Joseph Smith Egyptian Papers

[wenglund]

Okay, here we go: 3a. You argue that it makes no sense to you that Smith would produce a complex and esoteric Egyptian dictionary as a means for producing the BofA, when he could have just done it mystically, and been done with it. If Smith were a conscious fraud, then I think he would have taken the course you suggest. That he actually tried to figure the characters out, one by one, is evidence that he honestly believed he had the gift of translation. It makes perfect sense that he would try (at least initially) to do a character-by-character analysis, in view of what he had earlier said about the translation process. When Oliver Cowdery once tried to translate a lost ancient document using his dowsing rod, Smith produced a revelation chastising Cowdery because he did not "study it out in [his] mind" first, before he could receive a mystical verification that his translation was correct. See D&C 9:8. That Smith followed the same advice with the Book of Abraham should not be surprising.

I am not sure you are studying this out very well in your mind, but whatever the case you don't seem to be fully grasping the essence of this argument (likely again due to not viewing the EA/GAEL as a translation devise according to the proposition in question).

The issue here isn't about "studying it out in [his] mind." That is necessary regardless of the methodology (naturalistic or supernaturalistic). Rather, it is a matter of practicality. It doesn't make sense to create a dictionary to translate a foreign text when you already have a much simpler means for translating the foreign text. Not only does the creation of a "dictionary" in this case introduce an unnecessary additional step in the translation process, but it is an additional step that is terribly complex and elaborate, and in this case esoteric and mind-boggling.

It would be comparable, in a naturalistic and modern-day sense, to using an online translation tool like Lingo24 to create a French to English dictionary, which you then use to translate a short French story, as opposed to just using Lingo24 to directly translate the short French story. It just doesn't make sense. Sorry.

So, again, this isn't a definitive argument. It just that, in terms of reasonableness and practicality, it weighs very heaving against the proposition in question.

Now, this isn't to say that the EA/GAEL may not have been a kind of training device to give Cowdery (or Phelps) practice in using the gift of translation he once had. I think this is possible, though not likely (as intimated before, the supernaturalistic gift of translation typically isn't intended to be used for secular purposes like creating a "dictionary" for translating foreign languages). It just doesn't make sense as a means for translating relatively brief books of scriptures like the Book of Abraham.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[William Schryver]

After this thread, I think I will take a break. The bullying and unwarranted abuse has taken its toll. We'll see if I have the willpower to stay away for good.

I think there is a distinct difference between demonstrating someone's errors via hard, cold evidence and "bullying" someone, or heaping "unwarranted abuse" upon them.

I imagine it has not been easy for you. But the whole issue is that you have never had to defend your long-expressed disdain for the arguments I have made, and have watched approvingly as your friends have heaped "unwarranted abuse" upon me, and claimed that you (and others) have "eviscerated," "decimated," and otherwise "destroyed" my arguments--for well over year. Having grown weary of it all, I have finally forced you to debate me on these issues. Knowing what I know, and knowing that you had never presented any substantive counter-arguments to those I presented in 2010, and having in the meantime learned even more, and knowing that I was able to defend my arguments against anything you had said, or that I imagined you could say, I am neither surprised by the outcome of our debate, nor by your frustration. All I can say is: you reap what you sow.

[Cobalt-70]

I've concluded that you people are simply counting on the fact that your target audience (the already apostatized) are entirely disinterested with the facts and details of this issue, and are entirely willing to accept literally anything said by those they have chosen to regard as their "experts" on the issue. Those experts are also rather disinterested in the facts and details, except as they can harness a handful of them and then misrepresent them such that they can present the semblance of knowledge to the target audience.

I can see how it makes your job much easier than mine. I have to actually dig into this stuff, tearing apart detail by detail and organizing and analyzing the data in order to see why people like Ashment, for example, didn't have a freaking clue what he was talking about when he addressed questions about the KEP. Unfortunately, (and this may be, I acknowledge, consequent to the long-standing difficulty in obtaining high-quality images of the source documents) very few people among the believing LDS have undertaken, in the past forty years, to really study and seek to come to an understanding concerning the meaning and purpose of the KEP. In the meantime, you've got someone like Metcalfe who has had high-quality images, but who has spent 25+ years clinging resolutely to his monopoly on them and pretending to be the sole-source expert on them, all the while never really saying anything about them, except to assure his target audience (the confirmed apostates) that everything in them confirms what they've always suspected: they prove Joseph Smith was a fraud.

Well, thank goodness the times, they are a-changin'. I don't have the background of a scholar, and I may not always apply to the questions methodologies that qualify as "scholarly", but I do at least have images that are even superior to those of Metcalfe, and therefore I have been able, in the course of less than two years, to lift the covers on these things to my target audience: those who are believing LDS who want to know more about this topic. I have been able to share my findings to date with people like Royal Skousen and Dan McClellan, who then begin to apply classic text criticism methodologies to the problems, and confirm my findings through those means. Although I have become convinced (after self-educating myself, with works suggested by Royal and Dan) that the questions posed by the KEP very often do not fall under the umbrella of methodologies that have been developed to deal with transmitted texts (Old and New Testament, for the most part). The KEP are original documents, with a few copied texts as well. Classic text-critical methodologies are very helpful with the Abraham manuscripts, but are not very helpful at all when it comes to the EA/GAEL. When it comes to the EA/GAEL, my computer programming skills have actually served me very well in attempting to decipher their meaning and purpose.

Anyway, I have no doubt that Chris Smith and Cobalt-70 will continue to toe the party line and try to hoodwink the faithful apostates that these documents confirm their unfaith. But the tide is turning when it comes to these things. Give it another ten years, and it will turn into a tsunami. The Kirtland Egyptian Papers do NOT prove Joseph Smith was a fraud and that the Book of Abraham was a rank imposture. They likewise do not prove that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and that the BoA is inspired scripture. But what they do is shed light on the process of how the BoA was produced, and what a group of inquisitive men in Kirtland, OH, circa 1835 did in their quickly aborted attempt to craft a lexicon consistent with the properties of what they thought was "pure language".

There is no historical evidence that they developed or used the EA/GAEL to translate Egyptian papyri. That is a myth crafted by 20th century apostates. On the other hand, there is abundant textual evidence that the EA/GAEL derives from an already received Book of Abraham, as well as elements of the Doctrine and Covenants, and that its purpose--although unclear and unfinished--was related to exploring their understanding of and desires to recapture "the pure language of the ancients."

Why don't you defend your hypothesis, rather than calling anyone who disagrees with you an "apostate"? Ad hominem attacks are the last refuge of people who have run out of arguments. If this were a PhD thesis, you would be expected to defend it from a lot more probing criticism than I am subjecting it to. As Pierre-Simon Laplace once said, "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness." And you have a pretty strange theory, particularly when you include the Templar Knights angle--but even without it, it flies against what almost everybody else has written on the subject.

The default theory has to be that we take the EA/GAEL at face value: they are, as they say they are, (at least the beginnings of) an "alphabet" and a "grammar" of the Egyptian language. If you want to demonstrate otherwise, you have to provide extraordinary evidence that these documents are something other than what they claim to be, and what journal entries claim them to be.

As to the order of precedence between the EA/GAEL and the Book of Abraham, the default theory has to be that these documents were created in the order in which they are referred to in the journal entries and other external evidence. If you wish to demonstrate a different order, you need to provide some extraordinary evidence. The mere fact that the EA/GAEL is more detailed in some respects, and larger, than the Book of Abraham is not enough, because that tells you nothing about which documents came first. You have to: (1) come up with evidence which is only explainable if the Book of Abraham come first, and (2) provide convincing reasons why all the other evidence that says the Book of Abraham came last is either misleading or incorrect. I don't think you have done either.

[William Schryver]

Why don't you defend your hypothesis ...

In the immortal words of Fast Eddie Felson:

I'm shooting pool, Fats.

When I miss, you can shoot.

Edited to remove snarky rejoinder.

Edited November 4, 2011 by William Schryver

[wenglund]

Right. The part of my argument you and Wade don't seem to understand is that I've never claimed the EAG was created exclusively to translate the BoA. That was its immediate purpose, sure, but Smith and his colleagues apparently hoped to achieve actual mastery of the language. In accordance with this ambition, the EAG is written as an all-purpose Egyptian lexicon. (In fact, there's an interesting homology between the Grammar's degrees and the Masonic degrees, suggesting that Smith and his colleagues may have seen the stages of this project as stages of initiation into esoteric knowledge. Understanding Egyptian was a religious, not just a utilitarian goal.) The fifth degree instructions are of course an expansion of the instructions from the earlier degrees.

Sounds to me like you may be conflating a translation devise with Kabbalistic or Midrashic methodology. I have entertain for some time the prospects that the EA/GAEL may be the latter.

However, here is the rub. Since many of the characters in the EA/GAEL are "made up" (i.e. not Egyptian), and since the grammar has little bearing or relation to extant Egyptian writings, this reasonably suggests that the EA/GAEL wasn't meant to be used to translate or develop the higher meaning of texts from ancient Egypt, but rather as a means of conveying deeper meanings within a future or new "Egyptian" language (as evinced by the lfuture tense language I pointed out earlier).

In short, the EA/GAEL appear to not be intended for writings of the past, but for future writings, where the made-up characters and the idiosyncratic use of lines, and a whole new numbering system, may have application--impractical as it may appear, where concepts borrowed from preexisting English texts may be used in creating that new "Egyptian" language.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

With respect to the Book of Abraham (excluding the first three verses), the EA/GAEL was not a "means of translation."

My argument only relates to the proposition that the EA/GAEL was used as the means to translate part or all of the Book of Abraham. So, as you view things, my argument only speaks against the EA/GAEL being used to translate the first three verses of the Book of Abraham. Beyond that, my argument may or may not apply.

It was an intermediary source from which he drew inspiration and in many cases actual text as part of a process that was primarily mystical, and hardly at all "naturalistic" in his eyes.

You are describing an inspirational methodology that is foreign to, and not historically evinced comparatively to, what is consistently described as the methodology Joseph used for translating LDS scriptures. Look at all the accounts of the translation process and see if any of the scribes give any indication that Joseph received inspiration, and even some text for the Book of Mormon, by creating a reformed Egyptian lexicon. Given the relatively short amount of time in which Joseph was able to produce the Book of Mormon, there would have been precious little time for the kind of elaborate and complex and esoteric inspirational technique you are suggesting.

Even still, my argument doesn't completely rule out your perception. It is still possible. My argument simple renders it unlikely.

That Smith wished for a more academically-valid and naturalistic process--a true Egyptian grammar and alphabet--is evident, but he never achieved that. He ended up translating most of the Book of Abraham much the same way he did the Book of Mormon, though by then he had more sources to draw from than just the King James Version of the Bible, such as the EA/GAEL, the D&C, the papyri illustrations, the book of Genesis, and completely new ideas that came to him mystically from no physical source at all.

That is an interesting and baseless conjecture, the first part of which my argument renders problematic. But, to each their own.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited November 4, 2011 by wenglund

[William Schryver]

Just for giggles, and only because Chris (indirectly and inadvertently) brought it up, I think I'll make mention of the fact that there is some evidence (not entirely conclusive, but persuasive to some extent) that the Egyptian Counting document pre-dates both the Egyptian Alphabet and the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language. At the very least, it appears quite probable (if not virtually certain) that the counting manuscripts pre-date the GAEL, or at least a significant portion of it.

This raises some interesting questions, since (as I demonstrated to some extent in my 2010 presentation) the Egyptian Counting manuscripts are the least "Egyptian" of all the KEP. There can be little question in the minds of reasonable people that none of the characters on the manuscripts are Egyptian, and that the document clearly constitutes what is effectively a "substitution cipher," at least in terms of its function. No doubt those who made it would have termed it a "translation key" but it clearly was not intended to translate the Egyptian papyri in their possession, or anything Egyptian for that matter.

Edited for some minor clarifications.

Edited November 4, 2011 by William Schryver

[mfbukowski]

Strength!

But then again, why am I here? I think we have the same disease. You know, it's kind of like a pileup on the freeway.

Edited November 4, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Mortal Man]

Answering my question about why the characters from Part 1 of the EA/GAEL (characters 1 - 23) do not appear on his proposed "Part 1" of the papyrus:

No Will, your question was:

In the reproduction of the lion couch vignette as Facimile 1 in the published Book of Abraham, why does it not contain the alleged "invented" characters from your proposed Part 1?

Go back and read it.

[Mortal Man]

...what it is that Phelps actually wrote. You see, Phelps specifically identifies what "parts of speech" means in the context of his methodological instructions.

...

Phelps's methodological instructions indicate...

...

Phelps's system won't work.

...

the most nonsensical aspect of Phelps's methodological instructions...

Phelps, Phelps, Phelps, Phelps...

Find me a single instance, Will, where anyone attributed the ideas in the EA/GAEL to Phelps. Your attempts to scapegoat him are based on nothing more than the fact that the GAEL is mostly in his handwriting. Imagine that! A scribe actually writing something with his own hand! By your line of reasoning, we should attribute the BoM to Oliver Cowdery.

Note Phelps' lament in his Sept. 11 letter to his wife Sally

"Nothing has been doing in the translation of the Egyptian Record for a long time, and probably will not for some time to come."

Was Phelps complaining about his own laziness? If it was all his project then why didn't he just get going on it? Clearly, all he could do was wait for Joseph Smith to get back to it.

[Zeta-Flux]

Since this discussion has gone on for 10 pages, and since I am an interested outsider, let me sum up some of the points I've seen made, and you guys can tell me where I've gotten it a little wrong or where I've missed an important point.

1. The GAEL has incomprehensible instructions, and many of those rules (if not all of them) were not followed.

--Apologists and critics agree.

--Apologists then point out that Smith's writing differs from the modus operandi of the documents, and the incomprehensibility of them. (Maybe we should do a word comparison. If I remember rightly, Chris did a similar study on the Book of Mormon. :-p) No response on this point yet.

--The critics mention a journal entry. Will's response was that the journal entry actually mentions other documents (that we have in existence), that do bear the hallmarks of Joseph Smith's influence, and differ significantly from the GAEL. No response to this point yet.

2. The GAEL includes non-Egyptian characters. There is evidence many of them came from Phelps, before the papyri arrived.

--Both sides agree on these points.

--Some apologists posit that they may have been a part of a future "perfect language" project, but leave this as conjecture at the moment.

--Critics posit that they were invented to try and fill in holes in the papyri.

--Apologists respond that (i) some of the characters the critics have said were Egyptian are not, (ii) there is no evidence that these characters were used to fill in any papyri holes it is only supposition, (iii) the characters that are Egyptian appear for no rhyme or reason, except in a few instances when they are copied sequentially(?), and (iv) it is unreasonable to suppose that they thought they were filling in the holes when those same characters appeared (prior to the papyri arrival) in a letter.

Regarding (i), the counter-response is that time will tell. I think both sides are willing to investigate this issue further.

Regarding (ii), no counter-response yet.

Regarding (iii), I think I didn't quite grasp the counter-response yet. Hopefully the critics will explain again for me.

Regarding (iv), no response that I've seen to how the Phelp's letter is clearly the source of some of the characters, and not some posited "filling-in-the-blank"-by-inspiration methodology.

3. There is some confusion or disagreement on the purpose in (A) creating the GAEL documents, and (B) how they were used. Wade has rightly pointed out that these purposes may need to be kept separate.

--Wade points out that the future tense in some instructions points to the creative purpose being in the creation of a language.

--Critics point to the use of some of the papyri symbols, and language similarities, as saying the creative purpose was to aid in translation of the papyri. The amount of said translation that they claim was thus achieved differs, although it appears currently that the thought is only 3 verses were translated in this manner.

--Will points to the use of *identical* phrases, that only make sense in a completed document (including previous D&C revelations), as pointing to the creation as not possibly being tied to a translation effort. Chris responds that some of Will's statements are too universal, and that some of the connecting statements don't actually appear in the GAEL. (And he is right about that.) But this doesn't seem to actually address the substance of Will's point, and only a few of the connecting statements don't appear word for word (and of those, many do appear in substance).

4. The direct evidence connecting Joseph Smith to the GAEL are the following: the notebooks were written by Smith's clerks. There is substantially more evidence to tie him to some of the other Egyptian documents.

--Apologists posit that the other Egyptian documents seem to have been created with a much different purpose than the GAEL. The Egyptian counting document, for example, seems to not be tied to a translation key, but rather as an encoding/hiding device. They also assert that the Egyptian counting document was created earlier than many of the other documents. (No response on these points as they were made just recently.)

--Critics point to journal entries to tie Joseph to the GAEL, but these can be read to refer to other documents. They also take issue with apologists positing non-existent documents to "fill the gaps". Apologists respond that there are definitely missing documents. While this is true, it doesn't address the concern of the critics, who are right to question the simple assertion that we don't have the right document. And yet it seems to me that there is no need to even need missing documents since the EA, the Egyptian counting document, and the Book of Abraham itself, seem to fill all the mentioned gaps.

Okay, so there is my short summary. I didn't review the first 5 pages, but stuck with what I gleaned from my latest reading. If there is anything I missed, or mistated, let me know. But please don't try to add to my list. I'll do that on my own (since this is an exercise in me trying to understand what is being said), So just present your ideas until I "translate" them in a way you can agree that I understood your point.

Edited November 4, 2011 by Zeta-Flux

[William Schryver]

Note Phelps' lament in his Sept. 11 letter to his wife Sally

"Nothing has been doing in the translation of the Egyptian Record for a long time, and probably will not for some time to come."

No doubt Joseph Smith felt what had already been done was sufficient for the time being, and Phelps didn't like that. Indeed, his frustration with having to translate on the Prophet's schedule no doubt factored into his decision to undertake his little GAEL project.

You think I'm scapegoating poor Phelps? Scapegoating him for what? Oh, you must mean for the utterly incomprehensible methodological instructions within the GAEL. Scapegoating him for an ill-conceived project that was aborted almost as soon as it was commenced.

Yes, I confess it's true.

Of all the upper echelon of Mormonism in its first ten years, William Wines Phelps is probably the only person capable of having executed something like that. And the evidence has continued to augment as my research has continued. There is also substantial text-critical evidence that suggests the GAEL was Phelps's creation; Phelps's personal project. I've been accumulating it for over two years now. To my knowledge, there is no evidence to suggest Joseph Smith was involved in the GAEL project. There is no evidence that the GAEL is a dictated document. There is not a single page, of which I am aware, that bears the hallmarks of a dictated manuscript.

So try all you want to make Joseph Smith a scapegoat for it. The problem you have facing you is that none of his fingerprints are left on it.

And don't think that I believe poor Phelps was a n'er do well. Not hardly. I think the man wrote some of the finest hymns in our hymnbook. Seriously. That was his gift and his mission, if you ask me. As much as he desired to be highly regarded in the fields, he should have left the linguistics and translating to someone else.

[William Schryver]

/snip/ contents of post

Zeta,

I think that's a pretty decent summary coming from someone working hard to stay perfectly objective and to assess the arguments on their merits.

I probably want to emphasize again (every time I use the word "cipher" it gets me into trouble!) the fact that I only believe that the Egyptian Counting document resembles a cipher and that it has the effective function of a cipher. That said, I'm convinced it was viewed as some kind of "translation" implement, rather than necessarily a means by which to "hide" something from someone. Yes, I acknowledge that all this Egyptian stuff was going on at the same time as various revelations were being "encoded" to hide the names of the principals involved, as well as even the meaning of the revelations (United Firm revelation, for example). But I'm not ready yet to say that that was the purpose of these Egyptian documents. I think it had more of a relationship to their long-expressed desire to reclaim the language of Eden, if you will.

I consent that not every single word of the Abr. 1:1-3 passage matches word-for-word to the references in the EA/GAEL ... but most of them do, and those that don't (as you acknowledge) convey more or less the exact same meaning. I don't think it's essential at all for the correspondences to match word for word in order to posit the dependency that I do. The point is that a pre-existing text of the BoA greatly influenced the EA/GAEL, just as did D&C 76 and 88.

I hope to see you continue to do summaries like this one. I think it would be very helpful for me personally. Thanks!

-WS

[wenglund]

Just for giggles, and only because Chris (indirectly and inadvertently) brought it up, I think I'll make mention of the fact that there is some evidence (not entirely conclusive, but persuasive to some extent) that the Egyptian Counting document pre-dates both the Egyptian Alphabet and the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language. At the very least, it appears quite probable that the counting manuscripts pre-date the GAEL.

This raises some interesting questions, since (as I demonstrated to some extent in my 2010 presentation) the Egyptian Counting manuscripts are the least "Egyptian" of all the KEP. There can be little question in the minds of reasonable people that none of the characters on the manuscripts are Egyptian, and that the document clearly constitutes what is effectively a "substitution cipher," at least in terms of its function. No doubt those who made it would have termed it a "translation key" but it clearly was not intended to translate the Egyptian papyri in their possession, or anything Egyptian for that matter.

This also ties back into the character discussed earlier with the sound of "iota nitahveh ahque," The middle portion of that sound is (ni tah veh), which in the Counting document each phoneme stands for individual numbers (ni = 2, Tah = 10 Veh = 5), and depending upon which direction the combined sound is read, it stands for 25 (if read from right to lef--vehtahni) or 52 (if read from left to right--nitahveh).

This character and sound are not included in EA OC (so much for simultaneous dictation), though they do show up in EA WWP and EA JS, but they are not given English explanations in those EA's.

However, in the GAEL, the sound for this character is changed from what is given in the EA's ("iota ni tah veh ah que") to "iota netahoch ah que" and "iota nilahoch ah que" in degree 1, and "iota ni ta hach ah que" in degree 2, "iota ni tah oeh ah que" in degree 3, and finally "iota ni ta hach ah que" in degrees 4 and 5.

As for the English explanations in the GAEL, even though the "veh" in the EA's was dropped in the GAEL and replaced with variations of "hoch", in the 1st degree the character signifies "I saw 25 persons" or it signifies "25 persons" (same as veh tah ni in the Counting document, thereby evincing a possible dependancy upon the Counting document). In the 2nd degree the same character signifies "I saw 125 persons" or "125 persons". In the 3rd degree the same character signifies 625 persons. In the 4th degree it signifies 3125 persons. And, in the 5th degree the same character signifies 15,625 persons.

So, the same character means five different things depending upon the degree it is in. How one determines the degree of the character in any given document, is anyone's guess. Or, perhaps in any document in which it is found, it has those five different degrees of meaning, as Chris supposes.

Whatever the case, the thing about this composite character is that it consists of a dot (grapheme with the Iota sound) and a line over it and presumably, that single line entails the sound "ni tah veh ah que," yet that single line isn't anything like the character in the Counting document for "veh tah ni" or "ni tah veh." So much for the relationship between character shapes and sounds.

Anyway, in regards to Mortal Man's earlier point, within the EA's this character shows up in part 3, and supposedly it also shows up on the papyrus (if one accepts the line with the dot below it image that Chris posted, as opposed to the multiple dot image Mortal Man posted) in the part the Mortal Man identified with the number 3. However, the iota character, which is a dissected part of the "iotanitahvehahque" composite character, shows up in part 1 of the EA's. And, the "iotanitahochahque" character shows up in part 1 of the GAEL. In short the same character identified in part 3 of the paprus, shows up in part 3 of the EA, and part 1 of the GAEL, while one of its graphemes shows up in part 1 of the EA's and GAEL, though presumably not in part 1 of the papyrus.

Confusing? Well, that is kind of Will's and my point (one of them at least).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited November 4, 2011 by wenglund

[wenglund]

This is the only point I have any meaningful question about:

They [the critics] also take issue with apologists positing non-existent documents to "fill the gaps". Apologists respond that there are definitely missing documents. While this is true, it doesn't address the concern of the critics, who are right to question the simple assertion that we don't have the right document. And yet it seems to me that there is no need to even need missing documents since the EA, the Egyptian counting document, and the Book of Abraham itself, seem to fill all the mentioned gaps.

Which apologist(s) is positing non-existent manuscripts to fill in which gaps?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[William Schryver]

This is the only point I have any meaningful question about:

Which apologist(s) is positing non-existent manuscripts to fill in which gaps?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Somehow that slipped by me.

Yes, Zeta, what does this mean? To my knowledge, no one has posited non-existent documents to "fill in gaps."

[William Schryver]

As for the English explanations in the GAEL, even though the "veh" in the EA's was dropped in the GAEL and replaced with variations of "hoch" ...

???

The character sound reads iota nitah veh ah que in every degree of the GAEL. However, it is transcribed incorrectly in the Tanner/Marquardt version.

Oh, and thanks for stealing my thunder on the counting document connection ...

Yes, the GAEL uses the value established by the Egyptian Counting document in its explanation of iota nitah veh ah que in the first degree (25), therefore indicating that the EC document pre-dates the GAEL. Since iota nitah veh ah que is also found in the EA documents, a strong argument can be made that the EC document precedes the EA documents, since the individual components of the sound "ni", "tah", and "veh" are established as part of a larger system in the EC document. It is unlikely that the EA documents would have made reference to the system of the EC document unless it had already been previously established.

According to the EC document: "ni" means 2, "veh" means 5, "tah" means 10; "veh tah ni", therefore, is given to mean "twice ten and five" or 5 + 10 x 2, or 25.

"Iota" means "I saw". "ahque" is given to mean "persons". Therefore "iota nitahveh ahque" is given to mean, in the GAEL, in the first degree, "I saw 25 persons."*

* = Note how Phelps screws it up, though. In the EA/GAEL, it shouldn't read "ni tah veh", but rather "veh tah ni" in order to mean 25. He did it exactly backwards. He apparently got his system confused in his mind, or he was dyslexic.

ETA this composite image from the Egyptian Counting (EC) document:

Edited November 4, 2011 by William Schryver

[Analytics]

Okay, so there is my short summary. I didn't review the first 5 pages, but stuck with what I gleaned from my latest reading. If there is anything I missed, or mistated, let me know. But please don't try to add to my list. I'll do that on my own (since this is an exercise in me trying to understand what is being said), So just present your ideas until I "translate" them in a way you can agree that I understood your point.

If I may suggest something to add, there was an interesting side-discussion on pages 2 to 5 . The apologists claim that “Mormon critics have argued for the past 40 years, the Alphabet and Grammar … was the means by which that text was subsequently “translated” from the papyri.”

In contrast, Brent Metcalfe is quoted as saying, “I don't know a single scholar who has ever argued that the Egyptian alphabet and grammar project provided a translation key for the entire BoAbr (though I believe a strong case can be made that Abr. 1:1–3 evolved out of the project)."

To support their position, the apologists quote Ed Ashment, who said,

contrary to Nibley's assertions that the A-G documents "were not used in any translation,"²⁴ they indeed were and indicate the "modus operandi"²⁵ for Smith's "translation" of at least the first two chapters and eighteen verses of the Book of Abraham.

The apologists claim that when Ashment said the “A-G documents indicate” how it was translated, what he really meant was that the “A-G documents were the way it was translated." The critics claim that Ashment meant the A-G documents lead to an understanding of how they were translated, which he then details in the subsequent paragraphs. We've come to an impasse on what Ashment meant.

Since you are trying to understand what is being said, I'd be interested in how you understand Ashment's comment about the A-G indicating how the BoA was translated.

Edited November 4, 2011 by Analytics

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

No doubt Joseph Smith felt what had already been done was sufficient for the time being, and Phelps didn't like that. Indeed, his frustration with having to translate on the Prophet's schedule no doubt factored into his decision to undertake his little GAEL project.

You think I'm scapegoating poor Phelps? Scapegoating him for what? Oh, you must mean for the utterly incomprehensible methodological instructions within the GAEL. Scapegoating him for an ill-conceived project that was aborted almost as soon as it was commenced.

Yes, I confess it's true.

Of all the upper echelon of Mormonism in its first ten years, William Wines Phelps is probably the only person capable of having executed something like that. And the evidence has continued to augment as my research has continued. There is also substantial text-critical evidence that suggests the GAEL was Phelps's creation; Phelps's personal project. I've been accumulating it for over two years now. To my knowledge, there is no evidence to suggest Joseph Smith was involved in the GAEL project. There is no evidence that the GAEL is a dictated document. There is not a single page, of which I am aware, that bears the hallmarks of a dictated manuscript.

So try all you want to make Joseph Smith a scapegoat for it. The problem you have facing you is that none of his fingerprints are left on it.

And don't think that I believe poor Phelps was a n'er do well. Not hardly. I think the man wrote some of the finest hymns in our hymnbook. Seriously. That was his gift and his mission, if you ask me. As much as he desired to be highly regarded in the fields, he should have left the linguistics and translating to someone else.

Is there not another issue that involves Phelps that needs to be explain. And that is his letter to his wife, it bears some striking resemblance to some of the stuff in the GAEL. IOW it appears he was already messing around with the things like the GAEL even before the mummies arrived in town.

Note: I hope I got this right.

[William Schryver]

Is there not another issue that involves Phelps that needs to be explain. And that is his letter to his wife, it bears some striking resemblance to some of the stuff in the GAEL. IOW it appears he was already messing around with the things like the GAEL even before the mummies arrived in town.

The letter Phelps wrote to his wife contains a table more or less identical to those subsequently used in the EA, GAEL, EC (Egyptian Counting) and, (in a somewhat modified format) the Abraham manuscripts authored by Phelps, Williams, and Parrish--as I demonstrated in my 2010 presentation. It is a "template" for this kind of "translation," as they termed it. Indeed, it is a generic template, as can be seen by seeing the table from the May 1835 letter and a portion of Phelps's Egyptian Alphabet (EA) document, produced in July 1835:

As you can see, he uses the same characters, but provides different sounds and different meanings for the characters. Neither Chris Smith nor Mortal Man (nor anyone else, to my knowledge) has yet to explain how this could be so!

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

The letter Phelps wrote to his wife contains a table more or less identical to those subsequently used in the EA, GAEL, EC (Egyptian Counting) and, (in a somewhat modified format) the Abraham manuscripts authored by Phelps, Williams, and Parrish--as I demonstrated in my 2010 presentation. It is a "template" for this kind of "translation," as they termed it. Indeed, it is a generic template, as can be seen by seeing the table from the May 1835 letter and a portion of Phelps's Egyptian Alphabet (EA) document, produced in July 1835:

As you can see, he uses the same characters, but provides different sounds and different meanings for the characters. Neither Chris Smith nor Mortal Man (nor anyone else, to my knowledge) has yet to explain how this could be so!

Which is why I brought it up when MM suggested that you were "scapegoating" Phelps. MM is a smart guy and funny at times, but I really have to wonder were he was going with his comments. I find them quite humorous, which I am sure was not his intent.

Thanks for the pictures they confirm that I had it right.

Edited November 4, 2011 by Mola Ram Suda Ram

[William Schryver]

For anyone interested in a full-size version of the "Pure Language Table" from the Phelps Letter, you can see it/download it here: Pure Language Table. It is 2500 pixels wide; scanned at 600 dpi.

ETA: Well, Photobucket appears to limit image size to 1024 pixels wide, so if anyone wants the larger size, PM me with an e-mail address and I'll e-mail it to you.

Edited November 4, 2011 by William Schryver

[Zeta-Flux]

Analytics,

I thought I covered that in point 3, part 2. (Degree 1.) I personally didn't find the discussion of how apologists had misunderstood this point (or, rather, judged current thinking by previous thinking on the topic) all that interesting. I think the eventual consensus was that the apologists were happy to view the idea that only the first 3 verses were translated using the GAEL as (some of) the critics' current position. However, if it is important to you, I could add: "Apologists were initially surprised by this claim, having previously viewed the claim to be more comprehensive. Critics, on the other hand, assert that this has been their view for a long time."

Will and Wade,

I went back to review the "missing manuscript" stuff, and it appears that Mortal Man made an oblique reference to his view of Will's theory. As such, it isn't entirely clear what he meant or if he was representing Will's theory correctly. So, I'll cross that point off my list until Mortal Man clarifies what he thinks is Will's "missing manuscript" theory, and how it is important to the discussion.

If it consists simply of Will positing the existence of missing manuscripts, I don't see that as a big issue.

If it consists of Will positing the missing manuscripts filling some hole, then I guess we'll wait and see exactly what was said, etc...

Edited November 4, 2011 by Zeta-Flux

[wenglund]

???

The character sound reads iota nitah veh ah que in every degree of the GAEL. However, it is transcribed incorrectly in the Tanner/Marquardt version.

Yup...I am using the Tanner/Mrquardt version. I appreciate the correction.

therefore, is given to mean "twice ten and five" or 5 + 10 x 2, or 25.)

Shouldn't that read ""twice ten and five" or 2 x 10 + 5, or 25?

"Iota" means "I saw". "ahque" is given to mean "persons".

I have found that wherever the "ah" phoneme shows up in EA/GAEL sounds, the English explanation often includes the word "first." This makes me wonder if the phoneme "que" means person, and thus "ah que" may be a voice designation or narrative point of view (first person) which may be why iota is rendered as "I see" rather than "you see" or "they see". Who knows?

Therefore "iota nitahveh ahque" is given to mean, in the GAEL, in the first degree, "I saw 25 persons."*

Also of interest, in the second degree, the character for "iota nitahve ahque" is also given the sound "ah que kah ju". And, as explained in the grammar of the 2nd degree:

"All names of rivers, & seas, of lands of hills, and of mountains should be preserved in their order according to their degrees, from the first For instance, the first connection should be called Jugos, which signifies verb or action: and the second connection should be called Kah-Jugos, which is a variation, according to the signification of the second degree: Kah Jugos should be preserved in the second degree. It signifies an action passed..."

So, the meaning of "iota ni tah veh ah que" when moving from the first degree to the second degree, the "ah que kah ju" sound or position preserves the first person narrative point of view while changing the action from present tense (I see) to past tense (I saw). And, according to the grammar in the fifth degree, each degree multiplies by 5 the signification of the previous degree. Thus, the meaning of "iotah ni tah veh ah que" or "ah que kah ju" is given the first person past tense English explanation of "I saw five times twenty-five persons."

As convoluted as Phelp's GAEL appears at times, there are points in that document when he came up with some pretty amazing connections. [thumbs up] Perhaps he had a bit of savant in him. LOL

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

If I may suggest something to add, there was an interesting side-discussion on pages 2 to 5 . The apologists claim that “Mormon critics have argued for the past 40 years, the Alphabet and Grammar … was the means by which that text was subsequently “translated” from the papyri.” In contrast, Brent Metcalfe is quoted as saying, “I don't know a single scholar who has ever argued that the Egyptian alphabet and grammar project provided a translation key for the entire BoAbr (though I believe a strong case can be made that Abr. 1:1–3 evolved out of the project)." To support their position, the apologists quote Ed Ashment, who said, The apologists claim that when Ashment said the “A-G documents indicate” how it was translated, what he really meant was that the “A-G documents were the way it was translated." The critics claim that Ashment meant the A-G documents lead to an understanding of how they were translated, which he then details in the subsequent paragraphs. We've come to an impasse on what Ashment meant. Since you are trying to understand what is being said, I'd be interested in how you understand Ashment's comment about the A-G indicating how the BoA was translated.

Hi Zeta,

Perhaps you gathered this already, but Analytics' concern was addressed and resolved (as it has in the past when he picked this same nit) by clarifying that Will and I are speaking generically about the translation of the Book of Abraham, and so our comments would correctly be understood as referring to partial translations (Abr. 1:1-3, or Abr. 1:1 to 2:18, etc.) as well as whole translations. Thus, our arguments are in reference to the broad range of positions posited by the critics over the years, including those quoted from Chris, Brent, and Kevin, as well as Ashment and perhaps George Miller and others going back to when this issue was first raised in the late 60's and early 70's.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-