to put the pieces together in order to draw the appropriate conclusions and make the appropriate inferences. This could be because you really aren't very well versed in the "big picture" of the controversy, and the relationships of the various manuscripts, the chronology of production, etc. Or, more likely, it's because you just don't want to understand.

And, frankly, I don't care that you don't understand. I don't even care if you all believe you're defeating my arguments. I have yet to see any evidence on this thread that anyone even understands what my arguments are.

As far as the characters themselves are concerned, I couldn't care less where they come from, or whose idea it was to select them, or what they thought was the origin of those characters. The only really important thing, in terms of my theses, is that very few of the characters to which they gave "explanations" had any relationship to the papyri they purchased from Chandler, and those that can be found on the papyri attest no discernible relationship to one another such that it might be inferred that someone was trying to "translate" them.

All right, you may resume your regularly scheduled straw man beating. I have places to go where real people have real thoughts and engage in meaningful conversations ...

[_Kishkumen]

As far as the characters themselves are concerned, I couldn't care less where they come from, or whose idea it was to select them, or what they thought was the origin of those characters. The only really important thing, in terms of my theses, is that very few of the characters to which they gave "explanations" had any relationship to the papyri they purchased from Chandler, and those that can be found on the papyri attest no discernible relationship to one another such that it might be inferred that someone was trying to "translate" them.

Interesting point. Of course, one might also argue that the project was not limited to translating the papyri, but that it also was not unrelated to it.

[_dblagent007]

And, frankly, I don't care that you don't understand. I don't even care if you all believe you're defeating my arguments. I have yet to see any evidence on this thread that anyone even understands what my arguments are.

I see that you are letting your inner Wade take over.

As far as the characters themselves are concerned, I couldn't care less where they come from, or whose idea it was to select them, or what they thought was the origin of those characters. The only really important thing, in terms of my theses, is that very few of the characters to which they gave "explanations" had any relationship to the papyri they purchased from Chandler, and those that can be found on the papyri attest no discernible relationship to one another such that it might be inferred that someone was trying to "translate" them.

So have you retreated from your cipher theory to your "I don't know what they were doing but it wasn't translating" theory?

[_Kishkumen]

Yes, he certainly gives lots of little clues...

My favorite was his apologia for his habitual abuse of the word "conclusive." He assures Dr. Hauglid that in his publications he will not use the term so carelessly. We'll see.

[_sock puppet]

I can't know (since it isn't extant), nor am I certain that it was in manuscript form (it could have been commited to memory), but I suspect it looked like a revelatory translation of portions of the BoA--not unlike the many other revelatory translations preceeding it.

In terms of the verity of Joseph's prophetic calling, does it matter what it looks like?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

I appreciate your candor, Wade. It seems to me that you are being reasonable about things here. I do find it interesting that you are now conceding that there may have been no manuscript at all, but simply things in Joseph Smith's memory, which he could recall at any point later to do with as he was inspired.

And as you say, the issue of the verity of Smith's calling has nothing to do with what it looked like. And I'll go you one further... it doesn't have anything to do with whether it existed either.

Maybe not. But there is the question of whether he was (a) a fraud, (b) simply deluded or (c) there in fact was into his mind some impulse of divine origin guiding Joseph Smith. That's where one examines his statements. These are truly troubling statements for a believer in option #(c) (emphasis added):

some of the Saints at Kirtland purchased the mummies and papyrus, a description of which will appear hereafter, and with W. W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery as scribes, I commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics, and much to our joy found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph of Egypt, etc.,--a more full account of which will appear in its place, as I proceed to examine or unfold them

This entry was for the first day of whatever Joseph Smith did or did not do with the papyri. He claims to have been translating characters or hieroglyphics.

The record of Abraham and Joseph, found with the mummies, is beautifully written on papyrus, with black, and a small part red, ink or paint, in perfect preservation. The characters are such as you find upon the coffins of mummies--hieroglyphics, etc.; with many characters of letters like the present (though probably not quite so square) form of the Hebrew without points.

The Book of Abraham, Translated from the Papyrus, by Joseph Smith. A Translation of some ancient Records, that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt.—The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus. See History of the Church, vol. 2, pp. 235, 236, 348—351.

This entry was months after Will Schryver's theory posits that the Abr 1-3 text had been produced (for wont of a better term that would not ignite the apologists).

For those who believe that Joseph Smith was divinely inspired (option #(c)) above, the fact that the KEP tie the BoAbr to the Sensen papyri is damning. It proves that Joseph Smith was not doing what he claimed--translating 'characters or hieroglyphics' on the papyri into the BoAbr. At best, this tie-in shows that Joseph Smith was delusional (by God or by himself), and at worst was a fraud.

If you are a believer, it is not much comfort to say that Joseph Smith did not know what he was talking about (delusional), just an unwitting instrument of God to restore the BoAbr. That conjures up images of a medium conducting a seance and the dead person taking over the medium's body and speaking to the others at the table, and then when the dead person is finished the medium "wakes up" and has no clue what just happened and the others witnessed. Those seance scenes have been rightfully caricatured in the popular media for decades, and with good reason.

The believing Mormon wants their to be more to Joseph Smith than that, after all, they lead their lives on nearly every word that tumbled from the man's mouth. If he didn't know what he was doing when God inspired him, how could his followers know?

Disconnecting the BoAbr from the Sensen papyri, which does not translate from Egyption into the BoAbr text, is essential to revive the missing papyrus theory (i.e., the other parts of the papyri purchase back in 1835 must then be those with the stories of Abraham and Joseph). That re-establishes a place of plausibility for the BoAbr as scripture and Joseph Smith to be a prophet of God as he claimed. For the believer who is aware of the KEP and the damning tie that it makes between the BoAbr and the Sensen papyri in light of Joseph Smith's and the Church's claims, breaking that tie is essential.

[_beastie]

[ The only really important thing, in terms of my theses, is that very few of the characters to which they gave "explanations" had any relationship to the papyri they purchased from Chandler, and those that can be found on the papyri attest no discernible relationship to one another such that it might be inferred that someone was trying to "translate" them.

Kevin, Chris, Paul, others - I'd love your feedback on this statement of Will's.

(ps, Note - "to which they gave explanations" - somehow Will believes this allows him to ignore the rest of the figures that were not explained, yet were present and from the papyri)

[_Kishkumen]

Maybe not. But there is the question of whether he was (a) a fraud, (b) simply deluded or (c) there in fact was into his mind some impulse of divine origin guiding Joseph Smith. That's where one examines his statements.

I leave the theology to the theologians. My position in the past was that Joseph could have used the KEP in the process of grappling with the papyri and that it would not necessarily lead to the conclusion that he was acting fraudulently. I still think that people will tend to draw the conclusions they will. But that is different from the history, and this is where your quoted material comes in.

The history is something I remain interested in, and I don't agree with the way the apologists seem to be reading these items now.

Now, I think it is true that some believers will be troubled by the discovery that Joseph was not translating Egyptian, when it seems he either thought he was or was claiming to do so when he knew he could do no such thing. The whole catalyst notion gets around this neatly. And it really boils down to precisely what kind of catalyst one is talking about.

Right now it looks to me that for William the mere sight of the mummies was all that was needed to pour a revelation of ancient Abraham and Joseph accounts into Joseph's mind and then onto the page. Wade even allows the possibility that Joseph did not commit these revelations to paper in early July. The big difference between where they sit and what I would have argued is that I saw the catalyst as being the KEP itself, which would not be straightforward translation documents, but would represent some of the revelatory process by which Joseph Smith came to put together the Book of Abraham and might have set out other things too.

Disconnecting the BoAbr from the Sensen papyri, which does not translate from Egyption into the BoAbr text, is essential to revive the missing papyrus theory (i.e., the other parts of the papyri purchase back in 1835 must then be those with the stories of Abraham and Joseph). That re-establishes a place of plausibility for the BoAbr as scripture and Joseph Smith to be a prophet of God as he claimed. For the believer who is aware of the KEP and the damning tie that it makes between the BoAbr and the Sensen papyri in light of Joseph Smith's and the Church's claims, breaking that tie is essential.

Hmmm. Maybe. But what they are arguing tends toward there not being any necessary connection between revelation and text anyways. I don't see that this rescues a missing papyrus theory at all. A found papyrus with Joseph Smith Abraham on it does. One could just as easily say that the catalyst of the mummies brought on a revelation of a text that was already missing. I mean, there is always an apologetic, no matter how historically implausible or unverifiable it might be (unverifiable is all for the better, no?). And that may satisfy the apologists, but they are apologists, and as they continue to multiply lost texts, my assessment of their respect for history depreciates precipitously.

[_sock puppet]

Kish, I think it boils down to trying to restore Joseph Smith's and the Church's credibility. Both are tarnished by the KEP.

The history clearly reveals that Joseph Smith claimed he was translating Egyptian 'characters or hieroglyphs' on the papyri that Smith claimed contained the story of Abraham, Joseph, etc. 7/5/1835.

Months after even after Will Schryver places Abr 1-3 (if not all of BoAbr) as having been 'translated' by Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith yet did not realize (or concede) that the Egyptian characters on the papyri did not contain the story of Abraham. 12/31/1835.

In the extant introduction to the BoAbr, the Church claims that it is "The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus", and importantly, that such was "translated from the papyrus, by Joseph Smith."

These claims either leave Joseph Smith looking duped (and so by accepting the BoAbr as divine, how do we then evaluate the rest of his productions since he was duped?) or as a fraud. Either way, cognitive dissonance is going to beat the living s*** out of a testimony.

So the TBM needs Joseph Smith to have really been doing what he claimed, translating Egyptian characters or hieroglyphs on the purchased papyri into the English text of the BoAbr. Since the recovered Sensen papyrus does not translate into the BoAbr, well then, the papyrus that Joseph Smith must have translated the BoAbr from had to be some other piece of papyri.

Uh-oh. There's the KEP to contend with. The Abr Mss portion of the KEP lines up characters taken from that recovered Sensen papyri in the left hand margins of manuscripts of the BoAbr. Wow. Hard to say in light of the KEP and recovered Sensen papyri (came to light circa 1967) that Joseph Smith and his scribes did not think that they were translating the BoAbr from the Sensen papyri.

That takes the TBMs back to Joseph Smith was either a dupe or a fraud. Even the catalyst theory leaves Joseph Smith a dupe because after having "translated" those characters or hieroglyphs from the papyri into the BoAbr, Joseph Smith yet thought that he'd made an actual translation. Much better if the KEP's bridge between the Sensen papyri and the BoAbr could be destroyed. That way, the TBMs can say that Joseph Smith knew what he was doing, really did it, and if only we had the yet missing papyri, we'd then be able to prove, and that they will have to content themselves with waiting until the Millennium when the correct piece of papyri will be shown to them.

As for the BoAbr having truths, regardless of how it was produced or what Joseph Smith thought he was doing, I suppose I could choose to believe that there is divine 'truth' in the Cat in the Hat. To do so, I would have to believe either that Dr. Seuss is God or some other fount of divine truth, such as an angel sent by God. If I believe Dr. Seuss to be nothing more than an author of witty children's books, my believe that Cat is the Hat contains divine truths cannot hold.

For Mormons, merely believing that the BoAbr contains some wisdom or is spiritually enlightening is not enough. On a spirituality scale, Deepak Chopra books kick the bejesus out of the BoAbr. To give spiritual fealty to the BoAbr but not Chopra, I need there to be something divine involved in the production of the BoAbr that I believe is missing from Chopra. If I can't, I have to ask myself, why would I pay 10% of my bounty over to the LDS Church?

[_Darth J]

You still have never explained how Schryver or you are deciding whether a word is "unique" or "generic."

"[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."

Of course, how many pages it is depends on what edition you are reading. So here you go:

injuries
revenge
retribution
connosisserurship
gemmary
vintages
carnival
motley
Amontillado
Sherry
vaults
engagement
nitre
distinguish
mask
roqeulaire
flambeaux
catacombs
staircase
rheum
intoxication
draught
Medoc
bottle
defend
damps
azure
serpent
bells
puncheons
brotherhood
masons
crypt
walls
Paris
bones
granite
ignoramus
mortar
trowel
niche
staples
padlock
links
moaning
obstinate
tier
clanking
rapier
clamorer
screams
joke
palazzo
wine
aperture
jingling
century
rampart

Oh, my!

DaftJ has, quite inadvertantly I’m sure, just provided me with one of the most persuasive and compelling apologetic defenses of my dependency thesis in the one month since my FAIR conference presentation!

Thank you, DaftJ, thank you.

In fact, as soon as I return from my Labor Day getaway with Sorella Schryver (who also, incidentally, served with me in the Italy Catania Mission back in ’79-’81) I will start a new thread in the Pundits Forum of the MADB board in order to elaborate on DaftJ’s accidental defense of the substantial word study to which I made reference in my summary presentation at the FAIR conference.

You mean how I arbitrarily picked a bunch of words out of a story I was familiar with using no methodology or objective criteria whatsoever, and without regard to whether Edgar Allan Poe regarded those words as "unique" or "generic"?

I agree. I may have inadvertently said a great deal about your "substantial word study."