Textual Variants At Abraham 1:12

[William Schryver]

I wrote:

Indeed, I have been authorized to report that it has been recently confirmed, via microscopic analysis, and to a high level of confidence, that the parenthesis in fact overwrites the ascender of the â??hâ? in the word â??theâ?.

That, and only that, is the analysis which I attribute to Professor Hauglid at this juncture. Whether or not he chooses to elaborate further on the specifics of his findings will be up to him. Anyone attempting to read more than that into my previous statement is misguided.

I certainly believe that:

The ink flow is, indeed, upward. But the ink comes from a scribal pause at the termination of the stroke of the parenthesis, not from the ascender of the â??hâ? crossing over some imagined wet pool of ink left from a previously-written parenthesis.

I hope this clarification assists those interested in this ongoing research.

[Brian Hauglid]

Brent,

As I said: "After a more thorough analysis has taken place (please allow sufficient time) I will provide a concise overview of this particular finding."

Best to you,

Brian

[PacMan]

Brent,

As I said: "After a more thorough analysis has taken place (please allow sufficient time) I will provide a concise overview of this particular finding."

Best to you,

Brian

Grrr.....

[Brent Metcalfe]

Hi Brian,

What should readers make of your seeming will-'o-the-wisp ink analysis?

In your latest reply, you note:

As I said: "After a more thorough analysis has taken place (please allow sufficient time) I will provide a concise overview of this particular finding."

"ufficient time"? ... hmmm...

Brian, your authorization for Will to dubiously pontificate on your assessment appears nothing more than an apologetic ployâ??something that I never expected from you.

Perhaps you'll have time to explain your methodology at your FAIR 2008 presentation. I look forward to hearing it.

See you then.

Best regards,

</brent>

http://mormonscripturestudies.com

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[Brian Hauglid]

Brent,

What should readers make of your seeming will-'o-the-wisp ink analysis?

That it is only a preliminary analysis. Further examination could still confirm or negate the finding.

In your latest reply, you note:

"ufficient time"? ... hmmm...

That's what's needed after a preliminary analysis.

Brian, your authorization for Will to dubiously pontificate on your assessment appears nothing more than an apologetic ployâ??something that I never expected from you.

You're seeming cynicism is causing you to read way too much into this minor question.

You seem to have done much more advanced ink analysis of this issue and have already pronounced your certain judgment. Perhaps you could provide images and analysis of your quill pen experiment. I know I would be very interested and I'm quite sure it would be graciously received by many interested readers.

Cheers,

Brian

[cksalmon]

Chris (Salmon):

At the tempting risk of exceeding my own lowly standards of vulgarity, I will restrainedly note that if you think Professor Hauglid is interested in â??protracted nigglingâ? about anything, youâ??re entertaining a delusion unworthy of your otherwise prodigious intellect.

Um.... Okay. That's certainly a non sequitur, but I must assume you're now duly authorized to report Hauglid's state of mind in addition to his microscopic findings.

Of course, the statement you made was, "One must wonder with whom Mr. Metcalfe might have interest in 'protracted niggling?'" (which isn't a question, by the way)--rather than, "One must wonder who might have interest in 'protracted niggling.'"

My response: "Brian Hauglid." The import of that response is that, apparently, Brent would have liked to have had a serious discussion of the issues with, well, Dr. Hauglid, rather than you--and, apparently, based on the recent posts here (involving microscopic analysis[!], of all things), that discussion, indeed, would have involved some "protracted niggling," however much Dr. Hauglid is reticent to engage in it.

And your vulgarity is well-known to those who follow MDB, notably your suggestion that... [deleted by Mod. Chris, you should have known better. If you recognized it as "vulgarity" then it certainly doesn't belong here. ~mods]

I would reiterate: "if Schryver truly embodies the Restored Gospel, I want absolutely nothing to do with it."

Chris

[William Schryver]

cks:

My response: "Brian Hauglid." The import of that response is that, apparently, Brent would have liked to have had a serious discussion of the issues with, well, Dr. Hauglid, rather than you--and, apparently, based on the recent posts here (involving microscopic analysis[!], of all things), that discussion, indeed, would have involved some "protracted niggling," however much Dr. Hauglid is reticent to engage in it.

Perhaps a brief English language lesson would be in order:

Main Entry: nigâ?¢gle

intransitive verb

1 a: trifle

b: to spend too much effort on minor details

2: to find fault constantly in a petty way

Therefore I again assert my confidence that my good friend Brian Hauglid has absolutely no interest in â??nigglingâ? with Brent Metcalfe or anyone else, such as many of those who frequent your preferred discussion board, who spend too much effort on minor details and who find fault constantly in a petty way.

And your vulgarity is well-known to those who follow MDB â?¦

As they say, â??When in Rome â?¦â? In some neighborhoods, there is only one dialect they really understand, vulgar though it be to those accustomed to more refined company.

I would reiterate: "if Schryver truly embodies the Restored Gospel, I want absolutely nothing to do with it."

So weâ??ve heard.

[Brent Metcalfe]

Hi Brian,

Irrespective of whether my Stake Patriarchâ??a lifelong family friendâ??had even a smattering of cryptesthesia, he did intuit a couple of life's experiences that have resonated: 1) folks would seek me to understand the scriptures (okay, no snickering), and 2) my life's joy would be the embrace of my children. While many may dispute the former premonition, the latter is spot on. I hope that you too have had a pleasant Father's Day.

Thanks for your latest reply.

You're seeming cynicism is causing you to read way too much into this minor question.

Call me old fashion, but in textual criticism there are no "minor question."

What you dub as "cynicism" (I prefer critical/scholarly/healthy skepticism) toward your analyses, stems in part from watching the spectacle of "Mr. Schryver's Traveling Sideshow of Ephemeral Arguments"â??grasping Will's idiosyncratic, highly nuanced views is like nailing Jell-O to a wall. Your intermittent, enthusiastic verbal applause for Will's antics is unfortunate and has (slightly) jaded me (much like a previous issue that we've discussed privately).

You seem to have done much more advanced ink analysis of this issue and have already pronounced your certain judgment.

I don't have the certainty that you describe on much of anythingâ??but evidently you do:

I can say this: The simultaneous dictation theory is fatally flawed. ... If Brent were to publish some of the explanations of these mss that I've seen, i.e. arguing for simultaneous dictation, I fear it could prove to be an embarrassment in the academic world. ... Simultaneous dictation will be there but it will certainly not be at the top of the list.

In any event, if your ink analysis proves persuasive, I'll be among the first to defend it.

Perhaps you could provide images and analysis of your quill pen experiment. I know I would be very interested and I'm quite sure it would be graciously received by many interested readers.

I've posted dozensâ??perhaps hundredsâ??of images supporting my text-critical analyses of the BoAbr manuscripts. If memory serves, you haven't posted a single image to buttress your analyses. So, it's your turn, Brian...

Please post an unaltered image from your highest-resolution color scans of the portion from BoAbr ms. 1a (fldr. 2) that I've highlighted in this image:

The portion of the manuscript that I've highlighted measures ~1/8 square inch on the original. I trust that you can accommodate this meager request.

Kind regards,

</brent>

http://mormonscripturestudies.com

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[William Schryver]

BM:

What you dub as "cynicism" (I prefer critical/scholarly/healthy skepticism) toward your analyses, stems in part from watching the spectacle of "Mr. Schryver's Traveling Sideshow of Ephemeral Arguments"â??grasping Will's idiosyncratic, highly nuanced views is like nailing Jell-O to a wall. Your intermittent, enthusiastic verbal applause for Will's antics is unfortunate and has (slightly) jaded me (much like a previous issue that we've discussed privately).

Irony is such a sweet treat that I can only enjoy it in carefully-measured quantities. Therefore the above paragraph will no doubt supply me for the next month or so.

Ephemeral Arguments?

Over the course of this thread, I have provided numerous summaries of the evidence that supports the conclusion that KEPA Ms. #2 attests an interlinear insertion at Abr. 1:12 (I will refer you â?¦ this record.)

I would refer the reader to the following posts:

Here and here.

The argumentation has centered on four main evidentiary points:

• 
  
• Two lines of text are squeezed into the space of one line.
  
  
  .
  
  
• The letters are considerably condensed in size and spacing when compared with the rest of the document.
  
  
  .
  
  
• The parenthesis overwrites the letter(s) of a word in the line below.
  
  
  .
  
  
• The inserted phrase is clearly parenthetical in meaning, and is not otherwise essential to the flow of the pre-existing text.
  
  

One would rightly wonder which of these several points qualifies as â??ephemeralâ? or â??highly nuancedâ?? Indeed, it would seem that those terms would best describe the explanations (such as they are) we have been able to piece together from Chris Smith. We have yet to hear anything in the way of an explanation from Mr. Metcalfe. He has apparently been preoccupied with his niggling over transcription sigla and whatnot.

Nevertheless, what Mr. Metcalfe likes to term â??anticsâ? has been perceived by the majority of our many readers as solid argumentation.

Argumentation, I might add, that has gone unanswered.

[William Schryver]

While I find stolen moments here and there to prepare my initial post in a new â??Evidences for Visual Copyingâ? thread, I wanted to respond here to some things said on other threads. I think my responses are an appropriate coda to this thread.

I wrote:

There is no evidence that Joseph Smith hired Williams and Parrish to make these copies.

To which a poster calling himself â??Critical Thinkerâ? replied:

Nonsense. The fact that they were in the paid services of Joseph Smith, working in the capacity as scribes, is evidence to suggest they were hired for this purpose.

Let's take a parallel analogy to see just how absurd this is.

If you knew Johnny and Jimmy were painters who were in the paid services of Mikey. And then one day you find out that both Johnny and Jimmy were painting Mikey's house. It isn't a great leap to conclude Mikey approved of the work. That is what the "critics" are doing, and you guys make it sound like they are complete idiots for drawing the mostly likely conclusion. It is a logical connection, it isn't a great leap. A great leap would be something along the lines of the apologetic â??explanationâ? that appeals to mystery and offers no plausible scenarios to support its case. The apologetic equivalent in this instance would be to argue that Johnny and Jimmy were painting his house without Mikey's approval, and that â??there is no evidence to suggest Mikey knew anything about it.â?

Seriously. You aren't really going to resurrect the Nibley theory that the KEP represent a concerted, private endeavor by Smith's scribes without his involvement, are you?

â??Critical Thinkerâ? is, of course, not advocating a novel position. It has been the assumption of the critics since 1967 that these two particular documents are the â??translation manuscriptsâ? of the original dictation of the portion of the Book of Abraham that they represent. But to buttress this assumption, they employ several other assumptions that lack sufficient basis. One of these is the argument that these two men, Frederick G. Williams and Warren Parrish, would have never, at any point in their association with Joseph Smith, have been inclined to do something like make copies of the translation manuscript and, in conjunction with W. W. Phelps, have attempted to do something like â??reverse engineerâ? that English â??translationâ? with the Egyptian texts to which they had unique access as part of Joseph Smithâ??s inner circle. Indeed, it would not surprise me if Joseph Smith invited them to give it a go. He was willing for Oliver Cowdery to try his hand at translating from the plates of Mormon. There is much compelling evidence to suggest that Joseph Smith would have likewise invited these later associates to do the same kinds of things.

We must remember that these men were no ordinary â??scribesâ? who aspired to do little more than dutifully perform their assigned tasks, ask no questions, and offer no opinions on the matters to which they were privy. Not only were they, to a man, extremely intelligent, extremely talented, and possessed of the belief that they were more â??learnedâ? than the frontier â??prophetâ? with whom they had cast their lot, they had also been led to believe, via revelations they took as divine in origin, that they would have the opportunity to personally contribute to the body of revelatory material being showered upon the Latter-day Saints at that point in time. Phelps and Cowdery (who also took part in this Egyptian project) were especially attracted by the notion that they also could do the things they observed Joseph Smith do. Simply put, to describe these men as nothing more than hired-hand scribes does violence to the peculiar history these particular individuals had with Joseph Smith. The assumptions that flow from viewing them in such a distorted fashion are warrantless, and the willingness to divorce the known nature of these men from the equation that attempts to explain what they were doing in this particular case manifests either an ignorance of history, or a motivated willfulness to disregard it.

One assumption that underlies much of the criticsâ?? argument is that these two particular documents date to 1835. They may. But we simply donâ??t know that at this point. It is conceivable that they were made anytime between late 1835 and prior to the disaffection of these men from the church two or three years later.

These documents donâ??t identify themselves. No one seems to have talked about them. They were not known as the original â??Book of Abraham Manuscriptsâ? by those who carried them around. They contain, after all, only a little more than a chapter of the published text of the book. They were simply part of the â??Egyptian Papersâ? that were included in the archives carried by the church from Nauvoo. They seem to have been completely forgotten for many years after the Saints settled in Utah. Whatever these papers represent, they obviously did not command a level of interest among the early Saints commensurate with the criticsâ?? assertion that they are original translation manuscripts.

Finally, I donâ??t believe the critics fully appreciate the burden of proof that necessarily accompanies the assertion that KEPA #2 and #3 represent simultaneously-created transcripts of the original â??translationâ? session of the Book of Abraham. This theory is susceptible to being disproven from many angles. We have only yet mentioned a few of what we see as many flaws in Ashment/Metcalfe hypothesis. The discussion of Abr. 1:12 in this thread only flirted with advancing to how it impacts the question of simultaneous dictation. The thoughtful reader will quickly perceive serious problems with this theory when examining the anomalous nature of this passage in these documents. If the Metcalfe explanation mirrors the one given earlier by Chris Smith (see here), then Iâ??m certain that Brian Hauglidâ??s prediction (see here) is prescient indeed.

[Chris Smith]

Hey Will,

As you know, I'm not opposed to the idea that these men were more than just hired scribes. I recently wrote on MDB,

On the subject of the apologists demanding external corroboration that JS ever engaged in simultaneous dictation, there is at least one example outside of KEPA 2 and 3. And significantly, it is part of the Egyptian materials: I refer to KEPE 3, 4, and 5, the "Egyptian Alphabet" manuscripts. KEPE 6 and 7 also appear to have been produced concurrently by two different scribes. I suspect that Joseph's inclusion of multiple scribes had less to do with needing multiple copies of the same revelation than with wanting to involve several close associates who were deeply interested in the project. As interested as Joseph was in religion-making and city-building, he was more interested in being loved. (I mean, polygamy. Come on.) And nothing created loyalty in his associates quite like involving them in a translation project-- or so, after the BoM and JST, he probably thought.

I'm also not opposed to the idea that they prepared documents for personal use. As you may know, both Phelps and Cowdery owned (very similar) copies of a few Book of Mormon characters and their translations. Phelps also wrote to his wife in May of 1835 and gave a list of Adamic characters with their transliterations and translations, in the style of the GAEL. Several of the documents in the KEP collection appear to be duplicates produced simultaneously with one another. A couple of these documents have names affixed to them, apparently indicating ownership (as, for example, Joseph and F. G. Williams' Katumin notebooks).

And finally, I'm not opposed to the idea that the scribes contributed ideas during the production of the documents. In fact, I suspect Cowdery was the one feeding the prophet relevant information from Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, and Phelps may have been providing linguistic ideas and insights. In the words of David Whitmer, the prophet's associates "would persuade Brother Joseph to inquire of the Lord about this... or that... and of course a revelation would always come just as they desired it."

On the other hand, I'm quite wary of saying that all these duplicate documents were after-the-fact copies, that they were produced solely for personal use, or that the various scribes were the primary formative agents in determining their contents. The evidence does not appear to bear those assumptions out. I am also wary of lumping the translation manuscripts together with these other documents. They were clearly related and follow a similar logic, but their plan and purpose obviously is not in every respect the same.

-Chris

[Alf O'Mega]

These documents donâ??t identify themselves. No one seems to have talked about them. They were not known as the original â??Book of Abraham Manuscriptsâ? by those who carried them around. They contain, after all, only a little more than a chapter of the published text of the book. They were simply part of the â??Egyptian Papersâ? that were included in the archives carried by the church from Nauvoo. They seem to have been completely forgotten for many years after the Saints settled in Utah. Whatever these papers represent, they obviously did not command a level of interest among the early Saints commensurate with the criticsâ?? assertion that they are original translation manuscripts.

If the hypothesis that "I will refer you . . ." is a later insertion to the manuscript is correct, doesn't that mean that KEPA 2 is ancestral to the published text (since the inserted text appears there)? Doesn't that eliminate the possibility that these manuscripts are cul-de-sac experiments of reverse engineering by the scribes? Or do you propose that the insertion echoes a later correction to an actual ancestor document? If so, doesn't that vitiate the significance of this insertion to the question of whether that phrase is actually translated from the papyrus?

[William Schryver]

Your observation is well-considered. Believe me, Iâ??ve been thinking about that very thing for several months now, trying to formulate some kind of scenario that can explain what we see. That said, an unresolved aim of this thread was to ask the question of how the anomalous nature of Abr. 1:12 can be explained within the proposed simultaneous dictation scenario.

As far as the argument for copying is concerned, there are several apparent instances of visual copying errors, however there is not, to my knowledge at this point, a detailed hypothesis to explain all the various anomalies present. Quite frankly, that has never been the objective of our examination. We already have a theory about the creation of the Book of Abraham: that it was received in the same manner and fashion as was the Book of Mormon. And, we maintain that the historical evidence strongly suggests that the portion represented by these two documents was â??translatedâ? before Warren Parrish came onto the scene â?? therefore precluding the possibility that these particular documents represent the original â??translationâ? of the book.

We have been occupied in testing the hypothesis that these documents are simultaneous transcripts of dictation. It appears to fail on many counts, the anomalous nature of Abr. 1:12 being only one example. If there is an explanation beyond Chris Smithâ??s highly conjectural model proposed earlier, I have yet to hear it.

Here is what we see:

Here is Chris Smithâ??s proposed explanation:

â?¦ the following model reflects what I think was the chain of events that produced this locus:

1) Joseph dictates the preceding line up to the word "altar," at which point he stops and says, "next character."

2) Williams slides the papyrus toward himself so he can start copying the next character.

3) While Parrish is waiting for Williams to finish that, Joseph says, "No, wait. Add 'I will refer you to the representation that is lying before you.'" Parrish obeys.

4) Williams finishes drawing the character, then starts writing the additional phrase interlinearly so as not to throw his Enlish text out of alignment with the just-drawn character.

5) JS says, "No, make it 'at the commencement of this record' instead of "that is lying before you'."

6) Parrish, who had started writing the insertion a few seconds before Williams, has to strike out "that is lying before you." Williams, however, has not yet written "lying before you" and so is able to finish the sentence without any strike-outs.

Metcalfe apparently concurs with the basic thrust of this explanation -- an explanation I consider to be deficient in many ways, not the least the fact that it is constructed almost entirely on conjectural propositions.

Again, I want to emphasize that we are not particularly interested in establishing a theory to explain these documents. At present, I believe the data is inadequate to do so. Absent some more information, I believe we may never satisfactorily explain what these men were doing here. However, we can certainly take proposed theories and test them against the data to see if they have explanatory power. In the case of the â??simultaneous dictationâ? model, I have concluded that it fails in several respects, both from the text-critical and the historical standpoints.

.

.

.

P.S. Welcome to the discussion Alf. Despite your status as a pagan unbeliever on the fast track to hellfire and damnation ( ), I have always respected your observations and your manner of expressing them. Come visit sometime and we'll do lunch. Shakespeare in the summer in Cedar City should be at the top of your list of things to do. So what if you live on the other side of the country. Get a flight to Vegas and drive on up. We'll keep a candle burning.

[Alf O'Mega]

Welcome to the discussion Alf. Despite your status as a pagan unbeliever on the fast track to hellfire and damnation, I have always respected your observations and your manner of expressing them.

I'm not likely to have much to add besides questions. It's a difficult issue to follow at my casual level of engagement.

Come visit sometime and we'll do lunch. Shakespeare in the summer in Cedar City should be at the top of your list of things to do. So what if you live on the other side of the country. Get a flight to Vegas and drive on up. We'll keep a candle burning.

I was a fixture there for most of the early 90s. Having kids and moving away put an end to that. So although the Shakespearean Festival is one of my favorite things ever, and although I have never demoted it in my affections, I have somehow managed to insert so many other things higher on my list of priorities that it's been over ten years since I attended. (I remember Brian Vaughan from the Greenshow and then some early smaller parts, and now he's taking roles like Hamlet and Cyrano!)

[William Schryver]

If the hypothesis that "I will refer you . . ." is a later insertion to the manuscript is correct, doesn't that mean that KEPA 2 is ancestral to the published text (since the inserted text appears there)? Doesn't that eliminate the possibility that these manuscripts are cul-de-sac experiments of reverse engineering by the scribes? Or do you propose that the insertion echoes a later correction to an actual ancestor document? If so, doesn't that vitiate the significance of this insertion to the question of whether that phrase is actually translated from the papyrus?

In retrospect, I can see that you might consider that I did not actually address your specific questions. So, I will give it another try:

If the hypothesis that "I will refer you . . ." is a later insertion to the manuscript is correct, doesn't that mean that KEPA 2 is ancestral to the published text (since the inserted text appears there)?

Yes. Obviously.

Doesn't that eliminate the possibility that these manuscripts are cul-de-sac experiments of reverse engineering by the scribes?

No, it does not. Not by any means. What it does indicate is that there was ambiguity in the source document that resulted in the similar, and yet significantly different, anomalies observed in Mss. #2 and #3 at Abr. 1:12.

Or do you propose that the insertion echoes a later correction to an actual ancestor document?

I have considered that possibility, but I currently regard it as untenable. I think the best answer at this point is that there was ambiguity in the source document that resulted in confusion as to how to refer to the illustration. Either that, or there was no reference in the source document, but that an interim decision had been made to include the illustration in the anticipated published version, and to make reference to it in the body of the text.

My focus to this point has been on Ms. #2, since I am persuaded that it predates Ms. #3. In my judgment, the text-critical evidence suggests that this phrase is NOT a part of the material considered to be "translated." Whether or not there was something similar, and yet ambiguous, in the source document from which Ms. #2 was copied, remains a question I have not yet resolved. That said, I appreciate the significance of the points you raise. While this locus may indeed pose problems for the dictation scenario, the copying scenario is also challenged to explain it.

If so, doesn't that vitiate the significance of this insertion to the question of whether that phrase is actually translated from the papyrus?

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here. Perhaps you could elaborate so that I don't make assumptions about what I think you mean.

[William Schryver]

I'm not likely to have much to add besides questions. It's a difficult issue to follow at my casual level of engagement.

I was a fixture there for most of the early 90s. Having kids and moving away put an end to that. So although the Shakespearean Festival is one of my favorite things ever, and although I have never demoted it in my affections, I have somehow managed to insert so many other things higher on my list of priorities that it's been over ten years since I attended. (I remember Brian Vaughan from the Greenshow and then some early smaller parts, and now he's taking roles like Hamlet and Cyrano!)

Note my elaboration on your original questions.

As for Brian Vaughn, he has certainly become the star of the festival. Although he was entirely absent last year. I think he pretty much has his choice of parts. I will say that I wasn't overly impressed with his performance in Hamlet. It was a little idiosyncratic for my tastes, although he earned rave reviews for it from all the regional critics. I think he is best suited to the various comedic roles he has played.

He is now married (for about two years, I think) to his co-star in this year's production of Cyrano de Bergerac. My ten-year-old daughter attended the preview performance as part of her summer drama class, and came home raving about the actor playing Cyrano. She now thinks she's a drama critic!

[Chris Smith]

And, we maintain that the historical evidence strongly suggests that the portion represented by these two documents was â??translatedâ? before Warren Parrish came onto the scene â?? therefore precluding the possibility that these particular documents represent the original â??translationâ? of the book.

What historical evidence do you have in mind?

Metcalfe apparently concurs with the basic thrust of this explanation -- an explanation I consider to be deficient in many ways, not the least the fact that it is constructed almost entirely on conjectural propositions.

I readily acknowledge that my explanation lacks elegance, in that it requires a very specific sequence of several events. But it is carefully crafted to make the most of all the data. I will not go so far as to say that it is not "conjectural", but then all history, really, is conjectural. The difference between one conjecture and the next lies merely in how "educated" it is (i.e. how much evidence it has to back it up and how well it explains the total data). My proposal is not conjecture in the sense of being baseless speculation, if that's what you're implying. It is, rather, an educated guess. And at present it's one of the only ones we've got.

I should add two more points. First, the version of my explanation you quoted was slightly confusing. Later I clarified it a bit:

1) Joseph dictates the preceding line up to the word "alter," at which point he stops and says, "next character." Both scribes finish writing the paragraph.

2) Having finished writing the paragraph, the scribes now need to copy the next margin character from the papyrus into their manuscript margins. Williams goes first; Parrish is waiting his turn.

3) While Williams is in the middle of drawing the character, Joseph says, "No, wait. Add 'I will refer you to the representation that is lying before you' to that last paragraph." Since Williams is occupied drawing the character, Parrish starts writing the additional line a little before Williams does. This accounts for Parrish being a bit ahead of Williams.

4) Williams finishes drawing the next Egyptian character, then crams the additional English phrase into the space at the end of the previous paragraph so as not to throw his English text out of alignment with the just-drawn character.

5) JS says, "No, make it 'at the commencement of this record' instead of "that is lying before you'."

6) Parrish, who had started writing the insertion a bit before Williams, has to strike out "that is lying before you." Williams, however, has not yet written "lying before you" and so is able to finish the sentence without any strike-outs.

Second, it should be noted that at least two other dictation-theorists have proposed explanations for this locus. Two years ago Paul Osborne suggested the following:

Here is my theory of what happened:

The 1st line is straight and the first half of the second line starts out fair enough, but then something happens to the attention of Williams and he takes his eyes off the manuscript while he continues to write nearly crashing into the line above before coming to a halt with the word, "the". Obviously something has happened to distract the scribe and call his attention to something else in the room. The writing in the 2nd line changes its angle with the phrase, "I will refer you to the representation that is at the"; and this is when it appears the writer was looking at something else other than just the manuscript. I get the impression the wayward handwriting is due to Joseph Smith using the original Facsimile No.1 fragment as a visual aid and was calling attention to it, perhaps even handling it as he spoke. Therefore, as the prophet received revelation he may have lifted the papyri fragment off the table and displayed it while saying, "I will refer you to the representation that is at the", and this caused Williams to take his eyes off the paper and inadvertently change the angle of writing, nearly crashing into the line above. It may even be that the very next line (3rd) is a continuation of the writing going awry, which says, "commencement of this record". The bottom line (4th) indicates correction in which the angle of writing was reset. It seems like Williams lost track of his writing when looking at the papyrus of the original Facsimile No. 1. The phrase "commencement of this record" was written while receiving direct instruction from the prophet.

Now let's examine what happened to Warren Parrish as he was writing in his manuscript at the exact same time. I think he was a bit confused at what he was suppose to write. Let's see how he reacted to the prophet's dictation when distracted with a direct reference to the picture on the papyrus:

[know-] ledge of this altar, I will refer you to the

representation, that is lying before you

at the commencement of this record

Notice how Parrish alluded to the table in his sentence! He wasn't suppose to do that because the table in which the papyri was laying on was not part of the actual story. It seems to me that after the prophet said, "I will refer you to the representation", he may have paused and then stopped translating, calling for the attention of the scribes to the table when he said, "that is laying before you". Parrish simply kept writing but Williams caught the cue and stopped writing.

Improving on Paul's hypothesis over at MDB, Kevin recently wrote the following:

While Joseph Smith was dictating his translation, he changed his mind in mid-sentence after saying "representation that is lying before you." Naturally, that meant both scribes had to make immediate adjustments at whatever point they were at in their manuscripts.

Parrish was transcribing at a faster pace, which explains why he had written as far as "lying before you" before making the correction at the behest of Smith. Williams was a few words behind Parrish, so by the time Joseph Smith corrected them, Williams had only made it as far as "that is" - so there was nothing for him to erase. But he was clearly drifting upwards until crashing into the line above, which suggests something was causing him to divert away from what he was doing. I suspect he was looking over to Smith when he informed them of the needed correction. When Smith told them to change "that is lying before you" to "at the commencement of this record," Williams had made a gap to be filled. So he filled it in, with the corrected translation. He didn't bother to erase "that is" probably because it made perfect sense with or without it. So that's it. "Problem" easily explained within the dictation scenario.

Kevin's explanation is perhaps a little more elegant than mine, but again, I have sacrificed elegance for the sake of making full use of all the data. Sometimes history just isn't elegant. Pointing to a lack of elegance does not constitute falsification, especially since no viable alternative has been presented from your side of the fence.

Best,

-Chris

[Chris Smith]

Hi Will,

You proposed above that "there was ambiguity in the source document that resulted in confusion as to how to refer to the illustration." Your reference to "an ambiguity" is, at best, ambiguous. What kind of ambiguity do you have in mind?

-Chris

[William Schryver]

CS:

I readily acknowledge that my explanation lacks elegance, in that it requires a very specific sequence of several events. But it is carefully crafted to make the most of all the data. I will not go so far as to say that it is not "conjectural", but then all history, really, is conjectural. The difference between one conjecture and the next lies merely in how "educated" it is (i.e. how much evidence it has to back it up and how well it explains the total data). My proposal is not conjecture in the sense of being baseless speculation, if that's what you're implying. It is, rather, an educated guess.

Iâ??m not all that interested in â??eleganceâ? (or the lack thereof). If I gave that impression, it was not intended. I very much appreciate that you have gone to the effort of supplying an explanation for this locus within the broader parameters of the simultaneous dictation scenario. I donâ??t mean at all to come across as ridiculing your explanation. If that was your impression, I desire to disabuse you of that belief. I simply noted â?? and you have acknowledged â?? that it is comprised of a serious of conjectures. It certainly represents a plausible scenario. And I will continue to refer to it as the discussion of other issues proceeds. Perhaps we will find other aspects of the text-critical evidence that will contend against your proposed explanation. Or, perhaps we will find that your explanation dove-tails nicely with other things we find.

I should add two more points. First, the version of my explanation you quoted was slightly confusing. Later I clarified it a bit:

Thanks for the elaboration â?? and for the Osborne explanation. I had forgotten about that. (I wonder what has become of Paul? I havenâ??t heard anything from him in many months now. Does anyone know his status? Does anyone have a current e-mail address for him?)

Sometimes history just isn't elegant. Pointing to a lack of elegance does not constitute falsification â?¦

I entirely concur.

You proposed above that "there was ambiguity in the source document that resulted in confusion as to how to refer to the illustration." Your reference to "an ambiguity" is, at best, ambiguous. What kind of ambiguity do you have in mind?

Well, considering that weâ??re talking about a non-extant document of unknown contents, I think I have in mind an ambiguous ambiguity.

Seriously, though, (and consistent with my argument that this entire phrase was not found in the ancient source document) I might suggest something like an asterisk (as it were) after â??alterâ? that referred to some kind of note indicating that the illustration would be placed at the beginning of the envisioned published text. So, other than this mark referencing a note, the original text would have read â??â?¦ that you might have a knowledge of this altar, it was after the form of a bedstead â?¦â? Then I would argue that the note read â??I will refer you to the representation that is at the commencement of this record.â? Parrish added the â??lying before youâ? either because it was present, but ambiguously stricken, in the source. Or, â??that isâ? may have been at the end of the page and Parrish may have mistakenly assumed that â??lying before youâ? was to follow (and therefore proceeded to write it) before he turned to the next page and saw his mistake.

What historical evidence do you have in mind?

Some has already been publicly referenced. Other evidence will be forthcoming in papers that will immediately follow the publication of the critical edition of the KEP next year. While admittedly relying, in this instance, on othersâ?? accounts of evidence I have not personally seen, I have been persuaded that the â??translationâ? of the portion of the text represented by KEPA #3 occurred prior to November 1835.

[Chris Smith]

Iâ??m not all that interested in â??eleganceâ? (or the lack thereof).

Don't get me wrong; the more elegant the explanation, as Occam argued, the more likely it is to be true. I'm not denying that. But we also have to resign ourselves to the fact that people are messy, and sometimes a highly elegant solution simply isn't available.

(I wonder what has become of Paul? I havenâ??t heard anything from him in many months now. Does anyone know his status? Does anyone have a current e-mail address for him?)

I believe he had some family issues and withdrew from Internet apologetics for a time. He even took his website down. I have no way of contacting him, but if anyone does happen to hear from him, please let him know he's missed.

Seriously, though, (and consistent with my argument that this entire phrase was not found in the ancient source document) I might suggest something like an asterisk (as it were) after â??alterâ? that referred to some kind of note indicating that the illustration would be placed at the beginning of the envisioned published text. So, other than this mark referencing a note, the original text would have read â??â?¦ that you might have a knowledge of this altar, it was after the form of a bedstead â?¦â? Then I would argue that the note read â??I will refer you to the representation that is at the commencement of this record.â? Parrish added the â??lying before youâ? either because it was present, but ambiguously stricken, in the source. Or, â??that isâ? may have been at the end of the page and Parrish may have mistakenly assumed that â??lying before youâ? was to follow (and therefore proceeded to write it) before he turned to the next page and saw his mistake.

Thank you for elaborating. So you have in mind something like a footnote or margin note reading "I will refer you to the representation that is at the commencement of this record," whose intent would have been to point out the intended relationship between text and illustration in publication, rather than on the papyrus?

Some has already been publicly referenced.

I presume you're thinking of Shinehah, for one. Am I forgetting anything else?

-Chris

[William Schryver]

CS:

So you have in mind something like a footnote or margin note reading "I will refer you to the representation that is at the commencement of this record," whose intent would have been to point out the intended relationship between text and illustration in publication, rather than on the papyrus?

I think something like that could definitely be a possibility. Thatâ??s about as far as Iâ??ve taken it at present.

I presume you're thinking of Shinehah, for one.

The employment of the term Shinehah in the summer of 1835 is a small piece of evidence in favor of the conclusion.

[Alf O'Mega]

If the hypothesis that "I will refer you . . ." is a later insertion to the manuscript is correct, doesn't that mean that KEPA 2 is ancestral to the published text (since the inserted text appears there)?

Yes. Obviously.

Doesn't that eliminate the possibility that these manuscripts are cul-de-sac experiments of reverse engineering by the scribes?

No, it does not. Not by any means. What it does indicate is that there was ambiguity in the source document that resulted in the similar, and yet significantly different, anomalies observed in Mss. #2 and #3 at Abr. 1:12.

I meant the term cul-de-sac to describe documents that are outside the chain of dependence leading to the published text. If these documents represent experiments in which Joseph did not participate, obviously they give at best indirect insight into the production of the published text. If, however, they are ancestor documents, Joseph was centrally involved, and these documents are primary evidence of how the Book of Abraham was produced.

Or do you propose that the insertion echoes a later correction to an actual ancestor document?

I have considered that possibility, but I currently regard it as untenable. I think the best answer at this point is that there was ambiguity in the source document that resulted in confusion as to how to refer to the illustration. Either that, or there was no reference in the source document, but that an interim decision had been made to include the illustration in the anticipated published version, and to make reference to it in the body of the text.

My focus to this point has been on Ms. #2, since I am persuaded that it predates Ms. #3. In my judgment, the text-critical evidence suggests that this phrase is NOT a part of the material considered to be "translated." Whether or not there was something similar, and yet ambiguous, in the source document from which Ms. #2 was copied, remains a question I have not yet resolved. That said, I appreciate the significance of the points you raise. While this locus may indeed pose problems for the dictation scenario, the copying scenario is also challenged to explain it.

If so, doesn't that vitiate the significance of this insertion to the question of whether that phrase is actually translated from the papyrus?

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here. Perhaps you could elaborate so that I don't make assumptions about what I think you mean.

Perhaps vitiate is too strong a term, but if the insertion (if it is an insertion) echoes a change to a primary source document, you have at best indirect evidence of the seer's intentions at that point in the text. I don't see how confident conclusions are available. Much more may be inferred if these are primary source documents themselves.

[William Schryver]

Alf:

Youâ??re almost raising my suspicions that youâ??re playing proxy for Metcalfe here â?? something I would not have expected of you, but I will respond nonetheless.

I meant the term cul-de-sac to describe documents that are outside the chain of dependence leading to the published text.

And I understood your meaning.

At this juncture, I am persuaded that these documents are cul-de-sac documents that were inconsequential to the ultimately-published text. That doesnâ??t mean that these documents remained static from their original creation to the present. Indeed, there is considerable evidence of secondary emendation in both manuscripts. I am of the opinion that almost all the emendations are secondary, including those that are commonly cited by critics as evidences of simultaneous dictation. This would suggest that the text prior to the emendations is the best reflection of the exemplar from which they were copied, that the participants in this project were privy to any modifications to the original text, and that their copies were made prior to any editing having occurred in that original text.

It should be noted, however, that there are really very few substantive differences between these early documents and the published text.

If we assume for a moment the possibility that these two documents represent the personal working papers of Williams and Parrish, each of whom could very plausibly have been involved with Phelps in the kind of project that Nibley first suggested, then it is no stretch to suggest that they could have emended the documents from first-hand knowledge of the primary text. They were, after all, part of Joseph Smithâ??s inner circle during the period in question. That said, I believe it is na

[Alf O'Mega]

At this juncture, I am persuaded that these documents are cul-de-sac documents that were inconsequential to the ultimately-published text.

Then they're not ancestral to the published text. Chronologically prior, certainly, but not ancestral.

It also seems that the scenario you have to envision to make the insertion secondary to both these manuscripts and their exemplar is at least somewhat elaborate. The copies must have been made after the first draft of the exemplar but before the insertion was made there. Parrish was somehow led to write "that is lying before you" before striking it out, while Williams had no such difficulty. Also, even if the two manuscripts are off the ancestral line leading to the published text, they are clearly not independent of each other. So if they were working together, why produce two manuscripts instead of collaborating on one?

So apparently simultaneous dictation and visual copying both have their hurdles in the parsimony test.

Oh, and I've never met or corresponded with Metcalfe outside of here and ZLMB.

[William Schryver]

Alf:

So apparently simultaneous dictation and visual copying both have their hurdles in the parsimony test.

Absolutely.

I would only add that there are few, if any, definitive signs of â??simultaneous dictationâ? whereas there are definitive signs of â??visual copying.â? When I read through my textual criticism books, I cannot identify recognized tests that establish a manuscript as having been â??dictated.â? On the other hand, there are numerous tests that establish a manuscript as having been â??copied.â? When I and others make the claim that these manuscripts are copies, it is because of the classic visual copying errors that we have identified within them. I suppose it is possible that the documents were produced through a combination of dictation and copying. That would perhaps resolve some of the problems. But I have yet to see how the simultaneous dictation model can explain either the differences between Mss. #2 and #3 or the almost-textbook examples of dittography that have been identified. That doesnâ??t mean that a copying hypothesis can explain all of these things, either. However, if there are definitive examples of visual copying errors in the documents, then I think we are justified in proceeding from an assumption that they are copies â?? even if we struggle to explain everything under the umbrella of that theory.

Oh, and I've never met or corresponded with Metcalfe outside of here and ZLMB.

My mistake then. Iâ??m sure it is due to the fact that your perceptiveness is on the same level as his â?? perhaps even superior. In any case, I never should have doubted that you were more than capable of coming up with these great observations on your own. Please accept my sincere apologies.