Kep: Sequence Of Characters

[wenglund]

FYI,

Will Schryver recently informed me that he has been permanently banned from this board and he asked that I let people know this and to mention that he won't be returning to the boards and to give everyone his well wishes.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[George Miller]

As, such, I have to wonder why opponents to Gee are the only one's seeing it differently. It makes me wonder if there may be some strained agenda-driven self-protectiveness going on. Who knows?

I am neither your nor Gee's opponent. The situation is that Gee's analysis is problematic. Not only does he skip a hieroglyph when he tries to force a comparison between the third hieroglyph on Ab1 and the hieroglyphs extant on the papyri prior to its excavation and no longer present in Joseph Smith's day, but he does the same type of thing for hieroglyph 4 and 5 from Ab1.

Above you can see in A the third and fourth hieroglyph from Ab1. After discussing the third hieroglyph from Ab1, Gee is in the middle of the lacunae and he has reached the word Osiris which I have shown using standard hieroglyphs (B) and in hieratic (C above). The name Osiris is the first three hieroglyphs from right to left. Gee discusses this section of the text as follows.

The next phrase that we expect to be found on the papyrus is fortunately found elsewhere on the papyrus in Column II. The 19th century copy almost looks as though its copied backwards but it's still identifiable. The rest of the phrase “Osiris of Horus” follows' date=' showing a clear parallel for the copy in the 19th century manuscript. The next character is not identifiable in the papyrus or the parallel text and is the only one that is unidentifiable. [/quote']

Gee pulls the hieroglyphs he will compare to the 4th and 5th hieroglyphs of Ab1 from "elsewhere on the papyrus in Column II". This portion is shown in E. Above this I have shown the standard hieroglyphs (D). Note that Gee in his presentation truncated this glyph removing the bottom portion, in a similar way to what he did for the third Ab1 hieroglyph (F and D/E). He then goes on to give us the "rest of the phrase" which he informs his audience is "Osiris of Horus". He then compares the last hieroglyph in Osiris and the three hieroglyphs which spell out Hor, the name of the owner of the text, with the fifth hieroglyph in Ab1 (G). The problem of course is that "of Horus" was not contained in the lacunae (Compare B/D). IOW to create a comparison between the fourth hieroglyph from Ab1 and the original he ignored the second hieroglyph in the name Osiris. To make a comparison between the fifth hieroglyphs from Ab1 and the original he drew from hieroglyphs which were never in the lacunae.

Wade would have you believe that Kevin is misrepresenting what Gee said, but he is not. Gee affirms Kevin's interpretation of Gee later in the presentation.

So Heward and Tanner were right that the characters in the margin of the manuscripts come from Joseph Smith Papyrus XI. Unfortunately there was something about this subject they did not tell' date=' something important that they may not have realized themselves. Lets see how their theory actually works in practice. We start with the character in the corner then move into the lacuna, then comes the unidentifiable character, right there and then we move across the line. [b']You see that they’re being taken in sequence.

It should not escape the reader's notice that the bulk of Kevin critique has been completely ignored by Wade. When I looked at the one section Kevin only briefly touched on (ie the first five hieroglyphs), the same type of problems appear in this section as do the remainder of the presentation. I would love to give Gee the benefit of the doubt, as Wade would like to do, but I don't see any doubt that this presentation is full of problems from beginning to the end; and nobody (including Wade) has even started to address the problems brought up by Kevin.

Edited December 27, 2011 by George Miller

[wenglund]

I am neither your nor Gee's opponent. The situation is that Gee's analysis is problematic. Not only does he skip a hieroglyph when he tries to force a comparison between the third hieroglyph on Ab1 and the hieroglyphs extant on the papyri prior to its excavation and no longer present in Joseph Smith's day, but he does the same type of thing for hieroglyph 4 and 5 from Ab1.

Above you can see in A the third and fourth hieroglyph from Ab1. After discussing the third hieroglyph from Ab1, Gee is in the middle of the lacunae and he has reached the word Osiris which I have shown using standard hieroglyphs (B) and in hieratic (C above). The name Osiris is the first three hieroglyphs from right to left. Gee discusses this section of the text as follows.

Gee pulls the hieroglyphs he will compare to the 4th and 5th hieroglyphs of Ab1 from "elsewhere on the papyrus in Column II". This portion is shown in E. Above this I have shown the standard hieroglyphs (D). Note that Gee in his presentation truncated this glyph removing the bottom portion, in a similar way to what he did for the third Ab1 hieroglyph (F and D/E). He then goes on to give us the "rest of the phrase" which he informs his audience is "Osiris of Horus". He then compares the last hieroglyph in Osiris and the three hieroglyphs which spell out Hor, the name of the owner of the text, with the fifth hieroglyph in Ab1 (G). The problem of course is that "of Horus" was not contained in the lacunae (Compare B/D). IOW to create a comparison between the fourth hieroglyph from Ab1 and the original he ignored the second hieroglyph in the name Osiris. To make a comparison between the fifth hieroglyphs from Ab1 and the original he drew from hieroglyphs which were never in the lacunae.

Wade would have you believe that Kevin is misrepresenting what Gee said, but he is not. Gee affirms Kevin's interpretation of Gee later in the presentation.

It should not escape the reader's notice that the bulk of Kevin critique has been completely ignored by Wade. When I looked at the one section Kevin only briefly touched on (ie the first five hieroglyphs), the same type of problems appear in this section as do the remainder of the presentation. I would love to give Gee the benefit of the doubt, as Wade would like to do, but I don't see any doubt that this presentation is full of problems from beginning to the end; and nobody (including Wade) has even started to address the problems brought up by Kevin.

I don't know that I disagree with anything you just said except to say that none of it speaks directly to the very specific objection I raised with Kevin, nor does it negate what I said or show that Kevin wasn't mistaken. He was. Anyone who knows the difference between one and two characters will get this.

Now, in the interest of moving on, in my next post I will address one of your earlier posts.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

As Wade noted, the important question that Gee is trying to determine is what the papyrus looked like in 1835 when Joseph Smith purchased the Hor Book of Breathings.

This is where I would like to focus my attention in the shortrun.

Figure 1- Reconstruction of the hieratic text of column one row one of the Hor Book of Breathings. (A) Sequence of hieroglyphs from Rhodes (2002). Gee believes that all these characters were extant in 1835. (B) Sequence of hieratic characters as reconstructed from Rhodes from various parts of the JSP1. © The same row as it appears today. (D) Reconstruction of hieratic characters as suggests by most Egyptologists and critics. (E) Composite hieroglyphs as recorded in AB1-4.

Reconstruction of the text in 1835 requires us to have some important information. First lets look at this portion of the papyri as it exists today (Figure 1C). As you can see there is a large lacunae in the papyrus due to its being torn when it was unrolled before it arrived in Kirtland. We can assume that all of the hieroglyphs presently observable on the papyri were also visible in 1835. However, because the scrolls were handled over the years, it is possible that the this portion of the papyri was damaged after Joseph Smith translated the scrolls, and thus hieroglyphs not present today were present in 1835. To test this possibility it is necessary to determine what would have been written on the papyrus prior to it being excavated in 1817-1822. Luckily by comparing this text to other copies of Book of Breathing texts, we can reconstruct the original content.

I am currently attempting to secure a digital copy of the relevant portion of the Louvre papyrus to act as a comparative text--particularly since that is the papyrus Gee evidently used for comparison.

....There is of course one very large problem with Gee's reconstruction, these hieroglyphs were most likely absent because they were in the lacunae.

Above you can see JSP1.1 and the other two columns of text overlaid with each other. As you can see, while two hieroglyphs would have been present on the papyri, that the remainder would have clearly been in the lacunae.

I am not sure the overlay is lined up correctly or not (it seems a bit off to the right to me), but even assuming that it is, I am not sure why you think it is a problem for the third glyph being in the lacunae? There are extant portions of the fragment today that are clearly in the lacunae. If so, then why couldn't there have been other extant portion in Joseph's day? Why, to your way of thinking, does the existence of the lacunae of the outer scroll wrapping mean that certain now non-extant portions of the inner wrapping couldn't have been extant in 1835? Sorry, I am not seeing it.

Just to be clear, and to see where we may agree or disagree, which of these characters, originally written at the start of the row in question on JSP XI, do you believe weren't extant in 1835: 1, 2, 3a, 3b, 4, 5?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Xander]

Post deleted AGAIN

No content no post

[wenglund]

While waiting for "George's" response, I trust that we each agree that the first two JSP XI characters were extant in 1835.

What I find interesting about those two characters is that out of the several 1835 Abraham manuscripts, those two characters only show up on the manuscript written by Phelps (Ab1a).

Equally of interests to me is that character sets 4 - 27 of the JSP XI may be found, for the most part, listed on the other 1835 Abraham manuscripts (Ab1b, Ab2, and Ab3), but not on Phelps Ab1a.

To understand why I find this interesting, let's step back for a moment and take a look at the Egyptian Alphabets (EA's), which were presumably written, for the most part, prior to the Abraham Manuscripts.

I trust we also all agree that only two of the 130 something EA characters were selected from JSP XI. And, those two characters just happen to be the last two EA characters selected and the two characters that only show up on Phelps Ab1a. Furthermore, out of the 23 or so JSP XI character sets (4 - 27) that show up on the other 1835 manuscripts (Ab1b, Ab2, and Ab3), none of them were selected from the JSP XI for use in the EA's.

Coincidence? I don't think so, and I will explain why later.

However, I want to first let this interesting bit of information sink in for awhile, and to pose the rhetorical question: "If the intent in creating the EA/GAEL was to use it as the modus operandi for translating JSP XI (assuming, for the sake of argument JSP XI was considered at the time as the location for what we now have as the Book of Abraham), then why, out of the 130 or so characters selected to be explained in the EA's, were only two selected from JSP XI, and this as a seeming after-thought?" In other words, why go to the considerable effort to create a translation device to decipher a specific text, when only about 1 % (the last 1%) of the translation devise has anything to do with the target text?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Anyway, I think it will be instructive to walk through the EA/GAEL production sequence for the first two characters on the Phelps manuscript (Ab1a):

Following the development of EA Part 1 and the first portion of Part 2 and the selection of characters for Parts 3 through 5 (derived from JSP I), for reasons that aren't all that certain, Phelps selected for entry into his EA the two characters from JSP XI.

I say that Phelps selected them because, from what I can tell, initially, and unlike with the other EA's, he had selected the two characters as a set, and written them side-by-side (see photo below), Then, evidently, he had scratched out the right character and dropped it down below the left character. Presumably, Cowdery then drew both characters (the one below the other) in the left margin of his own EA and plausibly the EA of Joseph Smith. Later, Phelps assigned the sound "Za ki on hish" to the last character, and afterwards thought better of it, struck it through, and then assigned the sound "Za ki on hish Kulsidon hish" to the second to last character and gave it the explanation "The land of the Chaldees." He then inserted the word "or" between "hish" and "Kulsidon." Following this, Phelps evidently dictated the sound and explanation to Cowdery for entry into his EA.

Up to this point in the production of the last two characters, there is no indication that Joseph was involved. The sound and explanation for the second to the last character are not given in EA JS.

Perhaps during a different session, Phelps assigned to the last EA character the sound "Ah brah oam" and the explanation "The father of the faithful the first right ___ unto whom is committed...". This may have then been dictated to Oliver Cowdery, who evidently wrote it in Joseph's EA and not his own.

Again, it doesn't look as though Joseph was involved with producing the two last characters in the EA--the two characters only found on the Phelps Abraham manuscript.

Does this suggest several things to you that it suggests to me--i.e. that the Phelps Abraham manuscript (Ab1a) may have been written before or around the time of the last two entries in the EA's, and prior to Phelps producing his GAEL? If so, this means that at the very least the text for Abraham 1:1-3 predates the Phelps GAEL (in other words the GAEL was somewhat dependent upon a preexisting text of the Book of Abraham), and that Phelps may have, for whatever reason, produced Ab1a on his own initiative (absent Joseph), borrowing the text of the previously revealed translation of portions of the Book of Abraham, and then assigning to it JSP XI characters, and then reflecting this in his own EA and later dictating the same to Cowdery, and finally reflecting it all the more in Phelps' GAEL.

I believe that production in the EA's of the third character of Phelps' Ab1a, as well as the production of all three Ab1a characters in the GAEL, further support this proposition--as I will demonstrate in the following posts.

However, you may rightly ask what this has to do with the topic of this thread? Well, it is the long way of setting forth evidence to suggest that the third set of JSP XI characters (3b and 3a) may have been extant in 1835, though only a distorted and combined rendering of both of them found its way onto Phelps' Ab1a and later into the GAEL. It also speaks to who was selecting the characters for the Phelps Specimen, the Phelps Counting document, the Phelps notebook, the Phelps EA, the Phelps GAEL, and the Phelps Ab1a.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 30, 2011 by wenglund

[wenglund]

Continuing the examination of the last two EA characters, here is an image of Phelps' Ab1a posted some time ago online (I believe by either Chris or Kevin):

Notice that the first two characters are assigned numbers which corresponded to numbered sections of the Abraham text. To my knowledge this doesn't occur with any of the other characters in any of the other 1835 Abraham manuscripts.

One plausible explanation for this, which fits my proposition that Ab1a was written about the time the project was transitioning from EA's to the GAEL, is that after Phelps had copied the two last characters side-by-side into his EA, he created Ab1a, though absent the third character, and he then used Ab1a not only to differentiate between the two characters (which was reflected in his scratching out the right character of the then last character set in in his EA, and dropping it down below the left (see photo in previous post), but also as a guide in the future for assigning sounds and explanation for the five degrees in the Phelps GAEL.

After numbering those portions of the text that corresponded with the respective characters in Ab1a, Phelps may have then reflected this in his EA--first crossing out the sound for the last EA character, then assigning it to the second to last EA character (where it now made more sense) along with a brief explanation (drawn from the corresponding Ab1a text), followed by assigning a related sound and corresponding explanation to the last EA character.

Something to think about.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 29, 2011 by wenglund

[George Miller]

I don't know that I disagree with anything you just said except to say that none of it speaks directly to the very specific objection I raised with Kevin, nor does it negate what I said or show that Kevin wasn't mistaken. He was. Anyone who knows the difference between one and two characters will get this.

So you agree that Gee's analysis is faulty. You agree that Gee is wrong and that 4th and 5th hieroglyphs from Ab2-4 were not on the Hor Book of Breathing as Gee said. This is great to hear we agree. Of course if you disagree with any of the above statements which naturally follow from the analysis presented here then please feel free to rebut any of criticisms put forth by Kevin and myself which rebut the critique or provide any logical critique of the analysis.

I am currently attempting to secure a digital copy of the relevant portion of the Louvre papyrus to act as a comparative text--particularly since that is the papyrus Gee evidently used for comparison.

I'm not sure why you are doing this as I have already provided Rhodes translation and he used Louvre 3284 in his reconstruction.

I am not sure the overlay is lined up correctly or not (it seems a bit off to the right to me), but even assuming that it is ...

I am wondering how you are making this determination. Please explain.

I am not sure why you think it is a problem for the third glyph being in the lacunae? There are extant portions of the fragment today that are clearly in the lacunae. If so, then why couldn't there have been other extant portion in Joseph's day? Why, to your way of thinking, does the existence of the lacunae of the outer scroll wrapping mean that certain now non-extant portions of the inner wrapping couldn't have been extant in 1835? Sorry, I am not seeing it.

I am using the exact same methodology to determine what was extant on the scroll used by Ashment, Ritner, Chris Smith, Kevin, and John Gee. I will attempt to explain the methodology again since you seem to have missed it the first two times I explained it to you.

Figure 1- Reconstruction of the Column I from the Hor Book of Breathings. (A) P.JS 1.1 and the first column of text from P.JS 1.2. Highlighted in green is the section of the papyrus from which hieroglyphs were taken sequentially and which appear in the Abraham Manuscripts Ab1-4. The text to the right of these hieroglyphs constitutes Abraham 1:1-Abraham 2:18. (B-E)

The 1st through 4th rows of text from Column 1 of Hor Book of Breathing sequentially. Hieroglyphs which are in the present day lacunae have been restored to what they likely looked like prior to the unrolling and damaging of the scroll based on Rhodes's reconstruction. Hieratic characters were culled from other portions of the extant scroll. Hieroglyphs on the papyri in 1835, but presently lost due to secondary damage, are highlighted with green hatch marks. Hieroglyphs not on the papyri in 1835 are marked with red hatch marks. [below] Placed underneath each row are the modern day hieroglyphs from Gardiner's sign list based on Rhodes's reconstruction. [Above] Placed immediately above each hieroglyph are the hieroglyphs from Ab1-4 taken sequentially and placed next to their respective hieroglyphs from the Hor Book or Breathings. Hieroglyphs which show no correspondence with the Hor Book of Breathings are highlighted with red hatch marks.

The only good way of determining which hieroglyphs were on the Hor Book of Breathings in 1835 is to first reconstruct the original text based on comparisons with other scrolls (Figure 1B-E Center) and then compare that to the written copies of the hieroglyphs made in 1835 (Figure 1B-E Top). Gee and all the other researchers are using AB1-4 to determine what was extant on the Hor Book of Breathings in 1835. When one does this comparison, we can clearly see that only the hieroglyphs in the present day lacunae marked with green hatch marks were likely extant in 1835.

Figure 2- Alignment and reconstruction of the Column I with windings 2-4. Inset on the right are the 1st (Light Blue), 2nd (Dark Blue), 3rd (Red) and 4th (Green) windings of the Hor Book of Breathings. P.JS1.1 and P.JS1.2 are show lined up to show the repeating lacunae in papyrus when the scroll was damaged when it was opened. Since P.JS1.1 contains predominantly the 1st and 2nd windings it is marked in blue. The first column from P.JS1.2 which contains predominantly the 3rd winding is marked in red. The second column from P.JS1.2 which contains predominantly the 4th winding is marked in green. The text of missing hieroglyphs from Column 1 are reconstructed as near to scale as possible based on the the height of each row of text.

Having determined which characters were present in 1835 by comparing the hieroglyphs in Ab1-4 with original reconstruction, we can then turn to the original scroll and tentatively see if it provides confirmation of our findings. The scroll was ripped when it was unrolled creating a repeating pattern of lacunae in the extant papyri (Figure 2). The winding both before and after winding 3 are lacking the region that contained the 6th - 9th hieroglyphs from the first row of Column 1. Some ambiguity exists for the 3rd - 5th hieroglyphs, as this region is contained on the 4th winding but not 2nd winding. Importantly the region encompassing the 1st and 2nd hieroglyphs in row 1 were extant in both the 2nd and 4th windings. Note that as we compare the multiple rows next to each other, it becomes relatively apparent where the scroll likely ripped prior to its being obtained by Smith in 1835. Also note that the above reconstruction fits nicely with Andrew Cook's and Chris Smith's findings that there was likely secondary damage to this portion of the scroll.

The findings from the Figure 2 largely confirm the conclusions derived from Figure 1. IOW the 1st and 2nd hieroglyph in row were likely present while the 6th - 9th hieroglyphs were almost definitely not extant. Now take a careful look at the winding and the alignment on the right side of the lacunae. Notice that if we add in the 1st and 2nd hieroglyphs from row 1 that the third winding (Red) will follow almost exactly along the 2nd winding (Blue). Because the 3rd - 5th hieroglyphs in row 1 show no strong resemblance to the hieroglyphs in Ab1, it highly likely that these were not extant in 1835. However, based on the reconstruction, it is possible that a portion of the 3rd hieroglyph may have been present in 1835. That being said it is HIGHLY unlikely based on the above data that the 4th hieroglyph (which Wade refers to as 3b) was present in 1835. While Gee tried to claim that this was extant in 1835, the fact that he had to skip the 5th hieroglyph to make a comparison, a comparison that is itself extremely weak, argues strongly against Wade's conjecture.

So where did the 3rd hieroglyph in Ab1 arise. As attested to in the EA and GAEL manuscripts, this hieroglyph comes from the vertical column on the Hor Book of Breathings designated as Part 3 by Smith and his associates. This attribution is confirmed by the morphology, pronunciation and as Chris Smith has shown, that the definition of this character is contained in the appropriate passage of Abraham 1:1-3.

Figure 3- The 3rd character in Ab1. (Top) The hieroglyph Ki Ah broam Ki Ah brah oam Zub zool oan as a standard hieroglyph, from Part 3, as contained in the Egyptian Alphabet in the hand of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, W.W Phelps, the fifth degree of the GAEL, and Ab1 respectively from left to right. (Right) The dissection of Ki Ah broam Ki Ah brah oam Zub zool oan as it appears in the GAEL. (Bottom) Dissection of Ki Ah broam Ki Ah brah oam Zub zool oan from EAJS based on the dissection of this character in the GAEL. Note that I have assigned the final dissected portion the pronunciation Zub zool oan since this is the only phoneme remaining.

This of course is what Kevin originally complained about in Gee's presentation, that Gee didn't know or chose not explain that this character had already been positively identified years ago by Ashment.

Before I go let me make one more point. The EA characters not only show up in Ab1 but they show up in Ab2-4. Chris Smith pointed this out in his JWHA paper, and I will add a few more instances to the ones pointed out by Chris Smith. (Figure 4)

Note that like the 1st through 3rd hieroglyphs on AB1 that these hieroglyphs were dissected into parts. While I won't discuss it further here, the definitions of the characters in Figure 4 also influenced the text of the Book of Abraham as they did for the hieroglyphs in Ab1. Both hieroglyphs added by revelation to fill the lacunae, and those extant in 1835, show the same properties. Since the only person likely involved in both production of both Ab1 and Ab2-4 was Joseph Smith, and since the methodologies are the same for both documents, the clear cut answer to who was at the wheel of the project was Joseph Smith.

Figure 4- A small sample of hieroglyphs from the EA which appear in Ab2-4. (Top) Column 1 Row 2 with the same annotation as shown in Figure 1 without hatch marks. The hieroglyphs from Ab2-4 which correspond to Abraham 1:23-24 and 1:25-26 are marked in blue and red respectively. (Below Left) The hieroglyphs from the EA which are annotated. (Below Right) Comparison of the hieroglyphs from Ab2-4 and those in the EA marked in blue and red (or both) as above.

Note that Wade has not provided any cogent response to any of the critiques made by Kevin in this thread of Gee's presentation. Wade's only objection was that he believed Kevin had misrepresented one of Gee's arguments. On this point the video, eye-witness testimony, and a plain reading of Gee statements contradict Wade's complaint. Furthermore, the point Kevin was making in that particular argument was that Gee said this character came from the Column 1 Row 1, when it is clear from the above data (Figure 1-2) that it could not have come from there; and Figure 3 shows that it came from the portion of the papyri designated as Part 3 by Smith and his associates. Thus on this point Kevin is completely correct. Neither Gee nor Wade have provided any believable data in support of an alternate interpretation.

Finally, Wade as to the rest of your analysis above, here are some very brief comments. You keep on pointing to things and saying "Coincidence?" when what you are seeing is simply a product of what portion of the column 1 was being analyzed and translated. Furthermore, the numbers you discuss above are woefully off base; and you really should consider the compaction ratio. Also, the EA was created as an Egyptian Alphabet and then portions were used to aid in the translation of the BoA, and as such the EA was not created for the purpose of translating the BoA but it is an entity unto itself. If you want clarification on any of the above please contact me backchannel.

While I could expand greatly on this list above (Figure 4) and other aspects of Wade's analysis, I need to return to more productive activities. This discussion with Wade has been completely fruitless by my own estimates, and I do not have the time nor desire to participate further in this thread. Thank you to the moderators for keeping the discussion on topic. With that I bid this thread adieu.

[NOTE: These graphics took me a long time to create and I would appreciate it if they are not reproduced in other forums. Thank you for your kind consideration.]

Edited December 30, 2011 by George Miller

[wenglund]

In addition to what I have said above, another reason I believe that Phelps' Ab1a was written (in a way dependent upon a preexisting text of revealed portions of the Book of Abraham) around the time production began on the GAEL, is that up until the last two characters were assigned sounds and names in the EA's, there wasn't any mention of Abraham or Abram. I believe that changed with the writing of Ab1a and the numerical association of Abraham with the second character in Ab1a.

Phelps' Ab1a may also have precipitated the development of the five degrees of explanations for that character, as found in EA JS (likely in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery):

I suspect this lead to the association of the third character to specific texts in Ab1a and the assigning of the Abrahamic sound for the corresponding character in the EA ("Ki Ah broam Kiah brah-oam zub zool oan"), as well as the later development of the five degrees of explanations for that character in the GAEL.

The first mention of Abram/Abraham and the five degrees of explanations aren't the only changes in the EA's that may have been precipitated by Ab1a. The production of the GAEL, itself, with its dissection of but the three Ab1a characters, may have been the result thereof as well (I don't believe it coincidental that the three characters on Ab1a are the only three characters that are explicitly dissected in the GAEL).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 30, 2011 by wenglund

[wenglund]

So you agree that Gee analysis is faulty. You agree that Gee is wrong and that 4th and 5th hieroglyphs from Ab2-4 were not on the Hor Book of Breathing as Gee said. This is great to hear we agree.

No, I didn't say that I agreed with you. I said that I don't know that I disagree with you. Do you not understand the important distinction? (Hint: what I said leaves the matter open for debate, whereas the words you put into my mouth don't.)

I'm not sure why you are doing this as I have already provided Rhodes translation and he used Louvre 3284 in his reconstruction.

Some time back, during a Book of Abraham discussion like this, I was chided by Brent Metcalfe for appealing to secondary rather than primary resources. I found value in his suggestion, and I have since made an effort, where possible, to do just that. In this specific case I am not sure the artistic rendering or the type-set rendering in Rhodes book is entirely sufficient for my purposes (to be explained down the road--pun intended).

I am wondering how you are making this determination. Please explain.

Look at the upper left-hand quadrant of the graphic you initially posted. One of the lacunae outlined in blue seems inexplicably off to the left of the lacunae outlined in red.

I am using the exact same methodology to determine what was extant on the scroll used by Ashment, Ritner, Chris Smith, Kevin, and John Gee. I will attempt to explain the methodology again since you seem to have missed it the first two times I explained it to you.

I wasn't questioning your methodology in general. Rather, I was asking about the specific matter of "in the lacunae." However, I appreciate your lengthy reiteration and clarification of your general argument. I will sift through it to see if I can find the answer to my specific question.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[George Miller]

Look at the upper left-hand quadrant of the graphic you initially posted. One of the lacunae outlined in blue seems inexplicably off to the left of the lacunae outlined in red.

Wade you really need to think through how you would determine an alignment. It is completely clear that aligning that portion would render a result that is completely unfeasible. You need to come up with a reasonably unambiguous way of aligning the fragments (as I have done) rather than making these unwarranted assertions as a critique. With that I am done.

Edited December 29, 2011 by George Miller

[wenglund]

Some ambiguity exists for the 3rd - 5th hieroglyphs as this region is contained on the 4th winding but not 2nd winding.

So, the fact that the third character (which is the character I explicitly referred to) falls within the Lacunae of the outer wrapping, doesn't necessarily rule it out as extant in 1835. This is all that I was specifically questioning (and evidently rightly questioning), and not your methodology in general.

IOW the 1st and 2nd hieroglyph in row were likely present while the 6th - 9th hieroglyphs were almost definitely not extant....Because the 3rd - 5th hieroglyphs in row 1 show no strong resemblance to the hieroglyphs in Ab1 it highly likely that these were not extant in 1835.

I am not so sure about that. Stay tuned.

However, based on the reconstruction it is possible that the a portion of the 3rd hieroglyph may have been present in 1835. That being said it is HIGHLY unlikely based on the above data that the 4th hieroglyph (which Wade refers to as 3b) was present in 1835.

We'll see.

...So where did the 3rd hieroglyph in Ab1 arise.

To me, the better question is, if characters 3b and 4 were not extant on JSP XI in 1835, then how did they come to be selected, particularly given certain similarities with the characters originally written on the papyrus? I will explore this further in the posts to follow.

As attested to in the EA and GAEL manuscripts this hieroglyph comes from the vertical column on the Hor Book of Breathings designated as Part 3 by Smith and his associates. This attribution is confirmed by the morphology, pronunciation and as Chris Smith has shown, that the definition of this character is contained in the appropriate passage of Abraham 1:1-3. Figure 3- The 3rd character in Ab1. (Top) The hieroglyph Ki Ah broam Ki Ah brah oam Zub zool oan as a standard hieroglyph, from Part 3, as contained in the Egyptian Alphabet in the hand of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, W.W Phelps, the fifth degree of the GAEL, and Ab1 respectively from left to right. (Right) The dissection of Ki Ah broam Ki Ah brah oam Zub zool oan as it appears in the GAEL. (Bottom) Dissection of Ki Ah broam Ki Ah brah oam Zub zool oan from EAJS based on the dissection in this character in the GAEL. Note that I have assigned the final dissected portion the pronunciation Zub zool oan since this is the only phoneme remaining.

All of this can be explained, and perhaps better explained, somewhat in reverse. Stay tuned (I have just begun to explore this issue in several previous posts above).

This of course is what Kevin originally complained about in Gee's presentation, that he didn't acknowledge that this character had already been positively identified years ago by Ashment.

As promised, I will say no more about this.

Before I go let me make on final point. The EA characters not only show up in Ab1 but they show up in Ab2-4. Chris Smith pointed this out in his JWHA paper and I will add a few more instances to the ones pointed out by Chris Smith. (Figure 4) Note that like the 1st through 3rd hieroglyphs on AB1 that these hieroglyphs were dissected into parts. While I won't discuss it further here, the definitions of the characters in Figure 4 also influenced the text of the Book of Abraham as they did for the hieroglyphs in Ab1. Both hieroglyphs added by revelation to fill the lacunae and those extant in 1835 show the same properties. Since the only person involved in the production of both Ab1 and Ab2-4 was Joseph Smith, and since the methodologies are the same for both documents, the clear cut answer to who was at the wheel of the project was Joseph Smith. Figure 4- A small sample of hieroglyphs from the EA which appear in Ab2-4. (Top) Column 1 Row 2 with the same annotation as shown in Figure 1 without hatch marks. The hieroglyphs from Ab2-4 which correspond to Abraham 1:23-24 and 1:25-26 are marked in blue and red respectively. (Below Left) The hieroglyphs from the EA which are annotated. (Below Right) Comparison of the hieroglyphs from Ab2-4 and those in the EA marked in blue and red (or both) as above. While I could expand greatly on this list above I need to return to more productive activities.

This is interesting. On another thread you proposed that the characters in EA Part 1 were thought to be derived from what you designated as column 1 of JSP I, yet you now seem to be suggesting that they actually were derived from column 1 of JSP XI.

Note that Wade has not provided any cogent response to any of the critiques made by Kevin in this thread of Gee's presentation. Wade's only objection was that he believed Kevin had misrepresented one of Gee's arguments, something that the video, eye-witness testimony, and a plain reading of Gee statements contradict. Furthermore the point Kevin was making in that particular argument was that Gee said this character came from the Column 1 Row 1, when it is clear from the above data that it came from the portion of the papyri designated as Part 3 by Smith and his associates; and on that point Kevin is completely correct.

Again, I will bite my tongue as promised.

Neither Gee nor Wade have provided any believable data in support of an alternate interpretation.

Evidently, believability is in the eye of the beholder.

This discussion with Wade has been completely fruitless by my own estimates and I do not have the time nor desire to participate further in this thread. With that I bid this thread adieu.

Bye.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 30, 2011 by wenglund

[wenglund]

Wade you really need to think through how you would determine an alignment. It is completely clear that aligning that portion would render a result that is completely unfeasible. You need to come up with a reasonably unambiguous way of aligning the fragments (as I have done) rather than making these unwarranted assertions as a critique. With that I am done.

It wasn't an assertion. Rather, it was a reasonable exploratory question. There was no call for defensiveness or unwarranted and narrow-minded dogmatism, though unfortunately since you seem so inclined, it is understandable that you are done. Again, bye.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 30, 2011 by wenglund

[wenglund]

Figure 3- The 3rd character in Ab1. (Top) The hieroglyph Ki Ah broam Ki Ah brah oam Zub zool oan as a standard hieroglyph, from Part 3, as contained in the Egyptian Alphabet in the hand of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, W.W Phelps, the fifth degree of the GAEL, and Ab1 respectively from left to right. (Right) The dissection of Ki Ah broam Ki Ah brah oam Zub zool oan as it appears in the GAEL. (Bottom) Dissection of Ki Ah broam Ki Ah brah oam Zub zool oan from EAJS based on the dissection in this character in the GAEL. Note that I have assigned the final dissected portion the pronunciation Zub zool oan since this is the only phoneme remaining.

I really like this graphic, not only because it will save me some time in presenting my own argument, but it raises the lead-in question as to how or why the second AB1a character became a piece/grapheme of the third Ab1a character? Oddly enough, in the GAEL the second character isn't dealt with as its own character, but as a dissected portion of the third character. I don't know about you, but that says something to me about the direction of dependency and what came before what in the production sequence.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 30, 2011 by wenglund

[Xander]

Note that Wade has not provided any cogent response to any of the critiques made by Kevin in this thread of Gee's presentation. Wade's only objection was that he believed Kevin had misrepresented one of Gee's arguments. On this point the video, eye-witness testimony, and a plain reading of Gee statements contradict Wade's complaint. Furthermore, the point Kevin was making in that particular argument was that Gee said this character came from the Column 1 Row 1, when it is clear from the above data (Figure 1-2) that it could not have come from there; and Figure 3 shows that it came from the portion of the papyri designated as Part 3 by Smith and his associates. Thus on this point Kevin is completely correct. Neither Gee nor Wade have provided any believable data in support of an alternate interpretation.

Thanks for sticking with it George. You're far more patient than I.

[George Miller]

To me, the better question is, if characters 3b and 4 were not extant on JSP XI in 1835, then how did they come to be selected, particularly given certain similarities with the characters originally written on the papyrus? I will explore this further in the posts to follow.

Since each person's handwriting is different, you have to compare the AB1 third hieroglyph to hieroglyphs derived from the Hor Book of Breathings, not the Louvre papyrus. Additionally, you definitely can not ignore the 5th hieroglyph as Gee did in his analysis. Since these hieroglyphs are clearly dissimilar (Figure 1B) and since they are not similar to the "characters originally written on the papyrus", this line of reasoning is moot.

This is interesting. On another thread you proposed that the characters in EA Part 1 were thought to be derived from what you designated as column 1 of JSP I, yet you now seem to be suggesting that they actually were derived from column 1 of JSP XI.

I was making no such suggestion. You are clearly misunderstanding and/or misrepresenting me as has been your repeated modus operandi with regards to my comments. I would never suggest this, as it is is highly unlikely based on the data I have provided above (See Figure 1C). Now that I have corrected your misrepresentation of what I have said, I will make my leave.

Edited December 30, 2011 by George Miller

[wenglund]

Since each person's handwriting is different, you have to compare the AB1 third hieroglyph to hieroglyphs derived from the Hor Book of Breathings, not the Louvre papyrus.

People's own handwriting, particularly when it comes to glyphs written in uneven ink strokes on textured papyri, can vary even within the same document. That is why, among other reasons, it may be good to see a reasonable cross section, not just from the BoB and the Louvre, but also from other papyri in Joseph's possession. Stay tuned.

Additionally, you definitely can not ignore the 5th hieroglyph as Gee did in his analysis. Since these hieroglyphs are clearly dissimilar (Figure 1B) and since they are not similar to the "characters originally written on the papyrus", this line of reasoning is moot.

I am not ignoring the fifth character. I will deal with it and the other characters in due time. And, we shall soon see if this line of reasoning is moot. (Hint: it isn't)

I was making no such suggestion. You are clearly misunderstanding and/or misrepresenting me as has been your repeated modus operandi with regards to my comments. I would never suggest this, as it is is highly unlikely based on the data I have provided above (See Figure 1C). Now that I have corrected your misrepresentation of what I have said, I will make my leave.

You haven't corrected the error. You have simply and non-discriptly claimed that there was an error. I am not sure even as yet exactly what I have supposedly misrepresented. If you would have been so kind as to spell it out so I can compare it to what you wrote on the other thread, that would have been of great help. However, I can accept that you have, for the third time, taken your leave.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Again, I really like this graphic. However, there are some aspects of it that aren't exactly correct. Earlier in the thread "George" ripped on Gee for truncating part of a character. As will be shown, in the graphic above "George" has, in several cases, truncated an entire character. I won't return the disfavor, however here is how the characters are actually represented in certain documents:

There are at least two important reasons to post the actual representations:

1, To show the critical difference between the characters in JSP I and the characters in the EA's, the left character in particular. This distinction is important to the question of dictation and to determining the nature of the character selection process, as well as who may have been responsible for the character selection. If the EA scribes had all copied their respective characters from the JSP I, I could see one of them ironically truncating the legs of the left character (more on this in later posts), but not all three. The fact that all three EA characters look pretty much the same, though they differ in much the same way from JSP I, this suggests to me the probability that just one of the scribes (likely Phelps given that his is the more fully developed of the drawings) copied the characters from JSP I, and the other scribes copied the characters from the first scribe.

2. To also show that this third character started out in the EA's ironically as two characters, but for reasons not certain, though explored further in previous posts and posts to follow, around the time of the transition from the EA's to the GAEL, and perhaps around the time when Phelp's Ab1a was produced, the character on the right became irrelevant and lobbed off. It is not beyond the realm of plausibility that the two characters combined were initially thought to represent the dual sounds "Ah broam A brahom," but this later changed with, among other things, the addition of the first instance of the "Ki" sound.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 30, 2011 by wenglund

[wenglund]

As indicated earlier, people's own handwriting can vary within a document particularly when it comes to drawing glyphs where strokes of the writing instrument may differ and where the ink may adhere or disperse in divergent patterns depending upon the consistency and textured of the papyri. That is why it may be advisable when analyzing the possible shape of a now non-extant character, to examine a reasonable cross section of that character, not just from the Book of Breathing and the Louvre, but also from other papyri in Joseph's possession--like the Book of the Dead belonging to Tshemmin (it is possible that an 1835 representation of a character from one portion of the papyri may have been influenced by the shape of that character from another portion of the papyri).

Here is a sampling of the character I have referred to as 3b:

Here is a sampling of the character I have referred to as 3a:

Notice the difference in shapes between rows 10 and 11 in column 4 of the same document (JSP XI).

Here is a sampling of what has been referred to as the Ab1a 3rd character:

Note the three different shapes within the Tshemmin papyrus alone.

Note also that the staff in the hand of the walking figure in JSP I consists of two dots rather than a line as with the other images. If portions of the staff may be missing in JSP I because of ink and papyrus issues, then isn't it possible that one or both of the legs and part of the head of character 3b may be truncated (as with Gee's representation) and the arm extended in JSP XI? I believe so.

In the next post I hope to demonstrate how minor drawing flaws for one character or characters may be mistaken by the untrained eye as another character.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 30, 2011 by wenglund

[wenglund]

For the sake of argument, let's compare one of the Tshemmin 3rd characters (man walking with staff) with the Tshemmin 3b character (looks kind of like a man walking without a staff), and then let's combine the 3b character with Tshemmin 3a character (looks like three dots connected by a vertical line) to see what we come up with:

So, if Tshemmin characters 3b and 3a are drawn very close to each other, it is possible that the untrained eye may mistake it for the 3rd character (first one on the left).

Now, let's do something similar with the characters from the JSP I and XI:

Suppose we account for mis-strokes and erratic ink displacement and let's truncate one of the legs of 3b, extend its arm a bit, and minimize its head. Do you suppose the combined characters (3b and 3a) on the left below could be mistaken, by someone like Phelps with an untrained eye, for the character on the right?

Something to think about.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 30, 2011 by wenglund

[Xander]

Just to recap, I began this thread as a refutation of John Gee's 2010 FAIR Presentation. Gee tried to prove that the Egyptian characters found in the Book of Abraham manuscripts were not taken in sequence. He essentially took all of the characters that fell within the lacunae, and tried to argue that these were copied from other portions from the papyrus. In so doing, he recreates a pattern showing how the scribes supposedly "zig-zagged" all over the papyrus when borrowing characters from the Breathings text. I proved quite conclusively that this was a bad argument and I pointed out that the argument was so bad that even William Schryver abandoned it shortly after he presented it.

My refutation was thorough and I spent a great deal of effort putting together more than a dozen images that proved the point.

Before watching the presentation or even reading the transcript of the presentation, Wade Englund tried to poison the well by telling his imagined audience that he'd like to know what John Gee "actually" said, implying of course that I must have somehow misrepresented Gee. So with this agenda firmly established, wade sought to find something, anything he could use to show that I was "wrong."

So faithful to that agenda, later that same day wade assures his imagined audience that he has caught me in a snare:

I have begun reading Gee's presentation, and it didn't take long to discover the first of Kevin's ironic misunderstandings.

(Notice the rhetoric implying that he has actually found multiple errors)

Ah, of course. And what were these "ironic misunderstandings"? According to wade, I "misrepresented" John Gee when he referred to the third character in the Book of Abraham manuscripts. Here is the graphic I provided:

Pretending a contradiction exists, Wade reponds by saying, "here is what Gee actually said":

The third character or rather a group of two characters is not preserved on the papyrus, nor is it found elsewhere on the papyrus. So I show it from the hand copy of the parallel text found in the Louvre. This was the third person plural pronoun and the verb ‘sta’ ‘to induct’.

Wade asserts that this quotation somehow undermines my representation of Gee's argument:

Evidently, Kevin mistakenly assumed that Gee was referring to the third character on the Abr. Ms., whereas Gee was actually referring to the third character, or the third set of characters, that were initially written on the papyri (as determined from the Louve papyri), but which were evidently missing in Smith's day as well as today.

Thinking he has somehow presented a slam-dunk against my credibility, wade continues to indulge the well-poisoning agenda in typical finale:

The importance in noting this, beyond chronicling Kevin's remarkable penchant for misinterpretation, is that it is key to understanding Gee's approach and his argument.

Did you see how that works? Wade avoids every critical point in my refutation of Gee and instead tries to focus on a minor point, using his limited understanding of a citation to conjure up an "ironic misunderstanding" on my part. Wade then tried to drag everyone away from the thread topic and onto his preferred topic, requesting others to comment on my supposed "error."

But Chris Smith kindly pointed out to wade that he was operating from limited information until he watches the presentation:

It isn't clear to me that Kevin has misinterpreted Gee's argument even on that minor point. The thing you have to understand is that the presentation was accompanied by slides. Each time Gee mentioned a character set from the papyrus, it was juxtaposed with a character set from the Abraham manuscript. So the third character from the manuscript probably was shown juxtaposed to the third Louvre character

Wade's response gratuitous personal insult removed:

In the statement in question there was no mention of the manuscript character. There was only mention of the JSP XI and the Louve character. The same is true for the statement immediately thereafter. To see it otherwise is, in my estimation, to not fully or correctly grasp Gee's argument.

So for wade, it doesn't really matter what images were presented and he has no intention of familiarizing himself with what Gee actually presented. What matters is what wade can squeeze from those three sentences found in an online transcript provided by FAIR. He reiterates the point again:

...there are two documents discussed in this paragraph: the papyrus in Smith's possession and the papyrus from the Louve. There is no mention of the manuscript. This obviously means that mention of the third character could not be in reference to the manuscript, but rather what was missing from the Smith papyri at the time, though showing on the Louve papyri. So, even if inexplicably there may have been a slide showing the third character on the manuscript, it wouldn't change what was actually said and meant. I am sorry, but Kevin is clearly wrong.

This of course is wade's problem. His argument ignores the context of Gee's entire presentation which focuses just as much on the Book of ABraham manuscripts. Does Gee explicitly refer to the Book of Abraham manuscripts within those three sentences? No, nor would he need to. We already know this is what Gee is talking about because that is the entire point of his thesis. He is taking the characters as they appear sequentially from the Book of Abraham manuscripts and explaining their provenance. We know this is true because of the context before and after these three sentences that wade can't seem to get around. The Book of Abraham manuscripts are mentioned throughout his thesis statement as well as the title of the presentation. But after these three sentences we see him refer to the fifth character as the "next character." Next to what? He cannot be referring to anything but the Book of Abraham manuscripts because he tells us this character "is not identifiable in the papyrus or the parallel text and is the only one that is unidentifiable." So this establishes the fact that when Gee is referring to the first, second, third, next and next characters, he is referring to the first, second, third, fourth and fifth characters as they appear in sequence from the Book of Abraham manuscripts.

To further solidify the point, I paid to download the presentation so I could snag a screenshot of the images presented. This one clearly proves beyond all reasonable doubt that what I said of Gee's representation is true. He placed characters side by side because he felt they were synonymous:

This image appeard on the screen as Gee spoke those three sentences frequently cited by wade, but according to wade, he wasn't referring to the Book of Abraham manuscripts, despite the fact that the character to the left comes straight from the Book of Abraham manuscripts. Later in the presentation Gee presents the same images again, side by side, along with a highlighted portion of the papyrus where he thinks they originated. My only gripe here is Gee's ignorance of the fact that this set of characters was already found elsewhere on JSP I; Edward Ashment publishing on this point twenty years ago.

So now that irrefutable evidence has been provided, gratuitous personal insult removed his only response to the graphic images is dismissive:

There are two images shown here. The question is, which of the two is the one Gee was referring to when he said "...is not preserved on the papyrus, nor is it found elsewhere on the papyrus." Kevin assumes it is the one on the left, and I argue that it is the one on the right.

No, that isn't the question. gratuitous personal insult removed He made an allegation and he needs to support it or retract it if he expects credibility as a "reasonable" debater.The obvious fact is John Gee made no distinction between these two characters except to point out that one came from the Louve and the other from the manuscripts. The only person referring to them as two separate characters is wade. The images I provided prove that Gee equated them. But when faced with all this new information, wade tries to dig his way out of his predicament by saying the "clue" can be found with the phrase, "group of two characters," again making a distinction without a difference since bother characters derive from two sets of characters.

While failing to recruit supporters in his interpretation of my so-called "error," wade now says that, "It does matter to whether Kevin was correct or not in his specific complaint about Gee and the third character." Yes it does matter, but it is interesting that wade would say it doesn't matter when for days it was clearly the most important thing on his agenda because as he said, understanding this error would help us properly understand the entire presentation!

So does this mean we can expect wade to retract his previous statements attacking my integrity, preaching to his imagined audience about my "remarkable penchant for misrepresentation," etc? At the end of the day, wade has presented nothing of substance. Nothing. He hasn't even begun to defend anything John Gee argued and it still doesn't seem like he is even interested in watching the presentation at all. The only thing he has done is try to discredit me (and now George) by inventing "errors" from whole cloth.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Minos

[wenglund]

Just to recap, I began this thread as a refutation of John Gee's 2010 FAIR Presentation. Gee tried to prove that the Egyptian characters found in the Book of Abraham manuscripts were not taken in sequence. He essentially took all of the characters that fell within the lacunae, and tried to argue that these were copied from other portions from the papyrus. In so doing, he recreates a pattern showing how the scribes supposedly "zig-zagged" all over the papyrus when borrowing characters from the Breathings text. I proved quite conclusively that this was a bad argument and I pointed out that the argument was so bad that even William Schryver abandoned it shortly after he presented it.

My refutation was thorough and I spent a great deal of effort putting together more than a dozen images that proved the point.

Before watching the presentation or even reading the transcript of the presentation, Wade Englund tried to poison the well by telling his imagined audience that he'd like to know what John Gee "actually" said, implying of course that I must have somehow misrepresented Gee. So with this agenda firmly established, wade sought to find something, anything he could use to show that I was "wrong."

So faithful to that agenda, later that same day wade assures his imagined audience that he has caught me in a snare:

(Notice the rhetoric implying that he has actually found multiple errors)

Ah, of course. And what were these "ironic misunderstandings"? According to wade, I "misrepresented" John Gee when he referred to the third character in the Book of Abraham manuscripts. Here is the graphic I provided:

Pretending a contradiction exists, Wade reponds by saying, "here is what Gee actually said":

Wade asserts that this quotation somehow undermines my representation of Gee's argument:

Thinking he has somehow presented a slam-dunk against my credibility, wade continues to indulge the well-poisoning agenda in typical finale:

Did you see how that works? Wade avoids every critical point in my refutation of Gee and instead tries to focus on a minor point, using his limited understanding of a citation to conjure up an "ironic misunderstanding" on my part. Wade then tried to drag everyone away from the thread topic and onto his preferred topic, requesting others to comment on my supposed "error."

But Chris Smith kindly pointed out to wade that he was operating from limited information until he watches the presentation:

Wade's response gratuitous personal insult removed:

So for wade, it doesn't really matter what images were presented and he has no intention of familiarizing himself with what Gee actually presented. What matters is what wade can squeeze from those three sentences found in an online transcript provided by FAIR. He reiterates the point again:

This of course is wade's problem. His argument ignores the context of Gee's entire presentation which focuses just as much on the Book of ABraham manuscripts. Does Gee explicitly refer to the Book of Abraham manuscripts within those three sentences? No, nor would he need to. We already know this is what Gee is talking about because that is the entire point of his thesis. He is taking the characters as they appear sequentially from the Book of Abraham manuscripts and explaining their provenance. We know this is true because of the context before and after these three sentences that wade can't seem to get around. The Book of Abraham manuscripts are mentioned throughout his thesis statement as well as the title of the presentation. But after these three sentences we see him refer to the fifth character as the "next character." Next to what? He cannot be referring to anything but the Book of Abraham manuscripts because he tells us this character "is not identifiable in the papyrus or the parallel text and is the only one that is unidentifiable." So this establishes the fact that when Gee is referring to the first, second, third, next and next characters, he is referring to the first, second, third, fourth and fifth characters as they appear in sequence from the Book of Abraham manuscripts.

To further solidify the point, I paid to download the presentation so I could snag a screenshot of the images presented. This one clearly proves beyond all reasonable doubt that what I said of Gee's representation is true. He placed characters side by side because he felt they were synonymous:

This image appeard on the screen as Gee spoke those three sentences frequently cited by wade, but according to wade, he wasn't referring to the Book of Abraham manuscripts, despite the fact that the character to the left comes straight from the Book of Abraham manuscripts. Later in the presentation Gee presents the same images again, side by side, along with a highlighted portion of the papyrus where he thinks they originated. My only gripe here is Gee's ignorance of the fact that this set of characters was already found elsewhere on JSP I; Edward Ashment publishing on this point twenty years ago.

So now that irrefutable evidence has been provided, gratuitous personal insult removed his only response to the graphic images is dismissive:

No, that isn't the question. gratuitous personal insult removed He made an allegation and he needs to support it or retract it if he expects credibility as a "reasonable" debater.The obvious fact is John Gee made no distinction between these two characters except to point out that one came from the Louve and the other from the manuscripts. The only person referring to them as two separate characters is wade. The images I provided prove that Gee equated them. But when faced with all this new information, wade tries to dig his way out of his predicament by saying the "clue" can be found with the phrase, "group of two characters," again making a distinction without a difference since bother characters derive from two sets of characters.

While failing to recruit supporters in his interpretation of my so-called "error," wade now says that, "It does matter to whether Kevin was correct or not in his specific complaint about Gee and the third character." Yes it does matter, but it is interesting that wade would say it doesn't matter when for days it was clearly the most important thing on his agenda because as he said, understanding this error would help us properly understand the entire presentation!

So does this mean we can expect wade to retract his previous statements attacking my integrity, preaching to his imagined audience about my "remarkable penchant for misrepresentation," etc? At the end of the day, wade has presented nothing of substance. Nothing. He hasn't even begun to defend anything John Gee argued and it still doesn't seem like he is even interested in watching the presentation at all. The only thing he has done is try to discredit me (and now George) by inventing "errors" from whole cloth.

Again, as promised, I will hold my tongue and let the interested observers read what was actually said rather than Kevin's editorializations, simply trusting that my so-called imagined audience understands the difference between a single character and two characters, and trusting as well that they can distinguish between me pointing out an interpretive error and me supposedly questioning someone's integrity.

In my next post I hope to finish up my examination of the first three, and only three characters on the Phelps manuscript (Ab1a), and then move on to examine the 4th character, or the first character on the Williams and Parrish manuscripts (Ab2, Ab3, and Ab1b).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Xioneye]

Thanks for sticking with it George. You're far more patient than I.

I thought that if they allowed you back here Kevin, then I might get a pass. Not so. I am slowly melting......NL

[Xander]

Again, as promised, I will hold my tongue and let the interested observers read what was actually said rather than Kevin's editorializations, simply trusting that my so-called imagined audience understands the difference between a single character and two characters, and trusting as well that they can distinguish between me pointing out an interpretive error and me supposedly questioning someone's integrity.

Again you refuse to watch presentation provided by Gee so you're really in no position to speak on this subject. That you keep making these ludicrous remarks about the two different characters proves you have no intention of properly educating yourself on this matter. I properly summarized what has taken place on this thread and you know it. You essentially accused me of misrepresentation before you had read anything on the subject. This is an established fact. It is also an established fact that you have been dancing around ever since I proved beyond all doubt that your accusation is baseless. But since you can never be expected to answer for your false accusations or admit being wrong, especially in light of your arrogant and condescending charges, you're given freedom by the mods to completely derail this thread as you see fit.

In my next post I hope to finish up my examination of the first three, and only three characters on the Phelps manuscript (Ab1a), and then move on to examine the 4th character, or the first character on the Williams and Parrish manuscripts (Ab2, Ab3, and Ab1b).

See what I mean? This has nothing to do with the thread at all. Nothing. So why are you allowed to derail as you've been doing? You took us down your little derailed bunny trail accusing me of misrepresenting Gee, but now that this is indisputably false, you want to "hold your tongue" so you won't have to answer for your false accusations. How convenient that must be for you. I know I'd never be able to get away with something like this.