Kep Questions

[yootaw]

In another thread, robuchan posed some questions regarding evidence that the KEP were not used in (or created during the the same time as) the translation of the BOA. I just finished watching Schriver's presentation. I found it fascinating, and have a question that isn't really on topic in the other thread.

Here's how I understand Will's position regarding the purpose of the KEP:

1st purpose: Creation of a cipher that could be used to mask sensitive portions of revaluations.

2nd purpose: An effort to pursue the development/restoration of pure, or Adamic language, which Will mentions that those involved believed that Egyptian had remained pure (or at least was as close to pure as any language).

The first part makes good sense to me, and I think that Will presents strong supporting evidence. Regarding the second purpose though: If Joseph and the others involved believed that Egyptian was the pure language (or close to pure), and they had the both the translation of the BOA, as well as the original Egyptian, why not use the original Egyptian text directly in restoring the pure language? As I understand it, many of the characters in the KEP are not Egyptian, nor are they found on the existing remnants of the original scroll. Is there other evidence that the KEP represent an effort to recreate pure Adamic language?

[MormonMason]

I also see the Kirtland Egyptian Papers in addition as an aborted attempt to try to create a grammar of Egyptian and to match up characters on the papyri to the words of the Book of Abraham that they had in English up to that point. It was an abyssmal failure that was abandoned and never completed. Years later Joseph Smith brought it up and mentioned the desire to work on and create an Egyptian Grammar but that never came to fruition at all.

If, as I believe, the Book of Abraham was hidden within the Horos Book of Breathing and attached thereto, Joseph Smith and the others would not have been able to distinguish on their own where the Book of Breathing ended and Abraham began, and thus would have begun from the front of the entire roll in their initial attempt. That is pretty much what they at first did. However, they were getting nowhere and they all gave it up a short time afterward. We know they gave it up because we do not have a single copy of the Book of Abraham that is complete among those papers. We also do not have the original English translation text of the Book of Abraham. All we do have are partial copies of parts of the text.

I don't know at this point whether they were attempting to reconstruct a grammar of the pure language. They may have been but they gave that up, too.

[wenglund]

If Joseph and the others involved believed that Egyptian was the pure language (or close to pure), and they had the both the translation of the BOA, as well as the original Egyptian, why not use the original Egyptian text directly in restoring the pure language? As I understand it, many of the characters in the KEP are not Egyptian, nor are they found on the existing remnants of the original scroll. Is there other evidence that the KEP represent an effort to recreate pure Adamic language?

From what I can tell from my studies, the KEP appear to me to be less of an attempt to recreate the pure/Egyptian language, and more an attempt to create anew a pure/Egyptian language. In other words, the KEP weren't likely intended as a means of translating ancient documents, but a means of translating future documents.

This explains why the KEP developers were free to use symbols from Egyptian and non-Egyptian sources, and to assign English explanations from Egyptian and non-Egyptian sources, and didn't just go with "the original Egyptian text directly/"

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[yootaw]

Yeah, that makes more sense. Thanks for the responses!