Kep: Sequence Of Characters

[Xander]

I'm posting this upon request, and also because it relates to the GAEL/Papyri thread.

As many of you already know, the "critics" have argued the Book of Breathings which followed Facsimile #1 is what Joseph Smith believed to be the source for the Book of Abraham. The strongest piece of evidence for this, aside from Abr 1:12, can be found in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, where the Book of Abraham manuscripts place sequentially, Egyptian characters from the papyrus in question. The few characters not found on the papyrus were "restored" by Joseph Smith as they fell into the lacuna. William S. West said in 1837, "These records were torn by being taken from the roll of embalming salve which contained them, and some parts entirely lost; but Smith is to translate the whole by divine inspiration, and that which is lost, like Nebuchadnezzar's dream, can be interpreted as well as that which is preserved"

So we know Joseph Smith was in the practice of restoring that which was lost in the deteriorated portions of the papyrus.

The graphics below illustrates the 27 characters used, as they appear in Manuscript 2 of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers representing Abr 1:1-2:18. I will show the first four lines from the papyrus and how they line up in sequence in the Book of Abraham manuscripts:

In August 2010, William Schryver presented John Gee's latest apologetic at the FAIR Conference arguing that the assumption that these characters were taken in sequence, is just an anti-Mormon "fantasy." Will then begins a Power Point presentation with the heading, "Reality vs. Fantasy."

But based on the data above the sequence seems perfectly obvious, right? So how did they manage to pull this off? Essentially, John Gee took advantage of the lacunae to argue that the characters numbered 13, 14, 15, 16 and 23 are actually symbols that had been copied from other areas on the papyrus. He then mixes these in with the whole to create these "zig- zags," to argue there was no intended sequence whatsoever. But if you look above, these are precisely the characters that fall into the lacuna, which is something he never mentions. So according to Gee/Schryver the sequencing actually goes as follows:

In short, these were not copied from the characters claimed by Gee, as I will demonstrate momentarily. The most stunning part of the presentation was when he goes across from the first character and concedes a linear sequence up until character 11. He then pulls a typical straw man and says: "This is about as far as anyone (i.e. critics) feels the need to go. What is happening seems pretty clear. But it isn't. The next one is clear and pulled from two lines down."

Now at the moment he said, "the next one is clear and pulled from two lines down" (alluding to character 13) the Power Point slide was showing character #12 on line one, along with a blown up image of the character as it appears in both the papyrus and the manuscript. Of course the copy is a faithful replica of the original, which led people to think his argument was sound. As if to think, "Wow, this was taken from two lines down completely out of sequence." But in reality it wasn't. Will was rushing along through the presentation when few people had the necessary familiarity with these documents to notice he was totally misrepresenting them.

In reality, the character Will referred to was character #13 which he believes was copied from a character "two lines down," but when compared side by side, it is clearly a huge stretch to say they resemble anything at all. And a character that, ironically, looks exactly like the number 13! Here are the characters Gee/Schryver claim are copied from other areas of the papyrus. You tell me if any of these resemble one another.

It takes a leap of the imagination just to connect these two in a superficial way. But Gee/Schryver insist they are exact copies, despite all the evidence to the contrary. This is amazing, especially when you consider the fact that virtually all of the other copied characters represent clear unambiguous replicas of the character in question. So you have to seriously question Gee and Schryver's judgment since these aren't even close.

What's even more bizarre, is they want us to believe that #23 was a copied from both #19 and #20 while we know the scribes recognize 18 and 20 as separate characters. How does this even begin to make sense? They're just jumping all over the place in order to do their "zig-zags" and say, "see, the critics are fantasizing about a sequence."

Will would quickly zip through images of characters that were faithful replicas with others that clearly were not, without explicitly showing where they presented themselves on the papyrus. When Chris Smith informed me of what they tried to argue, I was speechless. To me it looks as if Book of Abraham apologetics is running full speed in reverse.

What's worse, Gee/Schryver also seem to have problems properly identifying character #3, which reveals their lack of familiarity with not only the documents, but also the critical arguments. Look at the yellow highlighted portion from the GAEL below as it corresponds to the papyrus.

The characters on the black and white text derive from the Egyptian Alphabet portion of the KEP. Suffice it to say, their attempt to establish a "fantasy" was successful. Unfortunately, the fantasy came from Gee/Schryver and not the "anti-Mormons." This fantasy was created to argue that the Egyptian Characters were taken "at random" with no apparent sequence in mind. But this argument only works for those who are completely unfamiliar with these documents.

[Xander]

Here is another way of showing the characters lining up as they appear in the ten page manuscript 2.

[Xander]

I was asked how this related to the GAEL thread and I think it should be obvious.

Will presented this moments before he presented his Cipher theory. If what John Gee says is true, then this provides a firm leg underneath the platform of William's Cipher argument. Why? Because William's theory requires that the characters used in the "cipher" have no necessary relationship to the papyri.

What I have shown is that the papyri, specifically papyrus JSP I and JSP X , were critical to these projects, both the GAEL as well as the Book of Abraham translation manuscripts. Thus, William's cipher theory collapses on itself.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Xander

[Peppermint Patty]

Xander,

Thank you for all of your hard work. Very interesting research.

[William Schryver]

Because he had to be out of town during the 2010 FAIR Conference, John Gee requested that I deliver, in his behalf, a short paper* concerning the relationship between the characters in the left column of the Abraham manuscripts and the characters from the Book of Breathings. As a favor to a friend, I agreed to read the paper. I announced beforehand that I would be doing so: John Gee 2010 FAIR Conference – Announcement

With the exception of a couple humorous asides, I delivered the paper verbatim.

I did not endorse its findings.

In my admittedly amateur judgment, I do not find the paper persuasive.

Furthermore (and most importantly), I consider the relationship of Abraham manuscripts (Ab1, Ab2, and Ab3) to the Book of Breathings an effectively moot issue. I have already and will yet present compelling evidence that Ab1, Ab2, and Ab3 are dependent on pre-existing text(s) from which they all derive. No part of any of them is a transcript of the original dictation of the translation, by the Prophet Joseph Smith, of the Book of Abraham.

As for the marginal characters, if Professor Gee is mistaken in his analysis, and it is so demonstrated, I'm sure he will gladly acknowledge his error. Of course, that would not put an end to certain obsessive critics dredging the issue up from time to time. In the world of such critics, Mormon scholarship is never permitted to amend itself; it must pay for its errors ad infinitum.

In any event, my experience with Professor Gee's scholarship is that it is almost invariably first-rate. His journal publications and conference speaking agenda from the past few years reveal an Egyptologist highly respected among his peers. If "Xander" believes Gee to have erred in this or other matters, I strongly encourage him to author critical reviews and submit them to appropriate journals for publication.

* = John Gee, Marginal Characters in the Book of Abraham Manuscripts, 2010 FAIR Conference.

Edited December 20, 2011 by William Schryver

[wenglund]

Kevin,

Is there a link to Gee's presentation so we can see what was actually argued (I see now that Will just posted it)?

I know for a fact that what you present above doesn't impact Will's primary thesis or his cipher proposition.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited December 20, 2011 by wenglund

[William Schryver]

... William's theory requires that the characters used in the "cipher" have no necessary relationship to the papyri.

None of my theses require that the characters from the EA/GAEL/EC have no relationship to the papyri.

"Xander," as he does with almost remarkable consistency, is misrepresenting my arguments.

None of my theses require that the characters from the EA/GAEL/EC have no relationship to the papyri.

ETA: None of my theses require that the characters from the EA/GAEL/EC have no relationship to the papyri. However, the majority of the characters explained in the EA/GAEL have no apparent relationship to the papyri.

Edited December 20, 2011 by William Schryver

[Xander]

Kevin,

Is there a link to Gee's presentation so we can see what was actually argued (I see now that Will just posted it)?

I know for a fact that what you present above doesn't impact Will's primary thesis or his cipher proposition.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

That's only because you still do not understand William's cipher theory. All I can do is provide a link to his transcribed presentation and leave it at that. William asserts several times, in his presentation and over the past year, the irrelevancy of the papyri. What I have done is demonstrate that it was central to the project.

It wasn't just a crazy coincidence that upon obtaining Egyptian papyri, they immediately engaged in the GAEL. Will would have us believe that this $2400 purchase triggered an immediate desire to encipher readily available stuff for no apparent reason, and not an immediate desire to produce a legitimate Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, as the project properly describes itself.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Xander

[Xander]

In my admittedly amateur judgment, I do not find the paper persuasive.

Though in your admittedly amateur judgment, his scholarship is "first-rate"?

Believe it or not, this isn't the most egregious goof John Gee has produced on this subject. It is just his latest.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

That's only because you still do not understand.....

You should just make this your motto or slogan. It gets old.

[Xander]

None of my theses require that the characters from the EA/GAEL/EC have no relationship to the papyri.

"Xander," as he does with almost remarkable consistency, is misrepresenting my arguments.

None of my theses require that the characters from the EA/GAEL/EC have no relationship to the papyri.

ETA: None of my theses require that the characters from the EA/GAEL/EC have no relationship to the papyri. However, the majority of the characters explained in the EA/GAEL have no apparent relationship to the papyri.

Your thesis states quite emphatically that the GAEL was an enciphering project intended to encipher already produced English revelations, into these various symbols. Your argument supposes that they were borrowing characters from a wide variety of places and that it didn't really matter where they came from since they had no meaning in and of themselves. No, they were to be "enciphered" meaning throughout the project.

What I have shown is that virtually all the characters in the GAEL derive from the papyrus recently obtained by Joseph Smith.

So for Schryver, the characters could be arabic numerals Sanskrit, Masonic symbols, or whatever. It didn't really matter because they were enciphering.

In my view, the vast majority of these characters came from the papyri (whether explained or not they were all intended to be explained) and those that do not, were clearly believed to have been on the papyrus before it was deteriorated. George and I have show that to be the case quite clearly in the other thread. This thread is just another chapter in a series of failed apologetic arguments.

[Xander]

You should just make this your motto or slogan. It gets old.

That's because the only people willing to engage on this subject are those who clearly do not understand. I don't just assert this, I demonstrate it.

[Xander]

As for the marginal characters, if Professor Gee is mistaken in his analysis, and it is so demonstrated, I'm sure he will gladly acknowledge his error.

It was just demonstrated, and Gee doesn't admit to making errors. At least not in a venue open to the public. Hauglid was the one who had to tell us that Gee backed away from his two ink theory, but up until that time Gee never tried to defend it.

Of course, that would not put an end to certain obsessive critics dredging the issue up from time to time.

Funny. When anti-Mormons are routinely showed to be making mistakes, well that's FARMS "scholarship" in action. But when LDS scholars are routinely shown to make bad arguments, well, that's just "obsession."

In the world of such critics, Mormon scholarship is never permitted to amend itself; it must pay for its errors ad infinitum.

Yes, especially when those same Mormon scholars made a career of pointing our moot points by critics in order to discredit them entirely. You make it sound like John Gee has repented of his ways, but in fact he has a decade long history of making one ludicrous evidence-free claim after another.

In any event, my experience with Professor Gee's scholarship is that it is almost invariably first-rate.

But of course it is. Except for those times when it isn't.

His journal publications and conference speaking agenda from the past few years reveal an Egyptologist highly respected among his peers.

Not according to the world's authority, who was once his professor at Yale. According to Ritner, Gee is making more appearances at conferences in an attempt to increased credibility, but that along with more publications doesn't necessarily translate to increased credibility. The vast majority of Gee's publications have been apologetic. Many of the others tend to retain some peripheral apologetic value, as evidence by the number of times his apparently non-apologetic publications are cited in LDS apologetics.

If "Xander" believes Gee to have erred in this or other matters, I strongly encourage him to author critical reviews and submit them to appropriate journals for publication.

Why, when his primary audience consists of internet Mormon apologists?

[wenglund]

That's because the only people willing to engage on this subject are those who clearly do not understand. I don't just assert this, I demonstrate it.

...and so the self-delusion continues.

It would be counterproductive for me to attempt, once again, to disabuse Kevin of his false perception. Once a person has becomes so insulated from rational input as to think he knows better than the author what the author said and meant, and this in stunning defiance of compelling evidence to the contrary, pretty much all chances of having an intelligent discussion has evaporated. For that reason I will simply post a link to last in a series of stupifying threads on the so-called "cipher theory" in case the reader may wish to see for him or herself just how banal Kevin has gotten:

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

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

And, 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’.

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.

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. What Gee is doing, as would any competent researcher, is to determine what characters were still visible on the papyri in Phelps' day, that are not visible to us today. This is important because theories based on what is visible today, may be found incorrect based on what may be determined was visible back then. It is key to correctly understanding the character selection process in 1835.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Mortal Man]

Furthermore (and most importantly), I consider the relationship of Abraham manuscripts (Ab1, Ab2, and Ab3) to the Book of Breathings an effectively moot issue. I have already and will yet present compelling evidence that Ab1, Ab2, and Ab3 are dependent on pre-existing text(s) from which they all derive. No part of any of them is a transcript of the original dictation of the translation, by the Prophet Joseph Smith, of the Book of Abraham.

I'm still waiting for you to answer my question Will.

To recap, you claimed that "The names of the four idolatrous gods as listed in the putative Ms. Q would have been: Elkkener, Zibnah, Mahmackrah, and Koash."

Why then does "Koash" not appear in Ab2 or Ab3?

How did Williams and Parrish both independently manage to miss that name in all 3 instances?

[wenglund]

I'm still waiting for you to answer my question Will.

To recap, you claimed that "The names of the four idolatrous gods as listed in the putative Ms. Q would have been: Elkkener, Zibnah, Mahmackrah, and Koash."

Why then does "Koash" not appear in Ab2 or Ab3?

How did Williams and Parrish both independently manage to miss that name in all 3 instances?

Bringing things back on topic, what do you think about Kevin's first mistake in this thread, which I pointed out HERE?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Loran Blood]

That's only because you still do not understand William's cipher theory.

As Will has just pointed out above, the problem actually seems to be, based on what you wrote, that you do not seem to understand William's core thesis at its very root. If one researcher has to tell another (and, over the years, I've seen Will tell you this again and again, on various points of KEP studies and his own work in relation to them) that they have thoroughly misunderstood and misperceived a theory, and hence, are riding through a field setting fire to strawmen, then this would tend to call into question much, if not the entirety of that critic's responses to it, not the least of which would be his ability to critically represent the claims of his opponent properly.

All I can do is provide a link to his transcribed presentation and leave it at that. William asserts several times, in his presentation and over the past year, the irrelevancy of the papyri. What I have done is demonstrate that it was central to the project.

As he pointed out and as we've been discussing for sometime here, the "explained" characters in the EA/GAEL.

It wasn't just a crazy coincidence that upon obtaining Egyptian papyri, they immediately engaged in the GAEL. Will would have us believe that this $2400 purchase triggered an immediate desire to encipher readily available stuff for no apparent reason, and not an immediate desire to produce a legitimate Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, as the project properly describes itself.

This is getting nowhere. All you still have, as the critics had 40 years ago, is a correlation and connection of some kind between the BofA and the KEP. There is no known causal relationship, at least running in the direction you wish, and stating with airs of certitude what is, at best, guesswork and naked conjecture in the face of substantial counter-evidence and problematic elements in the KEP itself, is nothing more or less than that: statements of certitude grounded, apparently, in your assumed authority as an "expert" on this subject.

[Loran Blood]

That's because the only people willing to engage on this subject are those who clearly do not understand. I don't just assert this, I demonstrate it.

Argument by assertion, bluster, and personal invective masked as argument demonstrates nothing. All the padding of your lengthy posts with graphics and associated analysis do not alter the Kabuki dance-like nature of your project here, which is really nothing much more than restating, over and over, the old arguments of Ashment, Marquardt et al that have long been plausibly answered by competent LDS scholarship.

I understand that you seem to have a good working knowledge of the nuts and bolts of the KEP as to its structure. But knowing this doesn't give you its purpose and meaning in any clear manner. Your penchant for confuting hypothesis, theory, and fact with naked conjecture and speculation are salient features of all your work, and are, I think, a part of the irritation you encounter here in your opponents. A truly scholarly temperament and approach to a text-critical forensic reconstruction of such a complex and ambiguous set of texts such as the KEP would involve the kind of tentativeness, judicious inference, and balanced give and take of evidential plausibility that you simply are not willing to engage in.

Insinuating or clearly impugning intellectual inferiority and/or base motives to other professional scholars with whom you disagree, such as John Gee and Bill Hamblin, has gone far enough, has it not?

Edited December 21, 2011 by Loran Blood

[webbles]

Do those images you have come from the powerpoint presentation? And how could I see the powerpoint images. I read the talk and I think there some misunderstanding of what he actually meant (though that doesn't explain everything).

For one, he says "The next phrase that we expect to be found on the papyrus is fortunately found elsewhere on the papyrus in Column II." Is Column II the same thing that you were showing in your last image (the one about character #3)?

Also, it looks like he is using other copies of the "Letter of Fellowship" to identify what actually would fill the lacuna. That could be why he doesn't go in a straight line. It would be nice to find a picture of one of those.

[Chris Smith]

Wade,

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, though I don't have access to the slides to verify that.

Webbles,

I don't know if Kevin's images are of Gee's actual slides, but Gee's presentation did include an image like this one:

This was contrasted with "the order in which it's been insinuated [by 'the critics' that] the characters were drawn," illustrated by four straight horizontal lines across the first four lines of papyrus characters. The last few paragraphs of the text of Gee's presentation should make it clear enough that his account of the order-of-copying is meant as a refutation of the order proffered by "the critics". As Kevin illustrated in his OP, the attempt was bizarrely, head-explodingly wrongheaded.

[webbles]

As Kevin illustrated in his OP, the attempt was bizarrely, head-explodingly wrongheaded.

I can see a way for it to not be wrongheaded at all. Characters 1-6, 13-15, and 23 are in the lacuna according to Xander. In Gee's talk, he mentioned using other existing copies of this text (one from the Louvre and one from the British museum) to determine what characters should be there. If those characters don't match up with what Xander is predicting to be there, then Gee's idea isn't wrongheaded.

[Chris Smith]

I can see a way for it to not be wrongheaded at all. Characters 1-6, 13-15, and 23 are in the lacuna according to Xander. In Gee's talk, he mentioned using other existing copies of this text (one from the Louvre and one from the British museum) to determine what characters should be there. If those characters don't match up with what Xander is predicting to be there, then Gee's idea isn't wrongheaded.

It is still wrongheaded for two reasons.

First, "the critics" have always held that the manuscript characters corresponding to the lacuna in the papyrus are Joseph Smith's "incorrect restorations," as suggested by William S. West's 1837 remark that "Smith is to translate the whole [papyrus] by divine inspiration, and that which is lost, like Nebuchadnezzar's dream, can be interpreted as well as that which is preserved." As Jerald and Sandra Tanner theorize on page 325 of Shadow or Reality?, "The gap in this papyrus existed in Joseph Smith's day and he tried to supply some characters to fill the gap. ... We do not know where Smith derived these characters, but they are not the characters which appeared upon the original papyrus. We must remember that he had manuscripts with hieratic, hieroglyphic and Arabic writing on them. He could have derived the characters from any of these manuscripts, or it is possible that they are the work of his own imagination. At any rate, they certainly were not found in this area of the 'Sensen' papyrus."

Nowhere in his presentation does Gee acknowledge this aspect of "the critics'" theory. Even if Gee's observations were entirely accepted, they would be entirely accounted for by the Tanners' theory. There is therefore zero justification for his assertion that the theory "does not pass the sobriety test; they cannot follow a straight line," or that "there remains a significant gap between the fantasy theorized [by 'the critics'] and the reality of where the characters actually came from." Still more problematic is Gee's claim in a letter, published elsewhere on the Internet, that there "is no pattern to the order in which they [the manuscript characters] are taken from one of the papyri. They seem to be taken at random." One wonders if Gee is even aware that all the supposedly out-of-order characters correspond to the lacuna in the papyrus. I don't see how he could fail to be, yet he nowhere mentions this fact, proffers any explanation for it, or shows any awareness of its significance.

Second, the correlations Gee proposes are simply not plausible. Those characters were not copied from the portions of the papyrus Gee claims they were, as anyone can see from the images provided in Kevin's OP.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Chris Smith

[wenglund]

For one, he says "The next phrase that we expect to be found on the papyrus is fortunately found elsewhere on the papyrus in Column II." Is Column II the same thing that you were showing in your last image (the one about character #3)?

From what I understand, fragment JSP XI is comprised of two wide columns. All but one of Kevin's graphics are of lines from the first column, which is to the right of the second column (see the left half of the graphic below). The columns you may have in mind are on JSP I (see the right side of the graphic below). They are two separate fragments, though from the same scroll. In fact, the one follows the other. Here they are juxtaposed together (JSP XI is the left half, and JSP I is the right):

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Wade,

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, though I don't have access to the slides to verify that.

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.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-