wenglund wrote:Kevin Graham wrote:There is no reason to complicate this more than it needs to be. Joseph Smith said he was creating an Alphabet and grammar of the Egyptian language. The Egyptian Counting document is something we'd expect to see when learning the basics of any language.
So what if most of the symbols are not found on the papyri? Many of them are clearly identified on the Anthon transcript, which according to Joseph Smith, consisted of "Reformed Egyptian." Others come from Masonic symbols that he believed dated all the way back to the time of the "pure language." Joseph Smith thought this was a document written by Abraham, and was therefore scripture like any other Old Testament book. How many numbers are found in any given book of scripture? Of course he would have to "divine" these numbers via "revelation," and not expect every EGyptian number to be represented on the tiny papyrus.
The document claims to be a translation from Egyptian to English, period. Cyphers don't have "sounds", but languages do. Cyphers are not "translated", but languages are.
Those are all interesting responses to questions other than the non-complicating ones I specifically asked. Please try answering again. I would really like to understand how you excplain some thing to your own mind--assuming that you have even thought things through beyond the basic talking points.
Thanks, -Wade Englund-
Wade,
Your patience with these people is admirable, albeit (in my judgment) futile in the extreme. Of course, I understand where you’re going with all of this, and I am impressed with the rapid progress you have made in acquiring an understanding of the meaning and purpose of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. Although much remains to be discovered and understood about the underlying motivations of those who were crafting what amounted to a set of “cipher keys,” you have already identified many elements of evidence that serve to corroborate and/or shed explanatory light on the theses I presented in my FAIR conference address.
It is also, of course, no surprise that no one here is capable of appreciating the significance and implications of many of your questions. They are too busy working to erect strawman arguments that are easily knocked down by what they imagine to be their superior powers of logic. A prime example is Graham’s repeated claims of defeating my arguments about the fact that the vast majority of the characters to which explanations were provided have no relationship to the Egyptian papyri. As I have made perfectly clear on several occasions now—regardless of where, why, and by whom the explained characters were selected, the essential element of understanding is that those characters were not related to the papyri, and therefore it is obvious that the author(s) of the Alphabet & Grammar materials were not attempting to produce a tool to translate those papyri. No doubt they understood what they were doing as “translation,” but not in the direction people have supposed for all these years. Rather, these documents attest an attempted “translation” of already existing English texts to a form these men believed to be consistent with something they termed “pure language.” Although ill-conceived, incoherently executed, and quickly aborted, the A&G does provides us a window into the thought processes of a group of men who had long been intrigued by the notion that the “the ancients” possessed powers of expression lacking in our modern modes of language.
At any rate, don’t fret about the fact that no one here is amenable to instruction or enlightenment when it comes to this radical paradigm shift. They are so committed to their presuppositions of the KEP, that they will never be able to abandon them, regardless of the already abundant and continually augmenting pile of evidence to the contrary. I, for one, am very content to have Metcalfe and Smith cling resolutely to their untenable notions—and to have dim bulbs like Graham, Osborne, and the others mindlessly repeat their KEP talking points from day to day.
They will never succeed in defeating my primary thesis: the demonstrable dependency of the A&G on a pre-existing text of the Book of Abraham. Indeed, it is battle they have already lost, notwithstanding their refusal to acknowledge it. The longer they attempt to fight it, the more their credibility will be eroded, and the more marginalized they will become. In fact, I think we should, from this point forward, dub them
The Shoichi Yokoi Brigade.
LOL! I like that. I think I’ll have some t-shirts made up …