KEP Dictation Argument: The Evidence

[_Kishkumen]

That takes the TBMs back to Joseph Smith was either a dupe or a fraud.

I see more options that these two. But maybe you are right that most TBMs, being as poorly educated in their own religion as they are... heck, as most LDS people are, they will only see these two possibilities. And I don't really see the apologists helping them out of it either. Probably because they are operating under exactly the same set of conceptual limitations as the rest of the membership.

[Guest]

Do you realize that we are only talking about the KEP and not the Book of Abraham?

Then why did you write below…”the KEP was dependant on the Book of Abraham,…”

Maybe that is part of the problem Wade, you can’t separate the two, they are both part of the scam. Think outside the box Wade, your puzzled and confused and don’t understand how non-Egyptian figures can be in the KEP because you believe with all your heart that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God…I don’t, I think he was a fraud. So…when I read your posts I do so with that in mind, that you are TBM. What you need to do to understand my position is look at it as if Joseph Smith was scamming the folk? Right or wrong to be objective of our respective opinions that’s just the reality of it.

Do you realize that your thinking that the KEP was made up, doesn't conflict with Will's priority thesis and his cipher hypothesis?

Again, from two different perspectives. Will’s is from a TBM view, no matter what Wade, his theory is coming from a LDS point of view. He is saying that it is made up to support the whole Book of Abraham Egyptian thing while I say it is made up as part of the scam. Again right or wrong try to understand my position.

exegetical or hermeneutical

Give me your definition of these to words, and an example of how ciphering a text would lead to a clearer exegesis and interpretation of the original text? Maybe the supreme court should cipher the constitution so they get a clearer understanding of it?

Where you would get yourself into difficulty is by asserting that the purpose of the KEP was to scam people. By so asserting, you would then be obliged to substantiate your assertion in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.

What evidence Wade? Lets start with the beginning of Mormonism and work forward and discuss Smith’s life and test the evidence…go ahead start a thread, we can start with the first vision or what every Joseph Smith story you choose.

Take care
Mark

[Guest]

Let's see:

Fratello Schryver's lap dog (I mean Nomad, not Wade) wants me to pick 50 "unique" words from a story, and I have to guess from his clues what that story is. Since I recently posted a thread in which I claimed to be apostatizing for the dead on behalf of Edgar Allan Poe, it's not hard to guess that his clues for my personal "challenge" were referring to "The Cask of Amontillado."

The first time I read this story was in 7th grade. I have read it and other Poe stories many, many times since then. I also went on a mission to Italy and speak Italian, so I'm now even more familiar with the setting Poe was writing about in this story.

Nomad the Amazing Lap Dog gives no set criteria for deciding what makes a word "unique" in this "challenge," other than a "unique" word is not an article or a preposition, and the author used these words in a "unique" way. However, since there are still no objective criteria for what "unique" means, it's extremely subjective about whether these words were used in a "unique" way.

The only reason you give a challenge to a person with whom you disagree is you think they can't do it. So if I can't figure out this challenge, then I must not understand Schryver's "rigorous word study," and so he's far too smart to have his methodology---such as it is---second-guessed. Nomad the Amazing Lap Dog explicitly said so:

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.

All I did take was a short story that I've been familiar with for over two decades and arbitrarily pick a bunch of words out of the story. I'm not trying to "encipher" this story. I simply spent about 10 minutes picking words arbitrarily, whose "uniqueness" another reader may not entirely agree with. So now Fratello Schryver has decided that I did do it right, and now my ability to take his lap dog's challenge "proves" Schryver's dependency theory.

In other words, if I fail, Schryver's methodology is sound. If I succeed, Schryver's theories are vindicated. Truly, this is apologetic science at its finest.

If this pointless exercise is supposed to prove the "dependency theory," then it is indeed an ugly glimpse at the methodological sausage making that led to Schryver's presentation. He seems to be saying that nobody could possibly take a bunch of words or phrases (like, say, the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar) and pictures (like, say, the facsimiles) and revise a story you already know based on those words/phrases and pictures. In fact, school children are given assignments like this all the time. Here are some examples of this teaching technique:

Once the students know a lot of words related to the theme of the picture, the teacher might ask them to write a story using the new vocabulary they now possess, perhaps as a homework assignment. Even low-level students may amaze you.

http://www.suite101.com/content/teachin ... ay-a101076

* Students use the list of eighteen words from the novel to write a short story. Ask them to underline each. word from the list that they use.
* Students share stories with partners.
* A few students share their or their partners' stories with the class.
* Students make one word or short phrase guesses of what each word predicts in the "Story Guess" column.

http://urbandreams.ousd.k12.ca.us/lesso ... ities.html

Pairs or Groups
1) Look at these pictures.
What happened first?
What happened next?
2) Decide on a sequence.
3) Make a story together.
4) Tell your story to another group.

http://www.finchpark.com/hse/lesson%209 ... xt%201.doc

So here's my "dependency" challenge, which is open to anyone:

First, read "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe. http://www.literature.org/authors/poe-e ... llado.html

Then, take any number of the following words:

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

And use them to make up your own revision of "The Cask of Amontillado" based on this picture:



Since, you know, it is impossible to make a list of words or phrases related to a story with which you are already familiar (Genesis, Josephus) and use them to re-work an already familiar story around an unrelated picture.

EXTRA CREDIT:

#1 Do these pointless exercises, like mine or Nomad's (or Wade's or Aristotle Smith's cipher exercises) prove:

(a) That the EAG must be dependent on a pre-existing text
(b) That the Book of Abraham was written around a pre-existing vocabulary and picture list
(c) Nothing

#2 Is Schryver's declaration of triumph over this pointless "challenge" by Nomad:

(a) Baffling
(b) Like watching someone make sausages in the days before FDA regulations
(c) Pretty much the kind of thing you've come to expect

[_Kishkumen]

I choose "c."

#2 Is Schryver's declaration of triumph over this pointless "challenge" by Nomad:

(a) Baffling
(b) Like watching someone make sausages in the days before FDA regulations
(c) Pretty much the kind of thing you've come to expect

[Guest]

Here's a head start on my dependency challenge:



Fig. 1. Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"
Fig. 2. Fortunato thinking it's a joke as the links and staples fasten him in the granite catacombs .
Fig. 3. Me holding my trowel and applying mortar in retribution for Fortunato's many injuries to me.
Fig. 4. The crypt where I am taking revenge, in which there are puncheons of Amontillado, Sherry, Medoc, wine, and other sources of intoxication.
Fig. 5. The cask of Amontillado
Fig. 6. The cask of Sherry.
Fig. 7. The cask of Medoc.
Fig. 8. The cask of wine.
Fig. 9. The cask of other sources of intoxication.
Fig. 10. Fortunato dressed in motley for carnival.
Fig. 11. Bones piled up in the catacombs, where they will remain undisturbed for half a century or more.
Fig. 12. Back at the palazzo, where Fortunato probably wished he was once he figured out this was not a joke and what I meant with that pun about "masons."

[_Markk]

Not only does your scenerio not fit the KEP circumstances (the KEP were not translated into Egyptian. They were English explanations used in relation to a mix of Egyptian and non-Egyptian characters and non-Egyptian sounds), but your scenerio completely misses the essential point--which is, as explicitly stated, history is replete with instances of where, because of extenuating circumstances, information was temporarily keep hidden or encoded and latter made public--not the least common of which is troop placement and movements during times of war, which later become a matter of public hisotrical record.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

I never said that they were translated into Egyptian. I said that the original was Egyptian, and if it was in glyphs, and nobody could read the glyphs, why create a cipher or code so nobody could read it, when the fact is nobody could read it anyways in the original language?

In war the cipher is used to keep a secret because the enemy understood ones language, in this case nobody understood the language. But I still don't understand why on earth they would want to keep secrete the Book of Abraham in the first place?

By the way, I'm enjoying this conversation and complement you on not being irrational like it used to get on MADB.


MG

[_Kevin Graham]

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

Will doesn't know what he's talking about, as usual. His new sidekick, Dan McClellan made a similar statement about the relationship between the characters and the papyri until I proved him wrong with a graphic illustration. He then immediately dropped the subject and headed on over to MADB.

These guys really have no clue what they are talking about. All they know is that it would just be super cool if the KEP were just a cipher and based on a preexistent text. The idea is so attractive that they have to have it, despite the evidence to the contrary.

No relationship huh?

[_beastie]

Thanks, Kevin - I remember you showing this, I just wanted to be certain I hadn't misunderstood.

Chris also said this:

The images below show sequential characters from Book of Abraham Manuscript # 1 juxtaposed with sequential characters from the Hor Document of Breathing. As should be evident from these images, the characters come sequentially from the Breathing Document except where there is a lacuna. It is to fill the lacuna that Joseph draws characters from elsewhere on the fragment. This is what Gee failed to tell his audience.

(Kevin quoting Chris from a MAD discussion)

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14076&hilit=Doomsday

So we have characters taken sequentially from the papyri, and where there is something missing, Joseph Smith used characters he obtained from other sources. Am I understanding this correctly?

And if we also consider the KEP figures for which there was no explanation given, does this same pattern occur?

[_Kishkumen]

No relationship huh?

On a related issue, Kevin, what would you say is the order in which the characters and text were put down on paper in Williams' manuscript?

[_Kevin Graham]

On a related issue, Kevin, what would you say is the order in which the characters and text were put down on paper in Williams' manuscript?

The Williams manuscript shows, more clearly than the rest, that the Egyptian characters were written in before their corresponding English translations. This is the only logical explanation for the margin violations, and the Parrish manuscript actually shows that the scribe stopped after writing in the next Egyptian character.