Book of Abraham Preface is Misleading

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

How do you view the story of the Anthon transcript as told by Martin Harris? Wasn't that a similar type of translation as we see in the KEP? It would be hard for Anthon to verify a translation unless he viewed both the original and the translation.

I think there's evidence that the original purpose of the Anthon transcript was to get Anthon to translate the Book of Mormon. The nature of the Anthon transcript isn't clear. I think some see it more as a kind of weird dictionary like some of the KEP that are just lists of characters. The problem is that there's of course no translation trying to tie characters to text with the Anthon transcript. I don't have time to look it up but I believe there's a view that it might have be an etching based upon the last page in the plates that was itself a kind of list of characters. I'd have to check the evidence for that. A lot of these things come from pretty limited evidence. As I recall one issue with the Anthon transcript is how few characters repeat. (I think the stylized 2 like glyph is one of the few and even there it's not clear if they are supposed to be different glyphs or at least variants on the same glyph with marking signifying something else such as one finds in many shorthand schemes)

Anyway the evidence that Joseph initially thought Anthon would translate and not himself is interesting. Quoting from From Darkness Into Light.

Quote

Joseph learned through the translation that an ancient prophet, Mormon, had abridged several records in his possession to create gold plates. Mormon wrote that “we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian.”11 Regardless of what it said in the Book of Mormon, when Harris left on his journey in 1828, Joseph had not yet translated those words from the plates; therefore, neither of them knew the language that the unfamiliar characters represented.12

Even the angel Moroni, Joseph’s primary source for knowledge about the plates, apparently did not explain to Joseph that the record was written in reformed Egyptian. None of the records describing Moroni’s visit claim that he told Joseph about the language. Reflecting back on Moroni’s visits, Joseph remembered him quoting scripture and explaining the details of his prophetic calling, but nowhere in his history did he say that the angel told him what language was written on the plates. Joseph remembered, “the Lord . . . revealed unto me that in the Town of Manchester Ontario County N.Y. there was plates of gold upon which there was engravings which was engraven by Maroni & his fathers the servants of the living God in ancient days.”13 His later accounts also left out any reference to the language on the plates. Rather, he explained that Moroni said, “there was a book deposited written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent and the source from whence they sprang.”14 Therefore, before Joseph sent Harris to New York City with the characters, he was told that ancient American prophets were responsible for the characters on the plates and that the content described the inhabitants of the ancient Americas, leaving him with very little reason to conclude that the plates were written in any form of Egyptian.

After it later became known that the plates were inscribed with “reformed Egyptian,” all those who reflected back upon Harris’s visit to New York City told the story as if they already knew the characters were “reformed Egyptian.” In reality, in February 1828 they had yet to find out about the language.15 Instead, Joseph sent Harris to New York with the characters with very little information other than the knowledge that the characters were taken from an ancient American source.16 This is far different from the traditional story told by Latter-day Saints, but it helps make sense of why he visited certain individuals well before he went to Charles Anthon.

William Smith, who was a young teenager at the time, remembered that Joseph did not know how to read the plates when he first brought them home, but once Harris returned from New York City they had a better idea of what language the ancient prophets used. According to William Smith, it was not until “the Professor [in New York City] Pronounced the characters to be ancient Hebrew corrupted, and the language to be degenerate Hebrew with a mixture of Egyptian” that Joseph had any idea of the nature of the characters.17

It seems unlikely that Harris was looking for an Egyptian scholar. Even if he had been initially looking for a scholar who could decipher Egyptian, he would not have found one in the United States. Although European scholars had begun to use the Rosetta Stone a few years earlier to better understand Egyptian, none of them were in America.18 Bradish, in particular, did not study Egyptian and could not have identified the characters as Egyptian, at least with any confidence, making it highly unlikely that Bradish would have sent Harris to an Egyptian scholar. It was not until 1822 that the Frenchman Jean Francois Champollion was able to make steps toward deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs.19 His work was not widely printed in the United States, and imprints that were published before 1828 were not translated into English, making a search for a scholar of Egyptian hieroglyphs a search for someone who knew the European literature, not for someone who had focused his or her studies on Egyptian.

Bradish instead compared the characters with a language that he was somewhat familiar with. Bradish compared the characters to samples of Middle Eastern writing that he had in his possession. He juxtaposed the characters against those on “a Pass that had been given . . . when traveling through the Turkish dominions; and he thought the characters resembled those of that Pass.”20 His passport-like certificate from the Ottoman Empire was written in Turkish and included a Turkish seal that he likely used to compare against the characters.21 Likely having little confidence in his comparison, he ultimately sent Harris to New York City to have the characters assessed by scholars of ancient American history.22

According to at least one account, after Harris went to Albany and spoke with Bradish, he continued on to Philadelphia.23 The American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson in the late eighteenth century and Peter Stephen Du Ponceau by 1828, encouraged research about Native Americans and helped support scholarship about their origins, culture, and history.24 The society was well known, and the work done by its members was frequently published in their journal, Transactions.

Likely knowing that Philadelphia was a hotbed for Native American studies, Bradish or someone along the way sent Harris there in hopes that he could find a scholar to translate the characters, believing them to be a language of an ancient American people. Harris could have potentially visited both Samuel Rafinesque and Caleb Atwater, leading naturalists and Native American enthusiasts with the Society.25 Rafinesque had actively studied North American Indians and their languages since 1819. His interest in Native Americans and their languages may have caused Harris to search him out; he had worked on deciphering Native American languages, had studied many of the pictographs found in the ancient world, and had begun to develop a translation of the Mayan glyphs.26 Some of Caleb Atwater’s academic work focused on Native American languages as well. In particular, he attempted to uncover the origins of the North American Indians.27 Numerous scholars, like Rafinesque and Atwater, had similarly tried to uncover the ancient origins of the Native Americans, some of whom even believed that they originated from the lost ten tribes of Israel, similar to the seafaring Israelites described in the Book of Mormon.

[...]

If Harris went to Philadelphia and met with members of the American Philosophical Society, it would have been natural for them to send him to one of the prominent members of the society, Samuel L. Mitchill. He was one of the leading scholars on Native Americans in the New York area, the teacher of Rafinesque, and an avid linguist. After Harris went to Philadelphia he made his way back up to New York. While Bradish may have directed Harris to the American Philosophical Society in general, he might even have sent Harris to Samuel Mitchill in particular.38

[...]

Just as he had done with the Detroit manuscript, Mitchill carefully examined the characters taken from the gold plates given to him by Martin Harris. He “looked at his engravings—made a learned dissertation on them—compared them with the hieroglyphics discovered by Champollion in Europe, and set them down as a language of a people formerly in existence in the East, but now no more.”48 Yet, regardless of his efforts, Mitchill was unable to determine with certainty the linguistic origin of the characters.49 Instead, he “confessed he had been unable to understand” them and sent Harris with a note “requesting [Charles Anthon] to decipher, if possible, [the characters].”50

[...]

In the midst of Anthon’s ongoing efforts to collect [Native American] tales and speeches, Harris arrived at the college with his account of the gold plates containing stories of American Indians and copies of the characters inscribed on the plates in hand. Anthon, of course, was eager to examine the paper for Harris, and he most likely had hopes that he had found another story for his publication. Knowing that Barker was putting pressure on him, Anthon must have been excited to examine Harris’s document. Like Washington Irving’s essay, Harris’s tale would have been exciting to Americans and Europeans because it was a story about ancient Americans who believed in Christ and who had created a sacred record on gold plates that had only recently been uncovered. Harris’s visit fit right within Barker and Anthon’s plan to collect essays about Native Americans.

Nevertheless, years later, Anthon concealed his own financial interest in examining the characters and instead claimed that the paper was a hoax and that someone had combined characters from different languages to deceive him. He derided Harris’s document as a compilation derived from an alteration of “Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, [and] Roman letters inverted or placed sideways.” He claimed it was “decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Calendar given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source.”56 Once the Book of Mormon was published and Charles Anthon’s name became attached to Joseph Smith’s story of the retrieval and translation of the plates, a defensive Anthon felt that he needed to protect his reputation. He wrote a letter to E. D. Howe in 1834 as Howe prepared his book Mormonism Unvailed, an exposé criticizing the origins of the Church. He again downplayed his involvement by writing to two pastors in 1841 and 1844 to explain what happened when Harris had visited him.57

Harris, on the other hand, told a completely different story, which James Mulholland later recorded in Joseph Smith’s history. He explained that after Anthon examined the characters, Anthon told him “that they were Egyptian, Chaldeak, Assyriac, and Arabac, and he said that they were true characters.” Seeking a scholar’s witness that the characters were legitimate, Harris apparently asked Anthon for a certificate of authenticity. Harris recalled that “He gave me a certificate certifying to the people of Palmyra that they were true characters.” Anthon’s certificate had the potential to offer clout to Joseph Smith’s translation of the plates and could have been printed along with the Book of Mormon, but it was soon lost. Harris explained that as he was leaving Anthon’s office, Anthon “called me back and asked me how the young man found out that there were gold plates in the place where he found them. I answered that an Angel of God had revealed it unto him. He then said to me, let me see that certificate, I accordingly took it out of my pocket and gave it [to] him.” Anthon took the certificate and “tore it to pieces, saying that there was no such thing now as ministring of angels, and that if I would bring the plates to him, he would translate them. I informed him that part of the plates were sealed, and that I was forbidden to bring them, he replied ‘I cannot read a sealed book.’”58

[...]

Though Joseph’s initial instincts were to find a translator to decipher the characters on the plates, the need for God’s hand in the translation became readily apparent upon the return of Martin Harris from New York City. If Harris’s original intention was to find a scholar who could help Joseph translate the ancient writings on the gold plates, he returned to Harmony in failure. The scholars he had consulted had either been unable to provide any information on the cryptic characters or had been unwilling to entertain the notion that they were prophetic writings delivered by an angel. Nonetheless, Joseph had drawn the characters off the plates and sent for their translation.

 

In hindsight, Harris’s failure was a step forward in their progress toward translating the plates. In Joseph’s earliest account of Martin Harris’s disappointing return from New York City, Joseph remembered that Harris told him that the scholars could not translate the characters. Once Joseph understood that scholars could not translate the characters, he realized that with the aid of the Nephite interpreters, he would translate the plates.3 Though this conveniently fits the narrative of the Isaian prophecy and the fact that Joseph may have supposed he would eventually use the Nephite interpreters to translate the plates, Joseph wrote that he knew upon Harris’s return that “the Lord had prepared spectacles for [him] to read the Book.” Shortly thereafter he began to use those spectacles and “commenced translating the characters and thus the Prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled.”4 So what were the Nephite interpreters, and why did Joseph take months to learn how to use them?

Edited March 24, 2017 by clarkgoble

[CA Steve]

13 minutes ago, rongo said:

There has been a lot written analyzing what Parrish, Phelps, Cowdery, Richards, et. al. were doing, or thought they were doing, with the KEP. Joseph Smith did not participate in this. It is clear to me, based on the evidence, that the men were trying to "study it out in their mind" and trying to derive the English text of the Book of Abraham, based on random characters. One evidence that suggests this is that the blocks of English text were written first, and the characters added as an afterthought. Critics ridicule and attack "those old fools!" thinking that hundreds of words could be derived from a little squiggle (and by extension, Joseph Smith). I agree that that is ridiculous. 

The KEP/GAEL, if you look at the papers, was quickly abandoned as a dead end. While critics want them to demonstrate "Joseph Smith's method," they actually demonstrate Joseph's associates trying to translate in a rudimentary way (very ignorantly) and understand Joseph's modus operandi. The project was quickly abandoned and they lost interest. 

Aren't portions of the Egyptian Alphabet which were written in 1835 (according to Hauglid in his Historical Text of the Book of Abraham pg 23) in Joseph Smith's handwriting? How can you claim he did not participate if that is true?

[clarkgoble]

22 minutes ago, rongo said:

The KEP/GAEL, if you look at the papers, was quickly abandoned as a dead end. While critics want them to demonstrate "Joseph Smith's method," they actually demonstrate Joseph's associates trying to translate in a rudimentary way (very ignorantly) and understand Joseph's modus operandi. The project was quickly abandoned and they lost interest. 

While I agree with your broader points, I'm not sure Joseph was uninvolved and I'm not sure the GAEL was abandoned like you suggest. Although I'd completely agree they didn't make progress for the obvious reason that the text they were trying to reverse engineer wasn't the right text.

[rongo]

Just now, CA Steve said:

Aren't portions of the Egyptian Alphabet which were written in 1835 (according to Hauglid in his Historical Text of the Book of Abraham pg 23) in Joseph Smith's handwriting? How can you claim he did not participate if that is true?

I don't have any books or articles with me at work, but going off of memory, this was one of the controversial points. When the Tanners printed a microfilm with random KEP things, they changed the order of them to try to make it look like Joseph Smith spearheaded the project. The actual papers in context don't show this. I think that the only thing with Joseph's handwriting was something unrelated to it. The vast majority of it was Phelps' handwriting, followed by Parrish (Phelps had his bound, but he only ended up doing a few pages. The others are very short and not more than a page. It was obviously ambitious, but quickly abandoned). This is based off of my recollection of a couple of Nibley BYU Studies articles from the lat 1960s.

Hauglid's view, if as represented here, would be new to me. This is interesting to me, and I am by no means an expert on it. But, I'm not super-impressed by pasted pictures from MormonThink or Richard Packham with arrows and highlighted sections . . .  

[stemelbow]

2 hours ago, Priscilla said:

Is there any reason to think Joseph's writings or translations must follow the same pattern? The translation of the Book of Mormon doesn't even stick to one pattern, so why would we expect a single pattern for all of his writings? 

When Joseph's mother was showing the mummies to tourists her presentation included elaborate details of not only explaining who these mummies were in the past, but she also showed the papyri and gave explanations as to what they meant. I wonder why anyone would think she could know these things? Maybe because her son was the famous Prophet and Translator?

Well maybe sure.  But I'm still not seeing that as drawing a connection between the characters sitting next to paragraph length English portions of the BoA.  The reason I asked about a pattern, I was curious to find any reason to see this as strong evidence as you suggested. It could be evidence, I suppose, to some extent, but sitting alone it gives us next to nothing in support of the assertion, as I see it.

 

 

[rongo]

5 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

While I agree with your broader points, I'm not sure Joseph was uninvolved and I'm not sure the GAEL was abandoned like you suggest. Although I'd completely agree they didn't make progress for the obvious reason that the text they were trying to reverse engineer wasn't the right text.

And, the method wasn't the right method. I think there was actual Abrahamic content/intent behind the originators of the Soter papyri, and more was revealed through inspiration. It wasn't at all a dictionary/lexicon/grammar approach to it.

[stemelbow]

2 hours ago, Priscilla said:

You're not sure how the characters to the left of the margin, taken in sequence from the papyri, would suggest they were used to translate the text to the right?

Sure I think so.  It doesn't seem evident that this document (Phelps' with the characters next to English text) was the translation.  It is just a portion of what is the book of Abraham.  Joseph described a period where he "continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham, and arranging a grammar of the Egyptian language as practiced by the ancients".  It seems he may have thought the papyrus was the source of the Book of Abraham, or if you think fraud, that he was trying to make his followers see it that way.  But it's also possible (read likely) he had no idea how to translate Egyptian at all, but got the Book of Abraham not by looking at the characters, kind like how in the case of the Book of Mormon translation he didn't look at the plates, but by someone somehow inspiring him (by speaking words to his brain, or taking him off and explaining things or what have you) what to dictate. 

[CA Steve]

58 minutes ago, rongo said:

I don't have any books or articles with me at work, but going off of memory, this was one of the controversial points. When the Tanners printed a microfilm with random KEP things, they changed the order of them to try to make it look like Joseph Smith spearheaded the project. The actual papers in context don't show this. I think that the only thing with Joseph's handwriting was something unrelated to it. The vast majority of it was Phelps' handwriting, followed by Parrish (Phelps had his bound, but he only ended up doing a few pages. The others are very short and not more than a page. It was obviously ambitious, but quickly abandoned). This is based off of my recollection of a couple of Nibley BYU Studies articles from the lat 1960s.

Hauglid's view, if as represented here, would be new to me. This is interesting to me, and I am by no means an expert on it. But, I'm not super-impressed by pasted pictures from MormonThink or Richard Packham with arrows and highlighted sections . . .  

Hauglid's book is definitely a book you should get. Besides being first rate scholarship, it is an absolutely beautiful book, but it is pricey.

A Textual History of the Book of Abraham: Manuscripts and Editions

 

 

Let's assume for a moment that the the KEP documents written by Phelps, Williams & Parrish with the Book of Abraham translations on the right and the Egyptian characters on the left in the margins, were if fact attempts at reverse engineering. For the record I do not think they were, but let's assume they were. What document were they using as a source for this reverse engineering effort?

[rongo]

9 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Hauglid's book is definitely a book you should get. Besides being first rate scholarship, it is an absolutely beautiful book, but it is pricey.

A Textual History of the Book of Abraham: Manuscripts and Editions

 

 

Let's assume for a moment that the the KEP documents written by Phelps, Williams & Parrish with the Book of Abraham translations on the right and the Egyptian characters on the left in the margins, were if fact attempts at reverse engineering. For the record I do not think they were, but let's assume they were. What document were they using as a source for this reverse engineering effort?

I do need to get his book. I am not as strong on KEP/GAEL as I am with the JSP. So, There's a lot I don't know about those.

They were using the Sensen papyrus for that, weren't they?

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

Hauglid's book is definitely a book you should get. Besides being first rate scholarship, it is an absolutely beautiful book, but it is pricey.

A Textual History of the Book of Abraham: Manuscripts and Editions

 

It also isn't available in electronic form which makes it a non-starter for me. I'm surprised how many prominent LDS books aren't available electronically.

[probablyHagoth7]

25 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

It also isn't available in electronic form which makes it a non-starter for me. I'm surprised how many prominent LDS books aren't available electronically.

Probably because old-school publishers don't fare well against digital options.

Kinda hard to charge scads for a printed copy (to ?recoup costs)...when digital/searchable versions can be purchased for a fraction. 

Edited March 24, 2017 by probablyHagoth7

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, probablyHagoth7 said:

Probably because old-school publishers don't fare well against digital options.

Kinda hard to charge scads for a printed copy (to ?recoup costs)...when digital/searchable versions can be purchased for a fraction. 

In this case I think it was the BYU Press. You'd think an university press would be quicker to adapt to technology. But sadly it's not the case.

[probablyHagoth7]

44 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

In this case I think it was the BYU Press. You'd think an university press would be quicker to adapt to technology. But sadly it's not the case.

Input is always worthwhile.

I would imagine if enough alums decided to rise and roar, that a publishing change/improvement would be seriously considered.

Edited March 24, 2017 by probablyHagoth7

[dberrie2000]

11 hours ago, Priscilla said:

You're not sure how the characters to the left of the margin, taken in sequence from the papyri, would suggest they were used to translate the text to the right?

 

No--and neither is anyone else--as the characters in the left margin bear no semblance to the translation. One character does not equal 176 words of English text.

And, as Hauglid stated--the text shown there is most likely not the original--but a copy. Which brings to bear another question--were the characters in the left margin even on the original?

[Robert F. Smith]

14 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

"Anti-intellectual mindset?"  Please expound.  Fake facts?  Please elaborate.  

Do you think Muhlestein was being honest  or forthright in his examination?  IMO, he wasn't... and it was embarrassing.  Further, I do not know where that video originated -- first time I saw it; and yes, I watched most of it.  You focus on my alleged"destructive and anti-intellectual mindset" more at times than on the discussion we are having here on the BoA.  

When you cannot understand what Is being discussed and regularly make irrelevant statements, what should any of us conclude?  For example, I just responded to your false comments on a MormonThink.com video with this:

 

Quote

23 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

..............................................

You say you are sincere, and you rightly call for a kinder, gentler approach by others, but you then follow that with the claim that Kerry Muhlestein is "blatantly lying," and that "This is lying, denial, and cognitive dissonance being manifest in such apologetics like this video" -- referring to a MormonThink.com video which is not by Muhlestein, and which actually supports your negative position.  How did that happen?  Did you even bother to watch the whole video?  As usual, you appear to be either blasé, or unable to track the actual discussion.

Your response was not even related to what I said.  I had hoped that you might notice that you were attacking a person for something he had not participated in.  It is almost like you are driving drunk . . .

Edited March 25, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

16 hours ago, Priscilla said:

Referring to Kevin's argument as "anti" ignore the fact that his he is simply following the logic that was naturally employed by Mormons before modern translations disproved the BoA. Kevin was for much of his life a faithful member and defender of the faith until he was confronted with the Book of Abraham conundrum. The view that the existing papyri would support the Book of Abraham if properly translated, was not some "anti" assumption, but was rather a popular position among Mormons. That is, until a modern translation proved the papyri had absolutely nothing to do with anything relating to Abraham. In 1968 Nibley made a comment indicating that it was already understood in Mormon circles that the source for the Book of Abraham must have been Joseph Smith Papyrus XI and I:
....................................

So when apologists today say the papyri wasn't used in the translation, then that's all well and good.  But just know this wasn't what Mormon scholars believed in the beginning. The shift in Mormon apologetics moved in that direction because of the overwhelming evidence against it.  

You're hemming and hawwing, Priscilla, without answering the question I asked.  Instead acting as an apologist for Kevin Graham.  Well, perhaps you are Kevin himself come back for another go round.

[dberrie2000]

On 3/23/2017 at 11:42 PM, Priscilla said:

Yes, the translation was based on materials we have today. It wasn't based on anything that's missing.

Since the Book of Abraham text translation bears no commonality to the extant papyri--could you explain to us what your evidence is the Book of Abraham text was based on anything we have extant today?

Why it could not have come from the missing papyri?

[Ouagadougou]

9 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

When you cannot understand what Is being discussed and regularly make irrelevant statements, what should any of us conclude?  For example, I just responded to your false comments on a MormonThink.com video with this:

 

Your response was not even related to what I said.  I had hoped that you might notice that you were attacking a person for something he had not participated in.  It is almost like you are driving drunk . . .

Once again:  This thread is on the BoA not about me; I'm trying to discuss th BoA and you keep making accusations like:  

"I can't understand what is being discussed," or "that I am almost like a drunk driver."  

Below was my response:

"Anti-intellectual mindset?"  Please expound.  Fake facts?  Please elaborate.  

Do you think Muhlestein was being honest  or forthright in his examination?  IMO, he wasn't... and it was embarrassing.  Further, I do not know where that video originated -- first time I saw it; and yes, I watched most of it.  You focus on my alleged"destructive and anti-intellectual mindset" more at times than on the discussion we are having here on the BoA."

You still can't explain what these "fake facts" are...but instead make allegations about me that have nothing to do with the BoA or this discussion.  

 

[CA Steve]

On 3/24/2017 at 9:34 AM, rongo said:

And, the method wasn't the right method. I think there was actual Abrahamic content/intent behind the originators of the Soter papyri, and more was revealed through inspiration. It wasn't at all a dictionary/lexicon/grammar approach to it.

Quote

Clark Goble said:

While I agree with your broader points, I'm not sure Joseph was uninvolved and I'm not sure the GAEL was abandoned like you suggest. Although I'd completely agree they didn't make progress for the obvious reason that the text they were trying to reverse engineer wasn't the right text.

If this project was quickly abandoned in 1835, and if Joseph Smith was not very involved, and if it was not thought of as a "dictionary/lexicon/grammar approach", how come 8 years later it was valuable enough to keep readily at hand to be used exactly in that manner by Joseph Smith in an attempt to translate the Kinderhook plates as Don Bradley has pointed out here.

PRESIDENT JOSEPH HAS TRANSLATED A PORTION”: SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF THE KINDERHOOK PLATES

Link is to a short 17 page pdf of Bradley's presentation on the Kinderhook plates. See page 8.

 

The GAEL & the BA manuscripts were not "quickly abandoned" nor were they looked upon as a failed project. Even a quick review of these extensive papers suggest an enormous amount of effort and time went into producing these papers. These men thought they were producing a grammar and alphabet to the Egyptian language and they still thought it useful for translation purposes 8 years after they ceased work on it. I do not have the reference at hand but I believe they even talked about publishing it.

 

My previous question regarding a source document for the reverse engineering hypothesis, is trying to get at the actual process envisioned in such a theory. In order to reverse engineer a translation, the translation needs to be already extant. (I know I am being Captain Obvious here, but I thought it necessary to explain my question.) So, as the theory must go, Phelps, Williams & Parrish are trying to work backwards from an English version of first chapter and & half of the BoA to see if they can determine where the Egyptian version can be found on the papyrus. Are they working off the 3 manuscripts we now have which have the Egyptian characters to the left in the margins? Or is there a non extant previous version of this manuscript, which, by the way, is something Hauglid proposes, calling it AB0?

 

The first alternative, one where they are working off of their own transcriptions presents problems in that they would be sitting right next to Joseph Smith, writing down what he said as he translated. Wouldn't they know what he was looking at when he translated it since they were right there in the room? I mean, why suggest a missing scroll theory unless Joseph knew what he was looking at when he translated? So if Joseph knew, and they were siting next to him as he translated, why are they  trying to assign Egyptian characters from a different location to the text already translated? Additionally the three manuscripts were produced at different times (see Hauglid again pg 21 & 22), yet they all contain the same Egyptian characters in the margins at the same locations. If they were working together on the project why bother to create 3 different manuscripts at 3 different times? And it is hard to imagine they were working separately and yet came up with exactly the same wrong characters in the same locations.

The second alternative, one which proposes a preexisting manuscript containing the BoA translations found on Phelps, Williams & Parrish's documents is problematic in that it not only does not exist, there is no contemporary reference to it being produced. It is only hypothetical. For more on this hypothetical transcript, see Hauglid's book page 21.

 

I think there a lot of other problems with the reverse engineering theory. Time frames and content for example. We are supposed to believe that after only translating 1 1/2 chapters of the BoA and creating the GAEL (which was done before the BoA manuscripts by Phelps, Williams & Parrish), that they stopped producing new translations of the papyrus to reverse engineer what they already had? Why? Why not write down more of what had already been translated but had not recorded, content that is talked about in numerous accounts from that time. Supposedly it would take two hours just to recite what had been translated, Why were they not writing this down instead of trying to reverse engineer the short section they had? Remember that all of this work is taking place from about the end of July 1835 to the end of the year. Why would the scribes take time out from that short period of time to try and do a secular translation when there was a lot of content yet to be recorded? As Hauglid puts it.

Quote

Taken together, these accounts may demonstrate that the translation of the Book of Abraham likely exceeded the current text, but for some reason it never reached the publication phase.

 

Edited March 25, 2017 by CA Steve
To add more content.

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, CA Steve said:

If this project was quickly abandoned in 1835, and if Joseph Smith was not very involved, and if it was not thought of as a "dictionary/lexicon/grammar approach", how come 8 years later it was valuable enough to keep readily at hand to be used exactly in that manner by Joseph Smith in an attempt to translate the Kinderhook plates as Don Bradley has pointed out here.

Yes that's but one example. I'm not sure the project progressed but I'm not sure it was abandoned.

Quote

My previous question regarding a source document for the reverse engineering hypothesis, is trying to get at the actual process envisioned in such a theory. In order to reverse engineer a translation, the translation needs to be already extant. (I know I am being Captain Obvious here, but I thought it necessary to explain my question.) So, as the theory must go, Phelps, Williams & Parrish are trying to work backwards from an English version of first chapter and & half of the BoA to see if they can determine where the Egyptian version can be found on the papyrus. Are they working off the 3 manuscripts we now have which have the Egyptian characters to the left in the margins? Or is there a non extant previous version of this manuscript, which, by the way, is something Hauglid proposes, calling it AB0?

I think a missing copy seems reasonable unless you think the extant copy is the only copy of the Book of Abraham and is where the printed versions was copied from. That has its own problems to say the least. Most copies of documents from that era didn't persist so I don't find the argument from silence terribly persuasive either. But the extant copies sure don't seem like a working copy being translated either.

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Wouldn't they know what he was looking at when he translated it since they were right there in the room?

Why presume he was looking at anything given the example of the Book of Mormon? That's what's closest to what he's doing and all accounts have him never looking at the plates.

I should add an interesting aside that if the Book of Abraham is fraudulent then explaining these documents as working documents doesn't make a lot of sense either. They strongly suggest that at a minimum Joseph thought he was translating.

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I mean, why suggest a missing scroll theory unless Joseph knew what he was looking at when he translated?

The missing scroll theory presumes Joseph couldn't understand Egyptian (which I think everyone agrees with) and thus couldn't know the exact place he was translating anymore than he could with the Book of Mormon. I think there are problems with that theory, but that's not one of them.

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We are supposed to believe that after only translating 1 1/2 chapters of the BoA and creating the GAEL (which was done before the BoA manuscripts by Phelps, Williams & Parrish), that they stopped producing new translations of the papyrus to reverse engineer what they already had? Why? Why not write down more of what had already been translated but had not recorded, content that is talked about in numerous accounts from that time.

Why not Joseph translated only part of it, got busy with other things and some of his associates tried to reverse engineer what he'd already done assuming he was starting at the top of the existing scroll in some way?

I've not read Hauglund here so I can't really comment to his theory. Does he address why  he thinks the whole text was done? I've not really looked at this for a while but I always thought the assumption was a short part was done and then the rest years later. I may be completely wrong in that mind you.

[CA Steve]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Yes that's but one example. I'm not sure the project progressed but I'm not sure it was abandoned.

It did not progress, but to claim it was a dead end (Rongo's words) is not accurate if they held on to it for 8 years, used it for the Kinderhook translation and talked about publishing it. IOW they thought it was useful and accurate, especially important is that Joseph thought it  was accurate enough to interpret the KInderhook plates. That indicates he was extensively involved in the creation of the GAEL, in my opinion.

I think a missing copy seems reasonable unless you think the extant copy is the only copy of the Book of Abraham and is where the printed versions was copied from. That has its own problems to say the least. Most copies of documents from that era didn't persist so I don't find the argument from silence terribly persuasive either. But the extant copies sure don't seem like a working copy being translated either.

I think the extant copies were what was used for the printed version and the reason the extant copies don't seem like a working copy is that they had been busy working on the GAEL, so Joseph already had a good idea of what he thought the Egyptian characters said before he started dictating the Phelps manuscript.

Why presume he was looking at anything given the example of the Book of Mormon? That's what's closest to what he's doing and all accounts have him never looking at the plates.

I don't that comparison is close at all. When he was working on the BoM there were only a few people around him and he went out of his way to keep people from looking at the plates. Most (if not all) of the Book of Mormon was translated by Joseph looking in his hat at a seer stone. As far as I know this process (face in the hat) was not used at all in producing the Book of Abraham. The Egyptian artifacts, on the other hand, were not considered sacred and could be viewed and handled by anyone. He worked on the papyrus directly, he handled it extensively,  they copied large portions of it onto other documents with notations about their value, it was cut it up into sections and pasted them on backing paper, and Joseph gave extensive interpretations of specific parts to many different parties while examining the artifacts. This was totally different than how the Book of Mormon translation proceeded. 

I should add an interesting aside that if the Book of Abraham is fraudulent then explaining these documents as working documents doesn't make a lot of sense either. They strongly suggest that at a minimum Joseph thought he was translating.

 At best I see KEP as an attempt at a translation through the first 1 1/2 chapters of the BoA, which then it became problematic for obvious reasons and that is why they stopped. The Egyptian Papers, taken in toto, look exactly like an attempt to translate by someone of the 19th century like Joseph Smith who really could not translate Egyptian in any normal sense.

The missing scroll theory presumes Joseph couldn't understand Egyptian (which I think everyone agrees with) and thus couldn't know the exact place he was translating anymore than he could with the Book of Mormon. I think there are problems with that theory, but that's not one of them.

I don't understand you here. Why propose a missing scroll if the purpose of such a proposal isn't to imply the missing portions contained the Book of Abraham? I think the missing scroll theory is dependent on the belief Joseph was translating off of that portion. Whether or not he knew what it actually said is irrelevant in my opinion, it still would have been where the scribes tried to reverse engineer instead of the extant portions because that would be where they observed Joseph translating. Maybe I am missing something.

Why not Joseph translated only part of it, got busy with other things and some of his associates tried to reverse engineer what he'd already done assuming he was starting at the top of the existing scroll in some way? 

Because, as I noted Joseph, had not only translated the small portion of what we have today, there was much more he had verbally translated that was not written down. Why spend time on reverse engineering a portion already recorded when there were "hours" of portions not yet written down? And why have three different scribes at three different times with exactly the same results on exactly the same areas try and reverse engineer it?

I've not read Hauglund here so I can't really comment to his theory. Does he address why  he thinks the whole text was done? I've not really looked at this for a while but I always thought the assumption was a short part was done and then the rest years later. I may be completely wrong in that mind you.

How much more was revealed  at that time is unknown and also unknown  is what portions of it may have been written down and what portions of it was oral. Given the extent of what was thought to be known, it is very unlikely it had all been written down and lost. Especially since we seem to have at least 4 copies of the first part of Abraham.

 

 

Edited March 25, 2017 by CA Steve

[Robert F. Smith]

9 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

Once again:  This thread is on the BoA not about me; I'm trying to discuss th BoA and you keep making accusations like:  

"I can't understand what is being discussed," or "that I am almost like a drunk driver."  

Below was my response:

"Anti-intellectual mindset?"  Please expound.  Fake facts?  Please elaborate.  

Do you think Muhlestein was being honest  or forthright in his examination?  IMO, he wasn't... and it was embarrassing.  Further, I do not know where that video originated -- first time I saw it; and yes, I watched most of it.  You focus on my alleged"destructive and anti-intellectual mindset" more at times than on the discussion we are having here on the BoA."

You still can't explain what these "fake facts" are...but instead make allegations about me that have nothing to do with the BoA or this discussion.  

You made false claims about a video which was not by Muhlestein as though you were texting from the police Drunk Tank.  Your inability to even look at the blatant mistake you made in accusing an anti-Mormon video of being pro-Mormon is very much about your incapacity to understand even the most elementary conversation here.  You are not even trying, which is what makes the issue about you and not any other subject.

[clarkgoble]

6 hours ago, CA Steve said:

It did not progress, but to claim it was a dead end (Rongo's words) is not accurate if they held on to it for 8 years, used it for the Kinderhook translation and talked about publishing it. IOW they thought it was useful and accurate, especially important is that Joseph thought it  was accurate enough to interpret the KInderhook plates. That indicates he was extensively involved in the creation of the GAEL, in my opinion.

I'm not sure those are as opposed as you suggest, although the fact it was kept around suggests they didn't (yet) see it as a dead end. What's the source for publishing the GAEL or KEP? I've never heard that.

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I think the extant copies were what was used for the printed version and the reason the extant copies don't seem like a working copy is that they had been busy working on the GAEL, so Joseph already had a good idea of what he thought the Egyptian characters said before he started dictating the Phelps manuscript.

I confess I don't quite see the logic there. The extant copies don't appear like working copies because they were working on the GAEL? How does working on the GAEL change the extant texts. I must be missing something here. Could you be a bit more explicit in the details here? I might just not have heard the theory you're alluding to.

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I don't that comparison is close at all. When he was working on the BoM there were only a few people around him and he went out of his way to keep people from looking at the plates. Most (if not all) of the Book of Mormon was translated by Joseph looking in his hat at a seer stone. As far as I know this process (face in the hat) was not used at all in producing the Book of Abraham. The Egyptian artifacts, on the other hand, were not considered sacred and could be viewed and handled by anyone. He worked on the papyrus directly, he handled it extensively,  they copied large portions of it onto other documents with notations about their value, it was cut it up into sections and pasted them on backing paper, and Joseph gave extensive interpretations of specific parts to many different parties while examining the artifacts. This was totally different than how the Book of Mormon translation proceeded. 

Do we have any descriptions of the translation process of the BoA?  

The point about the BoM is that Joseph never looked at the text. That's huge for his methodology. To assume he had to look at the text here is the problem, not the question of whether other could look at it.

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 At best I see KEP as an attempt at a translation through the first 1 1/2 chapters of the BoA, which then it became problematic for obvious reasons and that is why they stopped. The Egyptian Papers, taken in toto, look exactly like an attempt to translate by someone of the 19th century like Joseph Smith who really could not translate Egyptian in any normal sense.

I'm missing something again. What is the relation in your eyes between the KEP & GAEL because what you outline seems contradictory.

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The missing scroll theory presumes Joseph couldn't understand Egyptian (which I think everyone agrees with) and thus couldn't know the exact place he was translating anymore than he could with the Book of Mormon. I think there are problems with that theory, but that's not one of them.

I don't understand you here. Why propose a missing scroll if the purpose of such a proposal isn't to imply the missing portions contained the Book of Abraham? I think the missing scroll theory is dependent on the belief Joseph was translating off of that portion. Whether or not he knew what it actually said is irrelevant in my opinion, it still would have been where the scribes tried to reverse engineer instead of the extant portions because that would be where they observed Joseph translating. Maybe I am missing something..

Those proposing a missing scroll think it contained the Book of Abraham but don't think Joseph had any way of knowing what parts of the scroll had the Book of Abraham in some form. So far as I know no one proposing the missing scroll theory think Joseph had any capability of knowing what was on the scrolls beyond personal revelation which, as with the Book of Mormon, likely didn't specify pages.

Attacks on the missing scroll theory that presume Joseph understood everything about the papyri seem misplaced.

Quote

Why not Joseph translated only part of it, got busy with other things and some of his associates tried to reverse engineer what he'd already done assuming he was starting at the top of the existing scroll in some way?

Because, as I noted Joseph, had not only translated the small portion of what we have today, there was much more he had verbally translated that was not written down. Why spend time on reverse engineering a portion already recorded when there were "hours" of portions not yet written down? And why have three different scribes at three different times with exactly the same results on exactly the same areas try and reverse engineer it?

Again could you give the details here? This isn't a theory I've heard. You're saying Joseph had the full text memorized, only spoke a small segment, and then gave the rest by memory years later? I confess that sounds a bit far fetched so I'm assuming I'm misunderstanding you.

Quote

I've not read Hauglund here so I can't really comment to his theory. Does he address why  he thinks the whole text was done? I've not really looked at this for a while but I always thought the assumption was a short part was done and then the rest years later. I may be completely wrong in that mind you.

How much more was revealed  at that time is unknown and also unknown  is what portions of it may have been written down and what portions of it was oral. Given the extent of what was thought to be known, it is very unlikely it had all been written down and lost. Especially since we seem to have at least 4 copies of the first part of Abraham

I confess I'm still not following you here.

[Gervin]

21 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You made false claims about a video which was not by Muhlestein as though you were texting from the police Drunk Tank.  Your inability to even look at the blatant mistake you made in accusing an anti-Mormon video of being pro-Mormon is very much about your incapacity to understand even the most elementary conversation here.  You are not even trying, which is what makes the issue about you and not any other subject.

One wonders about the mind of Robert F. Smith, and the dictionary reference he thinks best defines ad hominem.  One could also wonder (but probably not for long) about a board that has no problems with insensitive and insulting language directed at a poster.

I'll simply observe that Mr. Smith's language doesn't represent the type of respect, deference, or desire for understanding that scholars I'm familiar with exhibit.  People who demand scholarly dialogue but are unable to communicate in a scholarly fashion simply reveal they aren't up to the task ... and at the end of the day have nothing to defend.  This fits Mr. Smith to a T, in my opinion.

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, Gervin said:

One wonders about the mind of Robert F. Smith, and the dictionary reference he thinks best defines ad hominem.  One could also wonder (but probably not for long) about a board that has no problems with insensitive and insulting language directed at a poster.

I'll simply observe that Mr. Smith's language doesn't represent the type of respect, deference, or desire for understanding that scholars I'm familiar with exhibit.  People who demand scholarly dialogue but are unable to communicate in a scholarly fashion simply reveal they aren't up to the task ... and at the end of the day have nothing to defend.  This fits Mr. Smith to a T, in my opinion.

Thanks for your ad hominem, Gervin.  So, since I am such a horrible person, perhaps you could talk with Ouagadougou and ask why he lied about Muhlestein being the author of a video he attacked, a video which is anti-Mormon, but which Ouagadougou condemns is pro-Mormon.  In an age of fake news and fake facts, perhaps you think that is perfectly alright, and thus calling someone to account for such nonsense is always inappropriate.  Had you actually followed the discussion, you would note that I simply raised the question for him very nicely, but that he repeatedly ignored his own mistake (perhaps not even realizing that he had made the mistake, very much like a drunk not being able to track a conversation).  That sort of blatant incoherence is actually not typical of him, and represents a new low.  I am puzzled by it.  Hence, the question of inebriation or other psychological problem.  I am open to a better explanation.  Do you have one?