Shulem wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 12:15 pm
In order to better understand what the Kinderhook plates were in Smith’s mind, let’s first think about what they were not. They were not reformed hieroglyphic script copied from (imaginary) gold plates. Therefore, they were not script used by Book of Mormon scribes such as Mormon and Moroni. So, that eliminates the possibility of linking it to a Nephite script. Neither did Smith link the Kinderhook characters to the Lamanites or a script used in their kingdoms by their peoples. Nor was it attributed to the people Zarahemla or any other peoples who inhabited the promised land during the Nephite era. Smith opted for the earlier epic in which the Jaredites inhabited the land and any others peoples who also made the journey to ancient America. Smith opted to identify the script of the Kinderhook plates to a time that long predated Nephi. Smith opted to separate the language of the Kinderhook plates from that of the Nephite era and identify it in an earlier time and place.
Ahh, thanks, Paul!
You have a significant insight here that I had not noted, and that is relevant to our discussion in a way that I had not yet seen.
I think you are dead on: the identification of the Kinderhook plates and characters as Jaredite almost certainly comes from Smith himself. Here's why. Parley P. Pratt identifies them as Jaredite on the same day that Smith is comparing these characters with other characters and making public statements about them and how he can translate them. So, Pratt's information identifying them as Jaredite is almost certainly drawing on what Smith was saying about them on that occasion that same day. Further supporting this, in Pratt's letter he also mentions comparisons being made with these characters, suggesting that he is referring to the same event at which Smith was comparing the Kinderhook plates characters with other characters.
What was the result of Smith's comparison of characters? Sylvester Emmons tells us. In his letter under that date, he reports of Smith comparing characters at the event, "He compared them in my presence with his Egyptian alphabet" (the nature of which you and I trying to determine) and that "they are evidently the same characters. He therefore will be able to decipher them."
Emmons' statement that Smith compared characters between these two documents and they are "evidently the same characters" indicates that Smith found matching characters between the documents, and that on this basis--"therefore"--he would be able to translate them.
This is where your observation that on this very day Smith identified these characters as
Jaredite script ties in significantly:
Shulem wrote:In order to better understand what the Kinderhook plates were in Smith’s mind, let’s first think about what they were not. They were not reformed hieroglyphic script copied from (imaginary) gold plates. Therefore, they were not script used by Book of Mormon scribes such as Mormon and Moroni. So, that eliminates the possibility of linking it to a Nephite script.
As you correctly note, Paul, if these characters were
Jaredite script then they could not be
reformed Egyptian Nephite script like Smith's transcript from the gold plates. And if they were not reformed Egyptian script like on Smith's gold plates transcript, then Smith would not have matched them as "the same characters" on that gold plates transcript.
Your quite correct observation that Smith connected the Kinderhook plates with Jaredites--not with Nephites--thus refutes the hypothesis that the "Egyptian alphabet" Smith compared and matched with Kinderhook plates was the Nephite reformed Egyptian character transcript.
(We might also note that this hypothesis was already refuted by the fact that gold plates transcript, which has repeating patterns of characters, is clearly meant to represent text rather than an alphabet, since alphabets by nature don't repeat the same characters over and over the way text does. But your Jaredite connection adds a sufficient final nail to that coffin.)
If you do continue to argue that Smith compared the Kinderhook plates to the gold plates transcript and finding that they are "evidently the same characters," then perhaps you could explain, among other things...
- by what magic Smith's approach of supposedly comparing the Kinderhook plates to the golden plates characters yields text, not from the golden plates, but from the document you say he
didn't compare to them--the GAEL?
- why Smith would have connected the Kinderhook plates to the Jaredites after showing that they were in the language of the Nephites?
Really--how does your model that Smith compared the Kinderhook plates to Nephite script and found they were the same characters and translated from them by revelation predict or account for him identifying them as
Jaredite? Under your model, that's anomalous.
But under the model that he translated from them via the GAEL, it's easily explicable: since the GAEL's "ho-e-oop-hah" definition for the KPs' boat-shaped character identifies the king of whom it speaks as a descendant of Pharaoh, and since none of the Lehites are Hamites descended from Pharaoh, the Kinderhook plates king could not have been a Lehite, and thus (under a Book of Mormon anthropology of the Americas) would have needed to be a Jaredite, whose lineage is unspecified. (Though this appears to have escaped your notice Mark and I put this in our chapter.)
While I've sprung a "gotcha" here, Paul, I'm doing so based on what I think is a genuine insight you've provided on what Joseph Smith saw the Kinderhook plates script being--and not being. This is a great insight and a contribution to the discussion. I wish I'd had that insight back when Johnny was around to discuss all this with, since I'd like to see what he would have made of it.
Ah well.
Your observations that Smith identified the Kinderhook plates as Jaredite doesn't fit with the interpretation that the document Emmons saw Joseph Smith compare with and match to the Kinderhook plates was the gold plates character transcript. That hypothesis is self-contradictory and doesn't work. And the reason this is evident is because your observation shows it.
In any case, my friend, as you can see from the time stamps on my posts, I'm spending a lot of time on this discussion, and in the middle of the night at that, so I am going to need to call it quits. While I think you are mistaken in this particular perspective on the Kinderhook plates, I really do think you should write for presentation and publication on the topics you're pursuing. If you do write a draft on one of these topics, please feel free to run it by me for feedback if you'd like.
Ciao,
Or, as Jacob says,
Adieu,
Don
"People can find meaninglessness in just about anything if they convince themselves that there is no meaning in that thing." - The Rev. Dr. Lumen Kishkumen