88 replies to this topic

[Xander]

Chris Smith, on 23 November 2011 - 11:57 PM, said:

Wade, the character in Phelps's EA has been secondarily emended. It appears to have originally matched Joseph Smith's. If the notebook matches any of the three EAs, it's Cowdery's, not Phelps's.

But honestly, wouldn't we expect the primary EA document to be the one that reflects the most uncertainty? How can you say Phelps's character was "copied" into EAJS when that clearly isn't the case? If anything, EAJS seems to reflect first-stage thinking, Phelps's second-stage thinking, and Cowdery's third-stage thinking.

Precisely. And this was discussed on this forum a couple of years ago. I remember Brent asking William Schryver to explain why Phelps' EA contained two columns of the same sequence of characters. After pretending to know, but refusing to answer, you finally answered the question and correctly pointed out that the characters in the right hand column were in Joseph Smith's handwriting - on Phelps' EA document. This clearly suggests that Phelps was relying on Smith, not vice-versa.



But as has been explained in numerous threads already, wade simply doesn't understand these documents enough nor does he pay much attention to what he has been told by the "critics." He is taking bits and pieces of anything Schryver says, accepts it as law, and repackages as if this is stuff he is coming up with on his own. The entire argument about Phelps being the first to use a table is nonsense (another Schryverism wade adopts uncritically). This says nothing about where the characters originated. Nothing.

But even though wade was present during these past exchanges, nothing seems to stick with him accept the contents of Schryver's posts. I remember about a year ago he presented this same Schryverism about the Phelps letter on the other forum and when I posted an image of the 1832 revelation provided by Joseph Smith, he had never seen it before and apparently knew nothing about it. But this had already been discussed in the thread linked above. A discussion in which wade participated, but it didn't stick with him because it was a critic who presented the information. This is why it is so frustrating trying to have a discussion about any of this stuff with wade or William. Whatever we say, it doesn't matter because it goes in one ear and then out the other. After enough time has passed and their refutation has blown over, they repeat the cycle again as if none of this had ever been dealt with before. Likewise, they continue to conceal information that undermines their intended usage of the document. For example, they tell you Phelps wrote a letter sharing a sample of the pure language, but they refuse to tell you that Phelps was living with Joseph Smith at the time and that he told his wife he would share with her things that had been revealed, indicating that what he was sharing came from the Prophet, not from Phelps' conventional education in languages.

Incidentally, I've just been informed by George Miller that he is working on a publication that will demonstrate quite conclusively that Phelps relied on Joseph Smith, and not vice-versa. His research in the area of masonry and the influence it played in Joseph Smith's usage of these symbols, is pure genius. For Schryver or Wade to insist it was the anti-Mason, W.W. Phelps, who believed Adam used a Masonic code, is nothing short of ridiculous. But I agree with Hamblin on one point: I hope they do publish on this. As Metcalfe said in the thread linked above, William's inane comments on this subject will come back to haunt him upon publication.

Edited by Xander, 26 November 2011 - 04:49 AM.

[wenglund]

Kevin has one of those inventive minds where he can pick a couple of reasonably debatable nits, side with the opposing view, believe that in so doing it settles the issue, and then goes on to draw the conclusion that my 34 arguments have somehow been negated and that I have been proven not to understand the documents I have been working with. LOL

It is the same kind of mind that can level accusations like, "they refuse to tell you that Phelps was living with Joseph Smith at the time...", when anyone with at least a 4th grade reading comprehension, and who has actually read my comments on the previous page, will know that I clearly said, "towards the end of May, 1835, Phelps sent a letter from Kirtland, where he resided with Joseph, [bolded for Kevin's benefit] to his wife in Missouri," And, yet, I am the one who doesn't understand what I am reading.

He also blithely insinuated that I haven't come up with ideas of my own, and this in the process of him quoting almost exclusively what other critics have said.

It is the same mind that accuses me of taking the ideas from others and trying to pan them off as my own, when I took great pains to give attribution. Yet, I recall having read through a thread a year or so ago in which Kevin painstakingly pointed out a number of similarities that presumably he had allegedly found between the Book of Genesis and several of the chapters of the Book of Abraham (I don't recall him giving any attributions). Imagine my surprise this summer when I finally purchased Michael Marquardt's book on the Egyptian Papers, written in 1981, and found much, if not all, of the same material.

Who can doubt that with Kevin we are in the blessed presence of the zenith of KEP scholarship?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Bill Hamblin]

Xander, on 26 November 2011 - 04:47 AM, said:

Incidentally, I've just been informed by George Miller that he is working on a publication that will demonstrate quite conclusively that Phelps relied on Joseph Smith, and not vice-versa. His research in the area of masonry and the influence it played in Joseph Smith's usage of these symbols, is pure genius. For Schryver or Wade to insist it was the anti-Mason, W.W. Phelps, who believed Adam used a Masonic code, is nothing short of ridiculous. But I agree with Hamblin on one point: I hope they do publish on this. As Metcalfe said in the thread linked above, William's inane comments on this subject will come back to haunt him upon publication.

Perhaps it would be best to wait until "Miller" actually publishes something that can be critiqued before declaring the debate is over and you've won.  Just a suggestion.

[wenglund]

Bill Hamblin, on 26 November 2011 - 11:28 AM, said:

Perhaps it would be best to wait until "Miller" actually publishes something that can be critiqued before declaring the debate is over and you've won.  Just a suggestion.

You don't understand, Bill. As the supreme judge of all things KEP, once Kevin has deemed a notion as valid, even if it has yet to be published and critiqued, the debate is over, and it is absurd for you or I or anyone else to think otherwise.

Besides, you just inadvertently put out the welcome mat for Kevin to dredge up some ancient history in which he believe we apologist are guilty in spades of what you foolishly imply is his guilt.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited by wenglund, 26 November 2011 - 11:43 AM.

[William Schryver]

Xander, on 26 November 2011 - 04:47 AM, said:

Precisely. And this was discussed on this forum a couple of years ago. I remember Brent asking William Schryver to explain why Phelps' EA contained two columns of the same sequence of characters. After pretending to know, but refusing to answer, you finally answered the question and correctly pointed out that the characters in the right hand column were in Joseph Smith's handwriting - on Phelps' EA document. This clearly suggests that Phelps was relying on Smith, not vice-versa.

Please feel free to demonstrate why you believe these characters are in Joseph Smith's handwriting.  There is no evidence that these characters are in Joseph Smith's handwriting.  

If you believe there is, please feel free to explain it to us.  I'm convinced that, in the first place, you don't understand the argument.  Secondly, I know you don't have the evidence to support the argument.

Surprise me by showing that you do understand the argument, and then perform a miracle by demonstrating the evidence to support it.

In the words of Brent Metcalfe on the thread you linked:

Quote

You've been fed historical sources about which you have no clue as to their meaning or historical context.

Shades of the former Kevin Graham!

Metcalfe doesn't know what he's talking about.  He didn't know what he was talking about in the thread you linked, but I wasn't about to enlighten him at that time.  And now you, since you're following his lead, don't know what you're talking about.  Indeed, the text-critical data concerning these characters is one small part of the case I will make demonstrating that Phelps appears to be the dominant force in the production of the EA/GAEL.

[Chris Smith]

Hey Kevin, what you wrote about the two columns of Phelps's EA isn't quite accurate. The two columns Brent posted on the thread you linked were actually from two separate documents. I don't know that we can conclude the right-hand column of Phelps's EA is in Smith's handwriting. Rather, Phelps in his right-hand column seems to be *copying* (and in his left column *modifying*) Smith's tilted script.

[Xander]

Quote

It is the same kind of mind that can level accusations like, "they refuse to tell you that Phelps was living with Joseph Smith at the time...", when anyone with at least a 4th grade reading comprehension, and who has actually read my comments on the previous page, will know that I clearly said, "towards the end of May, 1835, Phelps sent a letter from Kirtland, where he resided with Joseph, [bolded for Kevin's benefit] to his wife in Missouri," And, yet, I am the one who doesn't understand what I am reading.

I'm guilty as charged. And it is helpful to know your posts are designed with 4th graders in mind. But as it is with most of your online opponents I simply don't have the time nor inclination to wade through your volumes of "analyses" and smoke and mirror job trying to accumulate a "mounting" pile of "evidences." We know that when your argument is up against the ropes, it is at this point your response explodes into a chapter by chapter novel. Your desperation is measured by how many posts and threads you need in order to drown out the refuting the arguments. Those with any education at all simply don't bother wading through your long-winded 47 page diatribe that has spanned several threads now.  As one critic pointed out to me last night, it would take several hours to refute everything you said. Who has this kind of time? You can't win arguments by stacking the deck with meaningless anecdotes and baseless assumptions you choose to list as "evidence."

The fact is you and Will have raised this issue on a number  of occasions and you only realized Phelps was living with Joseph Smith after the critics educated you on that point.  That you would try to attribute this knowledge to William of all people, is pretty darn heelarious. Virtually all of your anecdotal comments about the letter, fail to include this "tid-bit" detail. But still, even in the fluke example above, did you include the "tid-bit" that Phelps told his wife he would be sharing with her new things, and that Joseph Smith appended a message to Mrs. Phelps in the letter? No, you didn't. I've never seen you mention this, and to do so would undermine your argument. There is simply no reason to believe this was some private, independent project that W.W. Phelps had engaged on his own without the influence of his Prophet. The only way you can argue otherwise is to leave out pertinent information.

Quote

He also blithely insinuated that I haven't come up with ideas of my own, and this in the process of him quoting almost exclusively what other critics have said

On the contrary, the purpose for my presence here is to rid your audience of this myth that you have refuted the "critical" argument, not Kevin Graham's arguments. Also, to prove that your top-apologist has no credibility in this area because he is constantly misrepresenting the source documents, which I have proved beyond all doubt. Further, my missing scroll thread represents a serious deviation from what other critics have been arguing, and I have clearly stated my disagreements with other critics. So nice try.

Quote

Perhaps it would be best  until "Miller" actually publishes something that can be critiqued before declaring the debate is over and you've won. Just a suggestion.

I've actually read the bulk of his argument. Much of his argument is based on his recent presentation, which neither Will nor wade have bothered to read. Suffice it to say, they're way behind on this issue and barking up the wrong tree if they think Phelps is the man behind it all.

Quote

It is the same mind that accuses me of taking the ideas from others and trying to pan them off as my own, when I took great pains to give attribution.

You generally give atribution at the point when you cannot defend "your" argument, at which point you reference some future Schryver publication or some mysterious email he sent you that you're not allowed to share. But the point is, you've chosen to  be a self-appointed parrot for someone who has no credibility outside a secluded cluster of rabid internet posters, and who doesn't understand these materials well enough to defend his own arguments. I've presented two threads challenging two of William's claims, and he absolutely refuses to own up to his mistakes.

Quote

Yet, I recall having read through a thread a year or so ago in which Kevin painstakingly pointed out a number of similarities that presumably he had allegedly found between the Book of Genesis and several of the chapters of the Book of Abraham (I don't recall him giving any attributions). Imagine my surprise this summer when I finally purchased Michael Marquardt's book on the Egyptian Papers, written in 1981, and found much, if not all, of the same material.

Now you're simply making things up. I never once said it was something I discovered on my own. I couldn't find the LDS website that listed these parallels so I had to go look them up myself. But since that time I have repeatedly referenced the website that lists them:

http://www.boap.org/...dices-I-III.pdf

Incidentally, I misspoke when I said the Phelps document contained Smith's handwriting. What I meant to say is that it contained Phelps' copy of Joseph Smith's handwritten document. William Schryver is so busy making much ado about nothing concerning Phelps usage of tables, that he never even bothered to address the glaring anomaly in Phelps' document. The thing that slaps a minimally observant student right in the face: Phelps' document contains two sets of the same characters, but one set is clearly written differently.

Edited by Xander, 27 November 2011 - 07:31 AM.

[William Schryver]

Chris Smith, on 27 November 2011 - 03:58 AM, said:

Hey Kevin, what you wrote about the two columns of Phelps's EA isn't quite accurate. The two columns Brent posted on the thread you linked were actually from two separate documents. I don't know that we can conclude the right-hand column of Phelps's EA is in Smith's handwriting. Rather, Phelps in his right-hand column seems to be *copying* (and in his left column *modifying*) Smith's tilted script.

This is a baseless claim.  The textual evidence does not support the assertion that the second column of characters on page 1 of EA-WP was copied from Joseph Smith.  If you believe it does, I would love to see it.

As a matter of fact, this portion of the manuscripts lends credence to the argument that W. W. Phelps was the dominant force in the production of the EA/GAEL.






Whoops!  Corrected typo.

Edited by William Schryver, 27 November 2011 - 01:11 PM.

[William Schryver]

Xander, on 27 November 2011 - 04:33 AM, said:

Incidentally, I misspoke when I said the Phelps document contained Smith's handwriting. What I meant to say is that it contained Phelps' copy of Joseph Smith's handwritten document.

This is a baseless claim.  The textual evidence does not support the assertion that the second column of characters on page 1 of EA-WP was copied from Joseph Smith's "handwritten document".  If you believe it does, I would love to see it.

As a matter of fact, this portion of the manuscripts lends credence to the argument that W. W. Phelps was the dominant force in the production of the EA/GAEL.





Whoops!  Corrected typo.

Edited by William Schryver, 27 November 2011 - 01:11 PM.

[wenglund]

Xander, on 27 November 2011 - 04:33 AM, said:

I'm guilty as charged. And it is helpful to know your posts are designed with 4th graders in mind. But as it is with most of your online opponents I simply don't have the time nor inclination to wade through your volumes of "analyses" and smoke and mirror job trying to accumulate a "mounting" pile of "evidences." We know that when your argument is up against the ropes, it is at this point your response explodes into a chapter by chapter novel. Your desperation is measured by how many posts and threads you need in order to drown out the refuting the arguments. Those with any education at all simply don't bother wading through your long-winded 47 page diatribe that has spanned several threads now.  As one critic pointed out to me last night, it would take several hours to refute everything you said. Who has this kind of time? You can't win arguments by stacking the deck with meaningless anecdotes and baseless assumptions you choose to list as "evidence."

The fact is you and Will have raised this issue on a number  of occasions and you only realized Phelps was living with Joseph Smith after the critics educated you on that point.  That you would try to attribute this knowledge to William of all people, is pretty darn heelarious. Virtually all of your anecdotal comments about the letter, fail to include this "tid-bit" detail. But still, even in the fluke example above, did you include the "tid-bit" that Phelps told his wife he would be sharing with her new things, and that Joseph Smith appended a message to Mrs. Phelps in the letter? No, you didn't. I've never seen you mention this, and to do so would undermine your argument. There is simply no reason to believe this was some private, independent project that W.W. Phelps had engaged on his own without the influence of his Prophet. The only way you can argue otherwise is to leave out pertinent information.



On the contrary, the purpose for my presence here is to rid your audience of this myth that you have refuted the "critical" argument, not Kevin Graham's arguments. Also, to prove that your top-apologist has no credibility in this area because he is constantly misrepresenting the source documents, which I have proved beyond all doubt. Further, my missing scroll thread represents a serious deviation from what other critics have been arguing, and I have clearly stated my disagreements with other critics. So nice try.



I've actually read the bulk of his argument. Much of his argument is based on his recent presentation, which neither Will nor wade have bothered to read. Suffice it to say, they're way behind on this issue and barking up the wrong tree if they think Phelps is the man behind it all.



You generally give atribution at the point when you cannot defend "your" argument, at which point you reference some future Schryver publication or some mysterious email he sent you that you're not allowed to share. But the point is, you've chosen to  be a self-appointed parrot for someone who has no credibility outside a secluded cluster of rabid internet posters, and who doesn't understand these materials well enough to defend his own arguments. I've presented two threads challenging two of William's claims, and he absolutely refuses to own up to his mistakes.



Now you're simply making things up. I never once said it was something I discovered on my own. I couldn't find the LDS website that listed these parallels so I had to go look them up myself. But since that time I have repeatedly referenced the website that lists them:

http://www.boap.org/...dices-I-III.pdf

Incidentally, I misspoke when I said the Phelps document contained Smith's handwriting. What I meant to say is that it contained Phelps' copy of Joseph Smith's handwritten document. William Schryver is so busy making much ado about nothing concerning Phelps usage of tables, that he never even bothered to address the glaring anomaly in Phelps' document. The thing that slaps a minimally observant student right in the face: Phelps' document contains two sets of the same characters, but one set is clearly written differently.

In all my time interacting online I have seen some major verbal dancing and gesticulating to cover some outlandish foibles, but never have I witnessed any that can compare in lameness, transparency, and childishness, to the above. Truly astonishing! I hope for Kevin's sake that at least some people here are fooled by his antics. For my part, all I can do is pity him and shake my head. What an embarrassing spectacle.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited by wenglund, 27 November 2011 - 02:13 PM.

[William Schryver]

wenglund, on 27 November 2011 - 02:12 PM, said:

In all my time interacting online I have seen some major verbal dancing and gesticulating to cover some outlandish foibles, but never have I witnessed any that can compare in lameness, transparency, and childishness, to the above. Truly astonishing! I hope for Kevin's sake that at least some people here are fooled by his antics. For my part, all I can do is pity him and shake my head. What an embarrassing spectacle.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

I will grant Metcalfe, Graham, and Smith one thing: they have mastered the art of the bluff in terms of how well it works for their target audience.  Of course, it helps that their target audience is entirely indiscriminate when it comes to anything their champions serve up in relation to the origins of the Book of Abraham and the meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers.  With virtually no exceptions (and this is, unfortunately, also true on our side of the aisle), their target audience is not well-versed at all in the issues, let alone the source materials.  Much of this is due, I acknowledge, to the fact that the source materials are very intimidating.  I hope that the eventual publication of my book on the Kirtland Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar will serve to organize this material in such a way that it will finally become accessible to a general audience.  

At any rate, Graham wrote:

Quote

Incidentally, I misspoke when I said the Phelps document contained Smith's handwriting. What I meant to say is that it contained Phelps' copy of Joseph Smith's handwritten document. William Schryver is so busy making much ado about nothing concerning Phelps usage of tables, that he never even bothered to address the glaring anomaly in Phelps' document. The thing that slaps a minimally observant student right in the face: Phelps' document contains two sets of the same characters, but one set is clearly written differently.

This set of characters from the Egyptian Alphabet is extremely important and instructive in coming to an understanding of these materials.  I give considerable focus to an analysis of these characters in my study of the EA/GAEL.  It has been apparent to me for quite some time that neither Metcalfe, Graham, nor Smith have seriously examined these documents, otherwise they would not make claims like Graham has made above.  I am looking forward to Graham's defense of his arguments.  I have a considerable body of material dedicated to this topic, but I trust I will only have to draw upon a small portion of it to illustrate why the Metcalfe/Graham/Smith argument is flawed.  In fact, as I will touch upon in my eventual reply to whatever it is Graham has to say in response to my challenge to defend his argument, there is much in this part of the EA/GAEL that lends credence to my long-standing argument that it was W. W. Phelps who was the dominant force behind this strange project.

Edited by William Schryver, 27 November 2011 - 03:13 PM.

[Brent Metcalfe]

Hi Wade,

Some folks alerted me to your thread. Let me repeat what I said to them: kudos to Wade for taking these manuscripts seriously!

My own research has led me along paths that diverge from yours. I see many factual errors (putting aside interpretive missteps) in your 34 evidential vignettes. For instance, in your vignette 1 you suggest:

wenglund, on 23 November 2011 - 09:20 PM, said:

1. The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papers are comprised of a number of documents, one of which is a notebook titled, "A Valuable Discovery...," that is in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery. On one page of this notebook there is a "translation of the next page."

Your appraisal is error prone: 1) the indefinite article "A" doesn't appear before "Valuable Discovery"; 2) the cover title (which also bears Joseph Smith's signature) is on a different notebook than the one you provide images for (see next); 3) your first two images are of a document transcribed by W. W. Phelps, not Oliver Cowdery; 4) Phelps didn't merely write "A Translation of the next page," he added in graphite "in part"—a clarifying phrase that you omitted, but is still visible in your image; and 5) "Translation" should be init cap.

Your continuation of vignette 1 fares even worse. You say that in a notebook "in the handwriting of Phelps, we find a similar translation," but the image you provide is in Cowdery's script, not Phelps's. Also, your image of the characters—from Cowdery's ledger, not Phelps's—includes character elements that are not in the original.

Simply put, your argument that...

wenglund, on 23 November 2011 - 09:27 PM, said:

In other words, we here find Phelps taking a translation of an unknown number of characters, and picking from amongst the characters and deciding which to assign to various segments of the translation. In short, we find him taking the lead in assigning characters to preexisting translations.

... is thoroughly nullified by the fact that the source you cite was transcribed by Oliver Cowdery, not William Wines Phelps.

I'm a tad surprised that given his self-adulatory superior knowledge of all things related to the BoAbr manuscripts that your friend Will Schryver hasn't corrected your misstatements. Perhaps he's just not "prepared [to do so] at this juncture"—not even for those who wish to defend his fantasies.

All the best,

</brent>

http://mormonscripturestudies.com
(© 2011 Brent Lee Metcalfe.)
——————————
The thesis of inspiration may not be invoked to guarantee historicity, for a divinely inspired story is not necessarily history.
—Raymond E. Brown

[wenglund]

Brent Metcalfe, on 27 November 2011 - 09:23 PM, said:

Hi Wade,

Some folks alerted me to your thread. Let me repeat what I said to them: kudos to Wade for taking these manuscripts seriously!

My own research has led me along paths that diverge from yours. I see many factual errors (putting aside interpretive missteps) in your 34 evidential vignettes. For instance, in your vignette 1 you suggest:

Your appraisal is error prone: 1) the indefinite article "A" doesn't appear before "Valuable Discovery"; 2) the cover title (which also bears Joseph Smith's signature) is on a different notebook than the one you provide images for (see next); 3) your first two images are of a document transcribed by W. W. Phelps, not Oliver Cowdery; 4) Phelps didn't merely write "A Translation of the next page," he added in graphite "in part"—a clarifying phrase that you omitted, but is still visible in your image; and 5) "Translation" should be init cap.

Your continuation of vignette 1 fares even worse. You say that in a notebook "in the handwriting of Phelps, we find a similar translation," but the image you provide is in Cowdery's script, not Phelps's. Also, your image of the characters—from Cowdery's ledger, not Phelps's—includes character elements that are not in the original.

Simply put, your argument that...

... is thoroughly nullified by the fact that the source you cite was transcribed by Oliver Cowdery, not William Wines Phelps.

I'm a tad surprised that given his self-adulatory superior knowledge of all things related to the BoAbr manuscripts that your friend Will Schryver hasn't corrected your misstatements. Perhaps he's just not "prepared [to do so] at this juncture"—not even for those who wish to defend his fantasies.

All the best, </brent>

Hi Brent,

I appreciate your kudos as well as pointing out all my error, including all the insubstantial ones, particularly in a respectful manner. Clearly, I will have to do a better job of double checking my work in the future.

After checking again with Marquardt's book (which is what I am using for my research since that is the best resource I have to work with), I can see that you are right about my having conflated who authored which notebook.

And, while this critical error effectively removes one of the 34 arguments I presented in support of my Phelps Lead proposition, thankfully it doesn't work against it, but may even give some indication of, at times, the collaborate nature of the project--a point I also favor.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited by wenglund, 27 November 2011 - 10:42 PM.

[William Schryver]

Brent Metcalfe, on 27 November 2011 - 09:23 PM, said:

I'm a tad surprised that given his self-adulatory superior knowledge of all things related to the BoAbr manuscripts that your friend Will Schryver hasn't corrected your misstatements. Perhaps he's just not "prepared [to do so] at this juncture"—not even for those who wish to defend his fantasies.

All my available time and attention has been taken up in correcting your misstatements, and those of your faithful acolytes, Graham and Smith, who often parrot your interpretive errors when it comes to these documents.

I do find it interesting that, presented with the opportunity to defend your challenged argument (as presented on this thread by Smith and Graham), you failed to do so.  

It was a lot easier to fool the audience when you had a monopoly on the source materials, wasn't it?

[wenglund]

Brent Metcalfe, on 27 November 2011 - 09:23 PM, said:

Simply put, your argument that...is thoroughly nullified by the fact that the source you cite was transcribed by Oliver Cowdery, not William Wines Phelps.

Hi Brent,

I went ahead and corrected the errors you pointed out (see HERE).

As you may see, the corrections I made didn't entirely nullify my argument, but simply weakened it a bit.

If you have found any other factual errors, I will be pleased to hear them. It was an honor to have stirred up enough interest to bring you out of your hiatus if for just that one post.

I Will's defense (not that he needs it), in KEP matters he has on not a few occasions, both in public and in private, pointed out mistakes that I have made and voiced disagreement with me, and this far more often than what I have gotten from you. In fact, he has publicly disagreed with me about the timing of the production of the notebooks. It is my belief that they predate the EA's and GAEL, whereas Will dates them sometime during the production of the GAEL (if I recall correctly). It is just that, as he indicated, he tends to reserve pointing out errors to those cases (apologetic of critics) where the errors impact his theory.

I hope you are enjoying the Pacific Northwest as much as I did. I will have to return back there to live some day.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited by wenglund, 28 November 2011 - 12:07 PM.

[William Schryver]

wenglund, on 28 November 2011 - 12:07 PM, said:

Hi Brent,

I went ahead and corrected the errors you pointed out (see HERE).

As you may see, the corrections I made didn't entirely nullify my argument, but simply weakened it a bit.

If you have found any other factual errors, I will be pleased to hear them. It was an honor to have stirred up enough interest to bring you out of your hiatus if for just that one post.

I Will's defense (not that he needs it), in KEP matters he has on not a few occasions, both in public and in private, pointed out mistakes that I have made and voiced disagreement with me, and this far more often than what I have gotten from you. In fact, he has publicly disagreed with me about the timing of the production of the notebooks. It is my belief that they predate the EA's and GAEL, whereas Will dates them sometime during the production of the GAEL (if I recall correctly). It is just that, as he indicated, he tends to reserve pointing out errors to those cases (apologetic of critics) where the errors impact his theory.

I hope you are enjoying the Pacific Northwest as much as I did. I will have to return back there to live some day.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Wade,

Don't fret it.  Metcalfe is guilty of far more portentous errors, including his argument that these characters in EA-WP were copied from EA-JS.  

I predict he never returns to this thread to defend the argument.  It's indefensible, and he knows it.  

But this is the kind of thing he has been doing for years.  He has posted image snippets and made arguments based on them, counting on the fact that no one else was in a position to confirm the veracity of those arguments.  The problem now is that he no longer has that advantage. Therefore a great number of his arguments are no longer tenable, this merely being one of them.

[wenglund]

William Schryver, on 28 November 2011 - 02:10 PM, said:

Wade,

Don't fret it.

I try not to. I make every effort to think things through and to check for errors before posting, knowing that I will fail in my attempts from time to time--and I am okay with that. Part of the reason I post material here is to vet my ideas and to solicit other eyes to catch mistakes. I view my arguments as made all the better through that process.

Quote

Metcalfe is guilty of far more portentous errors, including his argument that these characters in EA-WP were copied from EA-JS.  

If so,  I hope he will be as welcoming and gracious as I have been in accepting valid correction.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited by wenglund, 28 November 2011 - 02:42 PM.

[Steve Goodmansen]

I think an important point also is that W.W. Phelps was excommunicated not once but twice.  He falsely testified against the Prophet Joseph Smith which caused him to be put in jail.  Phelps also entered a plural marriage that the Bretheren had not authorized.  With this history of going of speaking against church leaders or acting on his own without their approval it really isn't much of a stretch to imagine that he would make his own attempt to explain how the Prophet was able to translate the characters on the Egyptian papyrus.  He was known to go off reservation and the church was sometimes made to look badly as a result.

[William Schryver]

wenglund, on 25 November 2011 - 03:25 PM, said:

34. I have in my possession a document that Will put together in which he compared the spelling variants of 22 sounds found in EA WWP, EA JS, and the GAEL. I don't recall where I got the document, and so rather than posting it here myself, I will wait to see if Will posts it or gives me permission to do so, or whether he prefers to wait until he publishes his findings before disclosing the information. Suffice it to say that the comparison evinced to me that Phelps was at least responsible for deciding which variant EA spellings would be used in the GAEL, which in turn suggests that he took something of a lead in the EA/GAEL project.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Wade,

I had missed this post until now.

I would prefer that you refrain from posting that little table for the time being.  I have since added to it, and also accumulated other evidence that supports the thesis that Phelps was the dominant influence in the production of the EA/GAEL.  I will publish all of these things in my forthcoming book on this topic.

Thanks,

Will

Edited by William Schryver, 28 November 2011 - 03:13 PM.

[William Schryver]

Since I am rather confident that neither Metcalfe, Smith, nor Graham will attempt to defend Metcalfe's argument that the second column of characters in EA-WP was copied from EA-JS, I will just go ahead and present evidence that strongly suggests the argument to be spurious.  Of course, the argument was made in an attempt to discredit my developing thesis that William Phelps was the dominant force behind the EA/GAEL project.  With that in mind, I invite readers to closely examine the images below.  Is there persuasive evidence to suggest that the second column of characters from EA-WP (under the heading EA-WP_b) was copied from EA-JS?  

Compare the GAEL* characters to those in EA-WP, EA-JS, and EA-OC.  Note also the several variants presented by EA-JS and EA-OC, particularly at characters 32, 34, 35, and 36**.  









* = The GAEL is almost exclusively in the handwriting of William Phelps.

** = I have established a serial numbering system for all of the characters to which explanations were provided in the EA/GAEL.  The characters are numbered according to the order in which they appear in the EA documents.  For those unfamiliar with the nature of the EA/GAEL documents, you might want to check out this 5-minute-long video explanation: Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar Explanation

Edited by William Schryver, 28 November 2011 - 03:21 PM.