Where to Download Sam Brown's New KEP Paper

[_Dr. Shades]

So, since he's not a professional historian, does this mean that the Mopologetic crowd will dismiss him the same way they dismiss Dan Vogel, Brent Metcalfe, and Ed Ashment?

Rather the way we don't dismiss Leonard Arrington (an economist), Bill Mackinnon (a lawyer and retired corporate executive), Lester Bush (a physician), Scott Faulring (a military officer), Larry Morris (an editor), Richard Turley (a lawyer), Gregory Prince (a physician, if I'm not mistaken), and etc., and etc.?

Oh. So all the talk about how Vogel, Metcalfe, and Ashment should be dismissed since they aren't professional historians is just smoke-and-mirrors; the straight dope is that non-professional historians are to be dismissed only if their conclusions don't support Mormonism.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Historians are to be criticized if their methodology is faulty or their work is poor.

Do you disagree?

[_Runtu]

I thought Brown's paper was interesting in that it thoroughly situates the KEP in 19th-century thought, particularly within the evolving LDS doctrines of "pure" language, genealogy, and the return of Eden's "paradisaical glory." For the purposes of his paper, the KEP's not being an Egyptian grammar is indeed beside the point. That he even acknowledges this suggests that his work is not apologetic.

[_Chap]

I thought Brown's paper was interesting in that it thoroughly situates the KEP in 19th-century thought, particularly within the evolving LDS doctrines of "pure" language, genealogy, and the return of Eden's "paradisaical glory." For the purposes of his paper, the KEP's not being an Egyptian grammar is indeed beside the point. That he even acknowledges this suggests that his work is not apologetic.

I effectively said in my post that "the KEP's not being an Egyptian grammar is indeed beside the point" that Brown wants to make.

However my experience of this kind of expression, used in such contexts, is that "beside the point" is often used not just to mean "beside my particular point", but "beside all points", i.e. a matter of no real interest. It's a sort of "don't go there" tactic that makes me want to ask "Why not?"

And it seems to me that in order to place the KEP in the context of 19th C. American religious thought, it is essential to take account of its origins, which lie in either delusion or deliberate deception. It makes a big difference to the way one would think of the relevant strands of American religious life if their origins could be traced back to palpable fraud, or a blatant error, does it not?

I would have to read Brown's paper more carefully than I have to decide whether he actually shows that the KEP really is the product of the features of 19th C. American life mentioned in the paper. At the moment I only have the impression of someone who has decided to talk about the KEP on the assumption that it does belong in the context of 'doctrines of "pure" language, genealogy, and the return of Eden's "paradisaical glory." ' - some people might call that 'situating' but I am not sure whether it is enough. But that first impression may be quite wrong.

[_Runtu]

I would have to read Brown's paper more carefully than I have to decide whether he actually shows that the KEP really is the product of the features of 19th C. American life mentioned in the paper. At the moment I only have the impression of someone who has decided to talk about the KEP on the assumption that it does belong in the context of 'doctrines of "pure" language, genealogy, and the return of Eden's "paradisaical glory." ' - some people might call that 'situating' but I am not sure whether it is enough. But that first impression may be quite wrong.

He does indeed situate the text in the 19th century, showing how the ideas and motivations behind the creation of the KEP (and he clearly sees it as creative act, not necessarily a revelatory act) are contemporary to Joseph Smith (he mentions Alexander Campbell, Emerson, and Horace Bushnell, among others who shared Smith's and Phelps's views of language and history).

I must say that it's kind of surreal reading a dead-serious discussion that involves such words as enish-go-on-doshling and flo-eese. But that is "beside the point." :)

[_Chap]

Let's put it this way.

I can imagine the significance and value of 'situating' the KEP in the context of early 19th C. American religious and (let us say) intellectual life to exactly the same extent that I can imagine 'situating' L. Ron Hubbard's creation of the Church of Scientology in the context of mid 20th C. American religious and (let us say, yes, let us) intellectual life.

And I have to say that "reading a dead-serious discussion that involves such words as enish-go-on-doshling and flo-eese" especially when the author whose work is discussed says those words are Egyptian but has almost certainly simply made them up to impress people makes me want to say in a high strangled voice 'Why the heck am I doing this?'

Perhaps I had better leave this subject to those with a taste for it.

[_Runtu]

Let's put it this way.

I can imagine the significance and value of 'situating' the KEP in the context of early 19th C. American religious and (let us say) intellectual life to exactly the same extent that I can imagine 'situating' L. Ron Hubbard's creation of the Church of Scientology in the context of mid 20th C. American religious and (let us say, yes, let us) intellectual life.

And I have to say that "reading a dead-serious discussion that involves such words as enish-go-on-doshling and flo-eese" especially when the writer says those words are Egyptian but has almost certainly simply made them up to impress people makes me want to say in a high strangled voice 'Why the heck am I doing this?'

Perhaps I had better leave this subject to those with a taste for it.

What I got out of the paper was that the main difference between the KEP and other religious ideas is that Joseph Smith passed off his ideas as translations of an ancient text (one that people could actually see, unlike the plates). In that sense, the paper left me thinking, "Yeah, and?" For me, Brown's paper takes a lot of the sheen off the KEP because it's a pretty typical example of religious/mystical thought from that time period.

[_Daniel Peterson]

What "sheen"?

[_Runtu]

What "sheen"?

I suppose I still had this idea that there was something unique about the KEP. Brown's article put it in better perspective for me.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Hi Runtu,

Thanks for your comments. Clearly Brown thinks of the KEP as inaccurate and as a nineteenth-century production. But I'm not sure this has the implications for him that it might have for you or I. On page 27 he says that Joseph "believed that ancient records and their constitutive hieroglyphs, typified by the Egyptian, provided a key to recovering the language of primitive humanity spoken in the Garden of Eden and the sacred names by which language first touched creation." In speaking of the ancient records as the key to the pure language rather than the other way around, I can't help but wonder if he is not implicitly endorsing the theory that the KEP were reverse-engineered from the Book of Abraham. This theory has literally nothing to commend it, in my view, and flies in the face of all the evidence of which I am aware, but when it is accepted opens up the possibility that the KEP were a speculative production not supposed to have been derived via inspiration (even though most of the information therein could not possibly have been BoA-derived).

I'm only about halfway through the essay, though, as I've been distracted by other reading, so I can't say for certain whether Brown clarifies what he thinks about the direction of dependence.

-Chris