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KEP - How important was it?


jskains

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One of the things that fasinates me is the lack of importance that KEP had. It's not canonized, it wasn't added to any major Church documentation, and didn't seem to be used in any missionary style capacity. For such a supposedly cornerstone peice in the creation of the BoA, there is very little actual activity surrounding it.

Am I missing something?

JMS

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One of the things that fasinates me is the lack of importance that KEP had. It's not canonized, it wasn't added to any major Church documentation, and didn't seem to be used in any missionary style capacity. For such a supposedly cornerstone peice in the creation of the BoA, there is very little actual activity surrounding it.

Am I missing something?

JMS

You will most definitely want to watch these videos on the topic. Will Schryver and John Gee have presented the most current information on the topic.

Go to this page http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/ and read the article from John Gee first, then watch the Will Schryver videos.

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One of the things that fasinates me is the lack of importance that KEP had. It's not canonized, it wasn't added to any major Church documentation, and didn't seem to be used in any missionary style capacity. For such a supposedly cornerstone peice in the creation of the BoA, there is very little actual activity surrounding it.

Am I missing something?

JMS

This would be a good place to start: The Meaning and Purpose of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. Even if you don't agree with the arguments, the explanation about the contents of the KEP is very helpful, and the images are really good.

Edited to Add: Whoops! I didn't realize Scott Gordon has already referred to this. I guess I should read the whole thread before I start replying.

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Gee's argument that the characters were taken out of sequence with no discernable pattern, is absolutely atrocious. Even Mr. Schryver said he no longer support's John Gee's argument as it was presented during the last conference.

CFR

It seems Book of Abraham apologetics has taken three steps backwards since 2001.

I disagree. In fact, I think the opposite is true. Nibley's An Approach to the Book of Abraham and One Eternal Round (with Michael Rhodes) are great contributions to the field. Also the Schryver arguments demonstrating the dependence of the EAG on a pre-existing text of the BoA. That alone blows away the main critic's argument of the past few decades. Sure, there's still a lot of study to be done and understanding to be obtained, but I sure feel like I know more now and I am more comfortable with the history of the BoA than at any other time.

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If Mr. Schryver ever gets around to publishing something on this, I suspect it will be taken apart as quickly as his videos were.

I must have missed where this happened.

Arguments based on intuition, illicit inference and a dearth of circumstantial evidence don't make a great case for a true " game changer" as this presentation was hyped to be. Time will tell.

I don't even know what you're talking about when you say things like "arguments based on intuition, illicit inference and a dearth of circumstantial evidence". I don't see anything like that in the FAIR presentation or the other materials I have reviewed from Brother Schryver's research. I think it is very impressive and very persuasive stuff. I can't wait to see his published work in the future.

I also understand that the next issue of The Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture will contain articles by Schryver and John Gee on the question of the original length of the Hor scroll that was claimed to contain the Egyptian text of the BoA. I read a draft of the Schryver article and have had the Gee article summarized for me. Sounds like some good stuff. I look forward to reading the published versions of the articles.

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I heard Schryver's presentation and it was so logical and fit the evidence better than anything I've seen. The only problem is that it throws the critics' arguments out the window and shows how they have been flailing about over nothing. Of course they won't like that because they've been wasting their time all these years.

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Gee's argument that the characters were taken out of sequence with no discernable pattern, is absolutely atrocious. Even Mr. Schryver said he no longer support's John Gee's argument as it was presented during the last conference. It seems Book of Abraham apologetics has taken three steps backwards since 2001.

Kevin Graham, is that you?

Regards,

Pahoran

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The truth will come out eventually with more objective scholarly research that it is actually Chris Smith's article in the John Whitmer Society publication that is the actual "game changer," and while Schryver makes some great points, he is fundamentally off base. Schryver's arguments just uphold the old notion of the missing papyrus. While I am a proponent of Book of Abraham historicity, I am fundamentally against the missing papyrus theory, and my research is building on Chris Smith's foundation in a book that is a sequel to my Nail of Heaven book that is yet untitled. The truth is actually the Sensen papyrus is the "original" if there ever was one, but it is the way the original syncretic Jewish/Egyptian interpreter employed it that is the key here, not that it is the "Book of Abraham" in its Egyptological interpretation. These things weren't just funerary, but they were magical papyri, or at least the magical tradition employed them in the same types of ways as they employed magical papyri. The KEP shows the "magical" device employed by the Jewish/Egyptian interpreter to ritually interpret the Sensen Abrahamically, in the same manner that Facsimile #2 (the Hypocephalus) is Abrahamically interpreted in the explanation, though the original hypocephalus is not Abrahamic. Nibley led on to this in the One Eternal Round book saying that the Sensen is the book of Abraham ritualistically.

This is not very far away from where Kevin Barney in his article in Astronomy Papyrus and Covenant was going with the idea that the facsimiles and papyri were adapted to ritual Jewish use. The magical syncretic cultural background of Greco-Roman Egypt provides for the cultural matrix for this.

Ed Goble

If Mr. Schryver ever gets around to publishing something on this, I suspect it will be taken apart as quickly as his videos were. Arguments based on intuition, illicit inference and a dearth of circumstantial evidence don't make a great case for a true " game changer" as this presentation was hyped to be. Time will tell.

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It is actually the critics' fundamental argument that is a key to correctly understanding this whole issue in a faithful manner. It is the apologists that have been "flailing about" with these nonsense theories like a missing papyrus. Not the argument that the Book of Abraham is not a correct translation, but the argument that the KEP is an interpretive key to the Sensen Papyrus. It is the interpretive key argument that is fundamentally sound. Schryver's argument is yet another apologetic evasion tactic from the core of the issue, albeit an ingenious one, and something that sounds so good that it will be bamboozling apologists and the faithful for years to come.

It doesn't matter how good something sounds. If it is false, then it is false.

Ed Goble

I heard Schryver's presentation and it was so logical and fit the evidence better than anything I've seen. The only problem is that it throws the critics' arguments out the window and shows how they have been flailing about over nothing. Of course they won't like that because they've been wasting their time all these years.

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It is the apologists that have been "flailing about" with these nonsense theories like a missing papyrus.

How can the idea of missing papyri be nonsense given the times and the being driven from place to place? That makes a great deal more sense than trying to make what little is available fit the critics' paradigm.

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I also understand that the next issue of The Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture will contain articles by Schryver and John Gee on the question of the original length of the Hor scroll that was claimed to contain the Egyptian text of the BoA. I read a draft of the Schryver article and have had the Gee article summarized for me. Sounds like some good stuff. I look forward to reading the published versions of the articles.

Ooooh, I can't wait to find out how long the scroll was! At the rate it's been growing, I predict at least a football field!

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I heard Schryver's presentation and it was so logical and fit the evidence better than anything I've seen. The only problem is that it throws the critics' arguments out the window and shows how they have been flailing about over nothing. Of course they won't like that because they've been wasting their time all these years.

If we're lucky, Schryver will rise up in righteous indignation and defenestrate all those flailing time wasters.

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How can the idea of missing papyri be nonsense given the times and the being driven from place to place? That makes a great deal more sense than trying to make what little is available fit the critics' paradigm.

It makes no sense at all, when the KEP manifests "translations" of the Sensen papyrus (not Egyptological by any means of course), and the Facsimile #1 is from the Sensen Papyrus. It is the apologists who have avoided these facts for so long making up these mind-bending artful dodges like Schryver's stuff and the missing papyrus theory to begin with. It is the critics who have had the simple truth all along in the sense of what the evidence actually shows, that the KEP is an attempted translation of the Sensen Papyrus. That doesn't make what they conclude about the nature of that translation correct, in the sense of saying that it is a false translation.

We must have a concise and simple FAITHFUL explanation that doesn't dodge the most basic facts that any two year old can see. That is why we are the laughing stock among unbelievers, because they can see with their own eyes how silly the apologetics have been, because they have nothing to defend. Schryver's explanation continues to do just that same exact thing, yet another evasion tactic. The confidence in Schryver's explanation, saying that it is a game changer is WAY overblown and overconfident.

Ed Goble

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If we're lucky, Schryver will rise up in righteous indignation and defenestrate all those flailing time wasters.

Funniest thing I've ever seen you post. Almost as funny as the school paper about the Defecation of Prague.

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It makes no sense at all, when the KEP manifests "translations" of the Sensen papyrus (not Egyptological by any means of course), and the Facsimile #1 is from the Sensen Papyrus. It is the apologists who have avoided these facts for so long making up these mind-bending artful dodges like Schryver's stuff and the missing papyrus theory to begin with. It is the critics who have had the simple truth all along in the sense of what the evidence actually shows, that the KEP is an attempted translation of the Sensen Papyrus. That doesn't make what they conclude about the nature of that translation correct, in the sense of saying that it is a false translation.

We must have a concise and simple FAITHFUL explanation that doesn't dodge the most basic facts that any two year old can see. That is why we are the laughing stock among unbelievers, because they can see with their own eyes how silly the apologetics have been, because they have nothing to defend. Schryver's explanation continues to do just that same exact thing, yet another evasion tactic. The confidence in Schryver's explanation, saying that it is a game changer is WAY overblown and overconfident.

Ed Goble

Everything you've written on this thread reveals that you don't even understand the recent arguments. The Scrhyver arguments about the KEP have no relationship at all to the question of a missing scroll. His arguments have very little relationship to the Abraham manuscripts. His arguments do have a strong relationship to the Alphabet and Grammar documents. And if Schryver's arguments about those documents are correct, the Abraham manuscripts (the ones that have some relationship to the papyri) are irrelevant to the production of the Book of Abraham.

To tell you the truth, you strike me as being a kindred spirit to our old friend Paul Osborn (may he rest in peace) whose "nuttier than a fruitcake" views of the KEP were always entertaining, but never made a lick of sense.

In any case, I think you need to do your homework a little more before you start presenting yourself as an authority on this topic. You don't seem to have a good understanding of what the KEP are, and the relationship of the various documents to one another.

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Schryver would make a wonderful saleman, that's for sure. But nothing he has produced passes scrutiny beyond the applause of a fawning choir.

What scrutiny? I must have missed it.

No one outside that little echo chamber takes him seriously.

What echo chamber?

And if John Gee can get a round of applause for his latest presentation - which was so ridiculous and misrepresentative of the data that it was rejected by the guy who gave the presentation - then pretty much anything will pass for "impressive" or "logical" when it comes to the FAIR audience of believers aching for any kind of plausible theory they can cling to... at least for a little while.

Your condescension is duly noted. But I again issue a formal "CFR" for the bolded part. Where did this take place? Link please.

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Well, let's see, what was that phrase in kindergarten that I learned when childish foes wouldn't let you play in the same sandbox with their tonka toys because you were ugly or something to them. Oh yeah, Sticks and Stones........

Notwithstanding the fact that you are a condescending Schryver-ite, with the typical ad homeneim tactics of various brands of apologists, I assure you that just because I *disagree* with Schryver, Gee and Hauglid, doesn't mean that I don't have stubstance. Just because me and Paul go WAY back, and he was a good friend until his apostasy , and continues to be to this day, doesn't mean that he wasn't a Son of God just as much as you that the Savior loves.

Let's see now, my name is Ed Goble, and I'm a member of FAIR, and I have a head on my shoulders with an educated opinion as much as anyone else who is a researcher. I'm the guy that submitted the competing paper to FAIR to Schryver's stuff that nobody looked at, because Schryver was the anointed one with the red carpet treatment. I'm the guy that was in the back of the FAIR conference with my camera filming Schryver, along with Kerry Shirts who was the other guy filming Schryver. You sure have a mouth. I will give that to you. I know Schryver's argument and Gee's arguments inside and out. I also know Metcalfe's and Ashment's and Smith's, and Crapo's and Tvedtnes'.

I assure you that I have studied the KEP and Sensen for decades and you don't know who the ********** you are talking to, let alone what I know. And you can take your little attitude and *********************.

Ed Goble

Everything you've written on this thread reveals that you don't even understand the recent arguments. The Scrhyver arguments about the KEP have no relationship at all to the question of a missing scroll. His arguments have very little relationship to the Abraham manuscripts. His arguments do have a strong relationship to the Alphabet and Grammar documents. And if Schryver's arguments about those documents are correct, the Abraham manuscripts (the ones that have some relationship to the papyri) are irrelevant to the production of the Book of Abraham.

To tell you the truth, you strike me as being a kindred spirit to our old friend Paul Osborn (may he rest in peace) whose "nuttier than a fruitcake" views of the KEP were always entertaining, but never made a lick of sense.

In any case, I think you need to do your homework a little more before you start presenting yourself as an authority on this topic. You don't seem to have a good understanding of what the KEP are, and the relationship of the various documents to one another.

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What scrutiny? I must have missed it.

What echo chamber?

Your condescension is duly noted. But I again issue a formal "CFR" for the bolded part. Where did this take place? Link please.

Mikeymike has something in common with Winnie the Pooh. Full of fluff and stuff.

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I assure you that I have studied the KEP and Sensen for decades and you don't know who the ********** you are talking to, let alone what I know. And you can take your little attitude and *********************.

Ed Goble

Brilliant.

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