Kinderhook Plates Discovery damages BOA Missing Scroll and Catalyst Theories

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Calm said:

All?  

I’m talking about my personal friends who fit that description. 

[Teancum]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

Why does this matter?

I don't know.  Maybe it doesn't.  But it seems the church leadership thought it did since it promotes a narrative of plates on a table, screen in between JS and scribe and Urim and Thummim till recently.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

Why assume he would assume he’d have to use the same process to ‘translate’, especially when it appears he had already tried a few variations with the plates?  Maybe what he did depended on the day and what was going on around him.  By the end of all his translations, the method seems to have been quite varied for things we know for sure he worked on (plates present, plates not, ancient document likely not existing any more, papyri).  

Maybe.  Who knows?  JS never told us.  We just have what others reported.

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

He had to realize he was not following the same process of academics, that it was done through revelation/inspiration of some sort, so why would he assume he was locked into one form of revelation for translation when he had experienced multiple forms of revelation for other things? (Visions, visitations, mental revelations due to questions people asked, revelations triggered by reading scripture).

I have no idea.  Why receive the Urim and Thummim  and plates if he could just toss a stone in a hat and not even need the plates?

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

Why not experiment in this area as he tried different methods in other areas of his life over time (the pattern of plural marriages changed over time, temples were different, structure of Church authority changed).  Why be stagnant in one thing when he was fluid in so many others?

[Ryan Dahle]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Why does this matter?

Why assume he would assume he’d have to use the same process to ‘translate’, especially when it appears he had already tried a few variations with the plates?  Maybe what he did depended on the day and what was going on around him.  By the end of all his translations, the method seems to have been quite varied for things we know for sure he worked on (plates present, plates not, ancient document likely not existing any more, papyri).  

He had to realize he was not following the same process of academics, that it was done through revelation/inspiration of some sort, so why would he assume he was locked into one form of revelation for translation when he had experienced multiple forms of revelation for other things? (Visions, visitations, mental revelations due to questions people asked, revelations triggered by reading scripture).

Why not experiment in this area as he tried different methods in other areas of his life over time (the pattern of plural marriages changed over time, temples were different, structure of Church authority changed).  Why be stagnant in one thing when he was fluid in so many others?

Because it is so much easier to pin Joseph down if one assumes (against the historical evidence and contrary to Joseph's own revelations) that there is only one method to translate. If the square peg doesn't fit into the round hole all you have to do is get out the old jig saw and fashion that hole perfectly so the peg glides right through. Just force Joseph into dogmatically adopting a singular revelatory approach that he never claimed for himself and which, by all available evidence, he didn't actually adhere to. 

[Ryan Dahle]

8 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

15 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I'm not the one pointing them out. FAIR is. And the differences, as I understand them, are relevant to determining the plausibility of the scene being connected to the text of the BofA. Is it really just a typical funerary scene, as so many have alleged? Or is it possibly depicting something else, such as as Abraham being sacrificed on an altar?

I think there is a lot of wiggle room here anyway (considering how ancient people might reappropriate images). It's just not a hill I'm going to die on. Apparently you don't think any of the differences or similarities matter anyway. So apparently you don't care either. Cool. 

Again, the only things that connect it to Abraham and sacrifice are 1) The text of of the Book of Abraham and 2) the alterations in the lacunae that transform an embalming into a murder.

I never said the differences mattered because they unambiguously connect the scene with sacrifice. They seem to matter because they push back against the presumption that the illustration must be depicting a funerary scene (which, if one accepts, might reasonably preclude it from being a sacrifice scene). In other words, if it isn't a standard funerary scene, it could very well be a sacrifice scene. I thought you didn't want to get into all this stuff. What's your point?

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Teancum said:

I don't know.  Maybe it doesn't.  But it seems the church leadership thought it did since it promotes a narrative of plates on a table, screen in between JS and scribe and Urim and Thummim till recently.

 

 

Maybe.  Who knows?  JS never told us.  We just have what others reported.

I have no idea.  Why receive the Urim and Thummim  and plates if he could just toss a stone in a hat and not even need the plates?

This brings up something I was thinking on my walk yesterday. We have three examples of Joseph Smith allegedly translating from a non-English source into English. 

1. The Book of Mormon. The evidence suggests that Joseph dictated the text using the stone-in-hat method, without the plates being present. 

2. The Book of Abraham, where Joseph translated from the papyrus, which most witnesses say he had before him; there is some secondhand testimony that he used either the seer stone or the urim and thummim to translate. 

3. Doctrine and Covenants 7, which he translated from a parchment written by the apostle John that he saw in vision. 

In all of these instances, he had some kind of source text. But as we know, he didn’t use the physical plates in his translation of the Book of Mormon. It makes me wonder why it was so important to have and protect the physical plates if they weren’t needed. When he lost the 116 pages, the interpreters and the plates were taken away; why not just return the interpreters and keep the plates safe?

[carbon dioxide]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Why does this matter?

Why assume he would assume he’d have to use the same process to ‘translate’, especially when it appears he had already tried a few variations with the plates?  Maybe what he did depended on the day and what was going on around him.  By the end of all his translations, the method seems to have been quite varied for things we know for sure he worked on (plates present, plates not, ancient document likely not existing any more, papyri).  

He had to realize he was not following the same process of academics, that it was done through revelation/inspiration of some sort, so why would he assume he was locked into one form of revelation for translation when he had experienced multiple forms of revelation for other things? (Visions, visitations, mental revelations due to questions people asked, revelations triggered by reading scripture).

Why not experiment in this area as he tried different methods in other areas of his life over time (the pattern of plural marriages changed over time, temples were different, structure of Church authority changed).  Why be stagnant in one thing when he was fluid in so many others?

I am not sure why people assume that everything Joseph did was under some sort of inspiration by God.  Joseph said a prophet is only a prophet when he acts as such.  Which means all the other times, they are acting as a man and capable of making lots of mistakes.   Joseph was not a master translator.  Where did he learn to translate Egyptian or any other language?  When did he get the time?  At best he probably found some free time to read some books and study a few things.  He may have been a little full of himself on the ability to translate anything under the sun.  Perhaps he thought he could translate the Kinderhook plates.  That does not mean God wanted him to do it or was involved in any of it.  Since we don't really have the bulk of source material that Joseph used for the Book of Abraham,  the issue really does not bother me that much.  I see nothing to suggest the source material for Abraham chapters 1 through 5 came from the what does exist.  It could be that the source had a lot of stuff and only some of it God had interest in being translated.   The rest was just Joseph making hit and miss attempts.  God does like to see us put forth effort before he steps in.   But we all have to make our own conclusions on the issue.

[Ryan Dahle]

11 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

This brings up something I was thinking on my walk yesterday. We have three examples of Joseph Smith allegedly translating from a non-English source into English. 

1. The Book of Mormon. The evidence suggests that Joseph dictated the text using the stone-in-hat method, without the plates being present. 

2. The Book of Abraham, where Joseph translated from the papyrus, which most witnesses say he had before him; there is some secondhand testimony that he used either the seer stone or the urim and thummim to translate. 

3. Doctrine and Covenants 7, which he translated from a parchment written by the apostle John that he saw in vision. 

In all of these instances, he had some kind of source text. But as we know, he didn’t use the physical plates in his translation of the Book of Mormon. It makes me wonder why it was so important to have and protect the physical plates if they weren’t needed. When he lost the 116 pages, the interpreters and the plates were taken away; why not just return the interpreters and keep the plates safe?

https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-were-the-plates-present-during-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon

[Tweed1944]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We know that the originals of Fac 1 & 2 were damaged, so it is no surprise to find Reuben Hedlock restoring missing portions for publication.  Since he was not an Egyptologist, we can hardly expect those restorations to match modern museum restorations.  What should interest us primarily is whether Joseph correctly interpreted any of the words and images of those illustrations (facsimiles).  It is very difficult to explain how Joseph managed to get so much of that explanatory material correct.  Certainly the anti-Joseph Smith critics have completely failed to address that problem.

If figure three was not there how could he interpret it. The facsimile was damage. Insert a scene from another piece  of papyri. In all the examples i have seem in the colour plates in Tamis Mekis' book they all have the man in a boat and a scarab (insect) In Mekis' book 22 and 23 seem to have more than two heads. The "dove" in figure 7 seems to display legs and in some instance a penis. I think the catalyst is the way to go. 

[Calm]

14 hours ago, Teancum said:

Why receive the Urim and Thummim  and plates if he could just toss a stone in a hat and not even need the plates?

Because his view of transmission/translation changed over time?  In the beginning he had a very simplistic understanding of translation as did those around them.  Personal experience expanded his awareness. My guess not quite so much in all the others around him since they weren’t experiencing such themselves, just seeing the results.  Some would be able to take the leap of faith, others still needed to have the physical evidences, testified to by others they trusted at least if they weren’t able to see the plates and all themselves. 
 

The plates are evidence of the existence of a text, but not what the text says unless one can translate it. My guess is Joseph needed something to keep himself from second guessing too much, as in ‘am I imagining the whole thing’.  A starting point of faith, a seed to plant for himself and others. 
 

And I recognize if he was a fraud, having a prop to give his targets something to anchor his claims to would have been smart.  It works for fraud because it works for truth.  We need small experiences to build trust to take bigger steps of faith in all parts of our lives.  We don’t jump from seeing someone smile at us to going up to them and saying “marry me” (at least the vast majority don’t).  Small interactions that show we can trust each other not to hurt maliciously, that show there is mutual interest helps us have confidence to move to the next step in relationships, for example. 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Calm

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-were-the-plates-present-during-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon

I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but that made it sound like it was kind of a prop to convince others he actually had an ancient record. 

[Ryan Dahle]

3 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but that made it sound like it was kind of a prop to convince others he actually had an ancient record. 

It's not rude. That is one possible interpretation. But it doesn't take away from the potential utility mentioned in the article. If they were indeed authentic, there are valid reasons for them to have been kept around and not shown, except at a certain time and place. 

[Calm]

6 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but that made it sound like it was kind of a prop to convince others he actually had an ancient record. 

Why is that a problem?  Why would any person expect someone to accept a revelation out of the blue if they had not already established they were capable?

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Calm said:

Why is that a problem?  Why would any person expect someone to accept a revelation out of the blue if they had not already established they were capable?

It’s not a problem. I’m just not sure how that establishes Joseph was a capable translator. 

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

It’s not a problem. I’m just not sure how that establishes Joseph was a capable translator. 

It doesn’t. But it establishes there is something to be translated. Curiosity is fundamental to learning, to wanting to explore. 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Calm

[smac97]

10 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Quote

Quote

Yup. Catalyst theory is functionally equivalent to “he made it up.” 

What was he catalyzing if he was just making it up?

The text was the catalyst for his thoughts, nicht wahr?

Nun, nicht genau.

Looking at the origin of The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien "made it up."  That is materially distinguishable from what we believe about the Book of Abraham.  The Latter-day Saints believe that the Book of Abraham is of ancient origin, not an original composition springing from and originating in the imagination of Joseph Smith.

So no, I don't think the "catalyst theory is functionally equivalent to 'he made it up.'"  If I understand it correctly, the theory posits that the JSP were "catalysts" for receiving and conveying revelation from God, and not that they served as inspiration for Joseph to fabricate out of whole cloth.

In the end, it still comes down to a question of perspective and faith.  But I don't think Latter-day Saints who are advancing the "catalyst theory" are implicitly saying that Joseph "made it up."

10 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

The dispute is over where the thoughts came from, and that is not something one can determine through any kind of evidence. 

Ultimately, yes.  But there sure seem to be a lot of interesting "How on earth did Joseph Smith get that right?"-style tidbits along the way.  As I observed previously:

Quote

I am assuming you did not present any of this to Mr. Charlesworth.  I'm curious what he would say about how an unlettered 30-year-old man living on the American frontier in 1835 fabricating a narrative about Abraham that includes elements not found in the Bible or any other sources contemporaneous with and available to Joseph Smith, but which were later found in other ancient sources long after 1835, such as:

• A) Abraham having received divine training/instruction in astronomy,
• B) Abraham receiving visions of the "throne {of God},"
• C) Abraham being rescued by an angel from being the victim of human sacrifice, and
• D) Abraham later teaching astronomy to Pharoah. 

To again quote Daniel Peterson: "It's amazing what Joseph Smith was able to pick up on the western frontier."

And this from Ryan Dahle in 2020:

Quote

With that in mind, we have the following statements from Joseph Smith and various scholars about the symbolism of the 4 canopic jars:

• Joseph Smith: "Represents this earth in its four quarters" (which as shown above is synonymous with the cardinal points or directions in his day)
• Richard H. Wilkinson: "The group ... are often given geographic associations and hence became a kind of “regional” group. . . . The four gods were sometimes depicted on the sides of the canopic chest and had specific symbolic orientations, with Imsety usually being aligned with the south, Hapy with the north, Duamutef with the east and Qebehsenuef with the west."
• James P. Allen: "representing the cardinal directions"
• Manfred Lurker: "each [of the sons of Horus] had a characteristic head and was associated with one of the four cardinal points of the compass"
• Geraldine Pinch: "The four sons were also associated with the four directions (south, north, east, and west)" 
• Michael D. Rhodes: "They were the gods of the four quarters of the earth ... and later came to be regarded as presiding over the four cardinal points."
• E. Wallis Budge: "Each was supposed to be the lord of one of the quarters of the world, and finally became the god of one of the cardinal points."
• Maarten J. Raven: the primary purpose of the Sons of Horus was to act as “the four corners of the universe and the four supports of heaven, and only secondarily with the protection of the body’s integrity.”

This is unquestionably a bullseye. 

And here:

Quote

Here is what we can confidently say about Joseph's explanations of these figures:

1. The symbolic representation he provided for facsimile 2, figure 6 ("Represents this earth in its four quarters") is supported by current Egyptology, is extremely unlikely to have been "guessed," and there is currently no explanation for how Joseph likely gained access to this knowledge (but I remain open to the possibility that such a channel might exist; as I previously stated). 
2. The names he associated with the canopic jars in Facsimile 1 are attested in relevant ancient contexts. The chances of him guessing 4 names in a row that could linguistically be associated with known deities from the approximate times and relevant regions seems to be very unlikely, as Gee points out.
3. The relationship between the names Joseph gave in Facsimile 1 and the canopic jars aren't attested in extant documents.

By my count, that is two positive evidences and a mere absence of evidence. Looks like all the actual evidence is towards the affirmative on this one, seeing that an absence of evidence isn't actually evidence, especially when the type of thing that is being assumed to fill this gap (the presence of syncretism and the fluidity in identifying various gods with different symbols) is well-attested in ANE cultures. 

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited May 20, 2022 by smac97

[webbles]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

There are some 30 known couch scenes, as I recall. There are differences in each and some main commonalities. I’m trying to imagine the significance of the differences you point out, but I am at a loss. 

It is the only known couch scene that appears to show the person alive on the couch and even possibly "struggling".  Having the legs spread apart instead of together and having Anubis in between the person and the couch is significant.  Maybe we'll find a nice Egyptian explanation for that at some point in the future, but we don't have that yet.

[jkwilliams]

16 minutes ago, webbles said:

It is the only known couch scene that appears to show the person alive on the couch and even possibly "struggling".  Having the legs spread apart instead of together and having Anubis in between the person and the couch is significant.  Maybe we'll find a nice Egyptian explanation for that at some point in the future, but we don't have that yet.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HH7xhtBNRBU/T4Htk4Qt_QI/AAAAAAAABSc/Wds-UYPk6RE/s1600/emba.jpg

[Calm]

15 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HH7xhtBNRBU/T4Htk4Qt_QI/AAAAAAAABSc/Wds-UYPk6RE/s1600/emba.jpg

Do you have the citation info?

[SeekingUnderstanding]

9 minutes ago, Calm said:

Do you have the citation info?

I don’t, but it shows up here:

http://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/1979/04/other-signs-of-lion-couch.html?m=1

[carbon dioxide]

2 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

The Book of Mormon. The evidence suggests that Joseph dictated the text using the stone-in-hat method, without the plates being present.

Just going to ponder and chew on that bit of meat for a moment. Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon with his face in a hat with a stone.  He dictated entire chapters of Isaiah almost word for word of the KJV, thousands of words, to a scribe hardly making any mistakes with his face in a hat.  I have a hard time reading Isaiah withing fumbling over words as I read it with my eyes.  Yet Joseph did it almost flawlessly to a scribe with his face in a hat.  That is INSANE hard.  How many people on this planet could do that?

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

In all of these instances, he had some kind of source text. But as we know, he didn’t use the physical plates in his translation of the Book of Mormon. It makes me wonder why it was so important to have and protect the physical plates if they weren’t needed. When he lost the 116 pages, the interpreters and the plates were taken away; why not just return the interpreters and keep the plates safe?

The Seer Stone displayed some clairvoyant abilities of up to 5 feet or so, so under a cloth on the table or in a box across the room maybe a lot different than if it were still in its burial site.

There are no holy books that I'm aware of that weren't based on books that must be written by someone, and whose words are not merely earth bound, the Torah, New Testament, and the Quran we are told are just the dictates of the words of God that still exist in heavenly books that are not on earth (Exodus 31:18; Ezekiel 2:9; Revelations 5:1; 1 Enoch 81; Jubilees 32:21; Prayer of Joseph B; 3 Enoch 41; Quran 96:1-5).

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

For me, it was realizing that I was suppressing my conscience to defend things I knew were morally wrong. You can’t do that forever, unless of course you have no conscience to begin with. 

It must be dreadful for you to have to spend so much time on a forum with people who believe, defend, and even love things that you know to be morally wrong.

I'm unsure which percentage of us just aren't as morally developed as you and which percentage of us had no conscience to begin with, but I apologise for being someone with either a) a poorly developed sense of morality or b) no conscience at all!

Though in my case, it may well be a bit of column A mixed with a bit of column B. 

[sunstoned]

6 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

When did this happen?  We have fragments but a fragment of something never equals the whole.  That is like finding a first century fragment of Corinthians and concluding we have the epistle of Corinthians from just a fragment.

We have the facimiles and we have Joseph Smith's detailed "translation" of them. You don't have to have the complete detailed record to determine that the translation is way wrong, made up wrong.  Apologist seem to want to skip over that inconvenient fact. So what is the spin on this one?  JS blew the translation of all the papyrus that we have, but all the rest (the stuff we don't have) he translated correctly?  It wasn't written by the hand of Abraham.  It is a 2nd century Egyptian funeral text.  

[filovirus]

1 hour ago, carbon dioxide said:

Just going to ponder and chew on that bit of meat for a moment. Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon with his face in a hat with a stone.  He dictated entire chapters of Isaiah almost word for word of the KJV, thousands of words, to a scribe hardly making any mistakes with his face in a hat.  I have a hard time reading Isaiah withing fumbling over words as I read it with my eyes.  Yet Joseph did it almost flawlessly to a scribe with his face in a hat.  That is INSANE hard.  How many people on this planet could do that?

There are times Joseph used a veil between him and the scribe. It is possible he had a bible open. To me it doesn’t make a difference if he did or not, but to others it might. The Isaiah chapters would have been near the end of the translation  process for the BoM, and I’m not sure he was still using a veil at that time.

[filovirus]

2 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but that made it sound like it was kind of a prop to convince others he actually had an ancient record. 

One can have this view. Here is a quote from the article referenced: “Just as Moses and the brother of Jared were the only ones allowed to fully enter into the Lord’s presence, Joseph Smith was the only one initially allowed to fully view the plates. For everyone else, the plates, like the Lord Himself, were present and yet veiled—just out of sight, but never fully out of mind. In the Israelite and Jaredite exodus stories, the Lord’s veiled presence provided a visible reminder that it was truly God Himself, and not just the prophet, who was actively guiding them toward the Promised Land. Likewise, the covered plates were a constant reminder that the words which Joseph Smith was dictating were not his own; they were being given to him by Jesus Christ”

To me, I understand the original stone box that housed he plates, as well as the Nephite relics, was the Nephite version of the Ark of the Covenant. And hence, the plates would need to covered at all times by a veil, or hidden behind a veil. It wasn’t because it was a prop, it was because of the sacredness of the plates.