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In October of 2006, and in light of Hauglid's recent presentation, I responded to his failure to share with his audience the argument for dictation. I posted a challenge for Will who was at the time serving as his internet lapdog. The irony is that I argued along the same lines that Daniel McClellan argues now. Daniel maintains that one cannot insist on a dictated text theory without explaning the evidence that suggests a copied text. There is nothing wrong with his argument here and I agree that nothing conclusive has been presented to fully explain the dittograph found at the very end in Ms1a.

However, there is a hypocritical flip side to this coin. Mr. Schryver and "Text-Critic" specialist Brian Hauglid had no problems pursuing the copyist theory based strictly on the dittograph, without explaining the evidence that strongly suggest the text was dictated. Now the big difference here is that I have put the dittograph on the backburner because it is just one piece of evidence in their favor. Also, it shows up at the tail end of the document, and it involves several anomalies that indicate something else was going on in the room at the time this portion was written. In my view, the possibilities as to why this occurs is just too many to entertain. Brent claims he has a better explanation that he will be publishing in his upcoming volume, and my experience with him tells me I won't be disappointed with what he presents.

Now by contrast, Will and Hauglid have neglected to address numerous pieces of evidence that strongly suggest the text was mostly transcribed via dictation. What follows is the same list of evidences I presented to Hauglid and Schryver four years ago, and I challenge Will to address them whenever he wanders over here. He never does. He only wants us to explain away his dittograph, which is the only piece of evidence he has provided to support the copyist theory.

Keep in mind that this is an incomplete list (before Brent and Chris say it ). But these should suffice to give people some idea what we're basing our argument on. So, without further ado:

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Dictation Evidence #1 - Abr 1:4

Problem: "Whereunto" is crossed out and corrected in transition by both scribes. "Thine" is crossed out replaced with "mine" by both scribes. It is possible that "mine" was a secondary correction, but "unto" was clearly made in transition.

Proposed Explanations:

1. In our view, the text was dictated, the speaker corrected the scribes and they made the correction in transition.

2. In the Hauglid view, these men were copying some source document and either (a) decided to make a xerox copy of an error-ridden text or (b) they just happened to make the same exact mistakes while copying a non error-ridden sourcve document.

3. In the Schryver view these were "secondary emendations" (Will believes all similar corrections are the result of secondary emendations) which means someone came along afterwards and scribbled in the correction. This also means that in order for Will's theory to work, then the scribes had to have had the foreknowledge that the word "whereunto" would be corrected as soon as they finished writing it down, so they wrote it down anyway, and then proceeded to provide the corresponding corrections.

In which corner of the universe would either of these two scenarios be rational? But wait, there is plenty more of this.

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Dictation Evidence #2 - Abr 1:9

Problem: The two scribes do not transcribe this word the same way. According to Brent's analysis, "both Williams and Parrish correct inadvertent errors: Williams initially spelled the deity's name with a lowcase s and then corrected it to an uppercase S; Parrish intially spelled the name with two a's (i.e., "Shagral") he then erased the second "a" and overwrote it with to e's; note also that Parrish initally confused the homonyms son and sun."

Proposed Explanations:
1. In our view, the scribes were transcribing a dictated text, weren't sure how the word should appear on paper, and used their best judgment according to the manner in which the speaker pronunciated it. (The person dictating probably paused slightly in the middle of pronouncing the word, thus Williams divied the word with = and - respectively. He also mistook sun for son, as one might expect in a dictated text.)

2. In the Schryver/Hauglid view these two men were copying a source document, and Williams must have hallucinated for a brief moment, seeing "=" in the middle of the word.

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Dictation Evidence #3 - Abr 1:11

Problem: xxxxx is an illegible word that was crossed out by both scribes

Proposed Explanations:
1. In our view, the speaker dictated the erroneous word first and then corrected himself after the scribes had already written it down.

2. In the Will/Hauglid view, the scribes were copying a source document and either (a) coincidentally copied the document incorrectly, exactly the same way or (b) they were told to make a xerox copy of an already error-ridden manuscript (meaning for some strange reason they decided they needed at least three copies of an error-ridden manuscript, from two different scribes)

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Dictation Evidence #4 - Abr 1:12

Problem: "that is lying before you" was crossed out by William Parrish in Ms1b and replaced with the correct text. A partial mistake was made by F.G. Williams in Ms1a.

Proposed Explanations:

1. In our view, the scribes were transcribing a dictated text when the speaker stopped to correct an erroneous translation. Parrish has to erase four words and Williams only two words, because Parrish was writing at a slightly faster pace.

2.. In the Schryver/Hauglid view, this entire phrase was a secondary addition to the text, and probably isn't original to Joseph Smith's translation at all. Which means the argument used to connect the Sensen text to the Book of Abraham can be dispensed with. Long live the missing roll!

*** Brent Metcalfe responded to this with what I believe was conclusive text-critical evidence that the emendation was in transition, and not secondary. Here is the link to the debate over that argument: (http://www.mormonapologetics.org/topic/ ... e__st__180)

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Dictation Evidence #5 - Abr 1:13

Problem: These words are spelled differently by each scribe.

Proposed Explanations:

1. In our view, the scribes spelled the words according to their own understanding of the pronunciation, and not according to visual confirmation.

2. In the Schryver/Hauglid view, even though the scribes were supposedly copying the same source document, they copied the text down in two different ways.

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Dictation Evidence #6 - Abr 1:17

Problem: These four words were scratched out and replaced with corrected text.

Proposed Explanations:

1. In our view, the scribes were halted in the middle of dictation as the speaker provided the corrected translation. Parrish did not complete the word "turned" when the speaker stopped them in mid-sentence. By cutting the word short by two letters (ed), this suggests this wasn't a copied text. People don't generally correct a miscopied text until the entire word is complete and the error becomes apparent.

2. In the Schryver/Hauglid view, Williams and Parrish again make the same mistake coincidentally as they are copying from a source document. And again their errors are not identical. They also shared another hallucination, as they mistook "their hearts are turned" for "they have turned their hearts away."

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Dictation Evidence #7 - Abr 1:26

Problem: Both scribes wrote four illegible words before crossing them out and replacing them with the corrected text.

Proposed Explanations:

1. In our view, the text was dictated and the scribes were corrected in mid-sentence and the corrected text was placed in transition.

2. In the Schryver/Hauglid view, these scribes were copying from the same source document and either (a) coincidentally copied the text incorrectly, the exact same way or (b) were providing a xerox copy of an error-ridden document.

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Dictation Evidence #8 - Abr 1:26

Problem: These words are spelled differently by each scribe.

Proposed Explanations:

1. In our view, the scribes spelled the words according to their own understanding of the pronunciation, and not according to visual confirmation.

2. In the Schryver/Hauglid view, even though the scribes were supposedly copying the same source document, they copied the text down in two different ways.

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I hope this sheds further understanding on why the "critics" argue Ms1a and Ms1b were simultaneously dictated. Our position is that Ms2 was a cleaner copy of Ms1b and Ms3 represents the 1842 printers manuscript.

The "gods of this land" emendation discussed here) also deserves mention, as do the presence of poor or infrequent punctuation and in-line emendations on the manuscripts-- classic hallmarks of dictated manuscripts.

Not sure how I could forget that one. Keep'm comin Chris. I'll try to add some more this weekend when I have more time.

But this seems to be your approach to the dittograph. You cannot offer a reasonable explanation for its presence and instead pursue the dictation theory based strictly on everything but the page with the dittograph.



I would respectfully request you take it off the backburner. After our recent exchange I started a thread entirely for the purpose of providing a forum to exclusively discuss the dittograph. Hopefully you can see that, to me, it appears you're doing exactly what you accuse Hauglid and Schryver of doing (namely, ignoring problematic evidence in order to focus solely on evidence in your favor). Am I mistaken? Can I expect a post on my thread in the not-too-distant future?



This seems like another evasion. I've explained why my theory fully accounts for all the data, and why your theory cannot. If there are too many possibilities to entertain, please give me just one reasonable one to work with.



So you're deferring that argument to Brent? I should not wait for you to respond on my thread? It's my understanding that Brent's publication has been in limbo for years. Are you really requesting I just wait for his publication, whenever it may appear?



I hardly see a difference between reticence involving one piece of evidence or many pieces of evidence. Each piece of evidence is important.



And your response is that it's not worth your time, and we should just wait for Brent's publication anyway?



I'm not opposed at this point to accepting dictation in some, many, or all parts of the Abraham manuscript in light of the fact that my theory is the only one proposed that can provide a reasonable explanation for all the data. However, I see some critical problems with several of these examples. I'll comment only on those and let Will comment on what he wants.



Spelling did not have the same standardization that it does today, nor did the discipline of transliteration. I find differences in spelling to be quite weak evidence in questions of 19th century orthography. See how many words have multiple spellings in the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon. One thing I've noticed about the EAG is that the same scribe would often arbitrarily switch the way they spelled words. Now, dashes and equal signs are an interesting issue as well. In the photo you've provided you can see that the scribe used an equal sign in one occurrence of the word and a simple dash in the next. No hallucination was responsible for this variation. It didn't matter to the scribe. It was an irrelevant grapheme. What text-critical principle demands that he only could have written the equal sign and then a dash if it was found exactly that way in his Vorlage? Look at the way Phelps spells Pha ho e oop throughout the EA and GAEL. It's Pha ho e oop in the second through fifth degrees, but it's Pha-ho-e-oop in the first degree, and Pha=ho=e=oop in the EA. The dashes and equal signs seem arbitrary and irrelevant in those texts, and Phelps was clearly transcribing the word into the GAEL from the EA. Look at Ho e oop. Phelps writes Ho=e=oop. Cowdery writes Ho=e-oop. Phelps writes Ho e oop for the first four degrees of the GAEL, but suddently in the fifth degree he writes Ho-e-oop. It wasn't a hallucination there, was it? Look at Ho-e=oop=hah (Phelps' spelling). Cowdery writes Ho=e=oop-hah. In the GAEL Phelps writes Ho=e oop=hah for degree one, Ho=e-oop=hah for degree two, and Ho e oop hah for the rest. Look at the way Cowdery and Phelps transliterate the words in the EA, as well. They spell the words the same (and quite distinctly from Smith) except for the arbitrarily varying equal signs and dashes. It's held that this text was dictated as well. Why such consistent agreement on such bizarre spelling (save, of course, irrelevant dashes and equal signs)? Next, look at the word "Haran" in Ab2, page 4. It is "Haran" the first time (Abr 2:1), "Haron" the second time (Abr 2:2), and "Haran" the third time (Abr 2:5). Same scribe. Same word. Why the difference? Spelling was not a strict discipline back then. You're appealing to a presentistic axiom. These spelling variations don't indicate dictation at all.



What word was crossed out? If you don't know what the word said you don't know if it was originally anomalous or not, and so you don't know if it was in transition or secondary.



It seems from your link that Schryver had the last word in that debate, and he stated that expert forensic analysis confirmed that the parenthesis was secondary. The photo he provided seems to support his conclusion, and Brent never responded. Am I missing something?



See above. Separating compound words is even less firm evidence, given that's such a subjective call with 19th century orthography. For instance, see Joseph Smith's entry on Zub Zool oan at the end of the EA. "High Priest" is two words, but in the fifth degree explanation in the GAEL, it appears to be one word (Phelps adds semicolons as well!). Chris Smith's JWHAJ paper transliterates it as one word. Phelps then separates it into two words in Ab1! Abr 1:1-3 seems to me to be transcribed and not dictated, and it would have to be for the serial semicolons to be relevant to Chris' argument for dependency.



Again, unless you know what words were crossed out you cannot determine if they were crossed out secondarily or in transition.



Spelling differences are, again, weak evidence. Now you're claiming, however, that each scribe heard one thing but wrote it down how they wanted. Why does this suggest dictation and not transcription? If they felt justified in writing "their own understanding of the pronunciation," why not their own understanding of the spelling?



I think you've got one decent piece of evidence for dictation so far, but so far I've seen nothing that undermines the notion that Smith was just reading from a prepared text. My theory outlined in my Celestial forum thread remains the only reasonable explanation that accounts for all the data.

Shall we say that your theory is the "magic bullet" of Book of Abraham apologetics? It accounts for all of the data, but in a way that is highly unlikely. You seem to be saying that if Kevin is unable to account for one aspect of the text, that his theory fails, whereas you can create a Frankenstein theory of the text, which is weighted heavily in favor of a single observation you have made, in order to fit all of the different data that indicate the possibility of dictation. I don't see the advantage there.



If I see five good evidences that Augustus was on Aegina on 19 June in the year 19 BCE, and one good evidence that he was in Rome, where was Augustus? In both places? If the evidence that he was in Rome is important, does that dictate our decision such that the other five evidences do not matter? Please help me understand your rationale for this standard of evidence.



And here is where it gets confusing, because you insist that he is both dictating from a complete manuscript of Abraham 1-3 and then having them transcribe from the same manuscript, when he could just as easily, and perhaps more believably, be piecing together fragments of translated text and dictating other parts, or simply dictating them with the only unresolved issue really being the homoioteleuton. I would be interested to know why this would have to be a complete manuscript of Abraham 1-3 that they are working with. Why do they stop in the middle of chapter two when they have all of chapter three?



So you are saying that it is unnecessary to assume that they would faithfully copy the orthography of the manuscript, or that here they are receiving oral dictation of a written manuscript and thus we should not expect consistent spelling?



Which was dictated, right? Or are we talking about a printer's manuscript?



But here we are talking about two different scribes responding to the same stimulus, whether visual or aural, right? I mean, it is one thing to say that Phelps spells things differently on different occasions within the same manuscript, and quite another to say that there are two different spellings in response to the same stimulus. Presumably, if the two are writing what they see, they are more likely to copy the word the same way, no? Whereas, if they were hearing it, they are more likely to have written it down as they saw fit.

From what I can tell of your further responses, the crux of the matter seems to be whether one can tell the difference between a prepared text that is read out in dictation or one that is copied. And it seems to me that, in this case, you would have to argue that it was read in dictation rather than copied by sight, except perhaps in the case of the homoioteleuton, right?

So, I want to be clear--your position is that the instance of homoioteleuton on its own determines the method of production for the entire text, since in your view the rest of it could be read out loud from a prepared manuscript (and we can't really distinguish from the reading and dictating anyways)? Please correct me where I am wrong. I am trying to understand your position.

Why do you suppose they would read a complete manuscript of Abraham 1-3 to two scribes, a process that is likely to introduce more errors into the text, than simply having them copy it as had been done in usual scribal practice for centuries? I am not really that familiar with 19th century scribal practices, so maybe you know something that I don't.

My approach is to start at the beginning, so sue me. And from beginning to near the end the manuscripts are littered with clear evidences for dictation. The dittograph appears at the tail end of one manuscript. If it were located somewhere in the middle, it would be more of a problem for the dictation argument, but as it is there is nothing about the dittograph to overthrow the mountain of evidence for dictation throughout the rest of the manuscript.

Will's approach was to assert these were copies from the beginning before he even analyzed these texts, because that was the best case scenario for the apologetic position. So he scoured the manuscripts for any possible signs of something that could be considered a "copying error," intentionally leaping over evidences for dictation and dismissing some of them as "secondary emendations." He finally came across this dittograph at the very end of Ms1a, which we had already acknowledged as a copy. Unlike our approach, he decided he would start from the ending, and completely ignore the rest.

So Daniel, why are you beginning at the end if you're an objective scholar with no apologetic presuppositions to validate? I've heard of beginning with a conclusion and forcing the evidence to fit that conclusion but you're taking this quite literally in this instance. ;)

And that thread will pertain to the dittograph. In the meantime, I expect someone claiming to be an objective expert with no apologetic stake in this matter, to be intellectually honest with the data and offer rational explanations for the numerous evidences I provided in this post. Let's see if you can concede the evidence-based points, as you so demanded of me.

I see your comprehension is failing you again. The difference is that I have at least offered a possible explanation for the dittoograph, whereas neither Will nor Hauglid has even acknowledged, let alone addressed the evidences for dictation. So no, there is no hypocrisy or comparison here. Whether you like my explanation is irrelevant to the fact that I have in fact offered one. I put the dittograph on the backburner because all it tells us is that the final paragraph on the last page of one manuscript, was a copy. That's it. We all agree to this, so what is left, especially since you already stated that this being a copy has no bearing on whether the rest was dictated. So why are you beating it into the ground as if it were your only salvo?

Your theory doesn't work because it presumes the text was dictated by someone reading another source document, which is a ridiculous assumption from left field. It seems the only reason you assert it is because it is the only way to account for the dictation evidence while protecting the sanctity of the apologetic "Joseph Smith had nothing to do with these mistranslations" position. Let me guess, the guy dictating these texts was Phelps, right? The historical evidences prove these men were hired scribes, employed by Joseph Smith, to transcribe what he dictated. If anyone was reading off translated text with corresponding Egyptian characters, it would be their Prophet.

Sigh... I don't care what you do Dan. I've presented the evidence for dictation, and you can deal with it, dismiss it or manipulate it for your own end. Ultimately, your arguments will be judged based on their merits and I am happy with that. And yes, I responded to your thread. Forgive me for spending most of the day creating this thread, which I promised to do three days ago, before responding to yours in Celestial. I should be ashamed of myself, really.

The difference is that I have acknowledged the dittograph and have the intellectual honesty to say, "I don't know" why it is there. By contrast, Will and Hauglid are intellectually dishonest apologists who do presentations for FAIR and tell their gullible audience that the critics only assert a dictation scenario, but that they've never seen any evidence to support this. Brian Hauglid is on Youtube saying this and Will said the same thing just a few hours ago. So what do you think of their "text critical" skills and "objectivity" for insisting there is zero evidence for dictation? From where I'm standing, that puts us in a pretty good position, objectively speaking. We've always maintained that the documents represent mostly copied texts with some dictation, whereas they've never once allowed for the possibility for dictation, and hung their so-called "text critical" analysis on this conclusion.

My response is that I do not know. Why is this so difficult for you to understand or accept? I've never once claimed to know the answer to the dittograph. Not once. It is an anomaly that appears at the tail end of one dictated text, along with several other anomalies uncharacteristic of the whole. I think it is wiser to try interpreting it in light of a dictated text, instead of trying to interpret a dozen evidences for dictation in light of a dittograph at the tail end.

So long as the dictation is coming from someone reading the source document that Will and Hauglid have argued for, correct?

Can you tell us how it is reasonable to assume two men would copy down two the same word and write it differently when they are looking at how it is spelled on the mysterious "source document" from which it was allegedly copied? I'm all ears.

Dan the evidence from this example goes far deeper than a simple variance in spelling. For example, Ms1a says shagreel was the son, and then immediately crosses out son and replaces it with the homonym "sun." Are you going to argue that sun was another way of spelling son in the early 19th century? Please say it ain't so.

Yes, and the other scribe didn't, which was the point.

That wasn't the variation I was referring to. I was referring to the variation between the two scribes who were supposed too be "copying" Shagreel from some source document. The more rational explanation as to why one scribe would spell it shag=reel and shag-reel, and another scribe spell it shagreel, is that they weren't looking at it spelled on any document, and they were going by what they assumed the proper spelling was. But the "son <--> sun" correction pretty much makes this a rock solid case of an error via dictation, as I think you would agree.

Are you seriously misunderstanding the argument this badly? If he were reading it from a source document there is no reason why it should be spelled three different ways between two scribes. Period. The rest of your response to this doesn't address the point and I think you will agree that writing "son" instead of "sun" is a textbook example of transcription error via dictation. I should have included that in this example, and I will add edit it to include it, probably tomorrow.

This is what the text says. “Onitah, one of the xxxxxx royal descent directly”. OK, I can see that it might be an adjective that was crossed out, and so it is plausibly a secondary emendation. But I suspect further analysis of the color copies will reveal what the word was, and then we can determine if it was anomalous or not.

Will says stuff like this all the time, and Will has proven he cannot be trusted, so this is a judgment call. Besides, what good is a four year old assertion that you refuse to substantiate? We've never seen any of his experts come forward and explain their findings with evidence. And besides, I've seen how his "text-critic" expert has made similar arguments and lost the debate against Brent Metcalfe. It all comes down to credibility for me. Hauglid and Gee have lied too many times. We know Brent is never going to get his hands on the documents to allow independent experts to analyze them, so the apologists will always be able to claim whatever the hell they want when it comes to the "analyses" that take place behind closed doors at BYU. Nothing will change that.

Brent was never talking to Will to begin with, from what I remember. He was debating Brian, and Brian is the one who didn't respond to Brent's last post. I don't expect you to be convinced, but I provided this thread so people from all corners can be exposed to what has been debated. People can make their own judgments about the photo arguments presented by Brent and Will. In my view Brent won that particular debate, and Will's attempt to manipulate photos to suit his apologetic goal wasn't impressive.

You're avoiding the point again, which is the fact that two scribes were supposedly copying these things down from a source document. Were they copying from two different source documents? Variant spellings from dictation are expected, but not from direct copies of something as important as a translation of scripture.

In the case of one word being scratched out, yes. But in the case of four words being scratched out, the likelihhod that this sentence would have remaind coherent with these deleted words, is less likely. Here is the example: "“and also of Noah, his father, xx xx xxx xxxx who blessed him”

Those words that were scratched out - I just confirmed with Brent - were "for in his days." So you are saying the text was originally, "and also of Noah, his father, for in his days who blessed him” and that this makes perfect sense to you? Brent has the color photos and so he does a better job of describing the evidence for this passage than I do. I recommend looking it over here:
http://www.mormonapologetics.org/topic/ ... 1208008754

Not in the case of simultaneous copying from the same document. Spelling differences represent strong evidence against this, which means you need to alter your theory to involve two different source documents, one for each scribe, to diffuse the spelling errors. By doing this you can just claim the two source documents contained those errors as well, which is exactly how Hauglid and Schryver have dealt with it. In which case, you then have to explain what the hell these guys were doing making so many friggin copies of error-ridden texts. And why the Church felt it important to guard and preserve these documents, but not the sacred original manuscripts from which these documents allegedly derive. We have the original and printer's manuscripts of the Book of Mormon, so why is it so hard to believe the Church saved the original/printers manuscripts for other scriptues as well?

Again, transcription can be via dictation or copying. The way you use the word makes your point ambiguous. If by transcription you mean "copied", then obviously you'll need two different source documents which contain the two different renderings of these words. Saying these guys were paid to copy texts and yet had the liberty to spell them any way they wished, isn't a very compelling argument. It defeats the purpose.

Because that defeats the purpose of copying!! It wasn''t their job to reinvent the text. It was their job to either transcribe via dictation or copy a text as it appeared on a preexistent document. Only in a dictation scenario would it be reasonable to expect variant spellings like these, especially so many in such a short document.

Your theory presents more problems than it solves in my view. But given your recent history, I take it that agreeing to disagree isn't something you're willing to do?

PS: Some keys on this computer have a tendency to "stick" so forgive the typos.

Some established facts for those who need a refresher....

Joseph Smith claimed to be able to translate Egyptian Papyri X.

The translation explicitly refers to this document's attached facsimile.

This facsimile is canonized along with the scripture.

Virtually all historical descriptions of the papyri refer explicitly to the papyri that is extant.

Joseph Smith hired scribes to transcribe his dictated translation.

We have documents written in his scribes handwriting, including Egyptian characters from Papyrus X, as we would expect, along with corresponding English text from the publised Book of Abraham.

We have testimony indicating these men were involved in the translation process. There are no statements supporting an attempt to encode anything via masonic/sanskrit/arabic ciphers.

Using Mak's objective perspective and intellectual honesty, lets see if he is willing to apply the same standard of evidence to these facts as he is with his precious dittograph.

Given all of these facts, what is more likely:

1. That papyrus X, as described by historical accounts, as well as the Abr 1:12, was translated by Joseph Smith and that produced the Book of Abraham even though those characters do not translate to anything related to the Book of Abraham, according to Egyptology.

Or.... (drum roll)

2. Joseph Smith didn't really mean translate when he said translate, nor did he really mean Egyptian when he said Egyptian, and Papyrus X is still missing (despite the fact that virtually all historical descriptions of the papyri describe extant portions) and the facsimile was erroneously placed at the beginning of the scripture because some mysterious nimrod put it there, forcing the Prophet to just go along with it, (indeed, Will says he wouldn't be surprised if the Church removed it because he proved the Abr 1:12 was a later addition that didn't belong), which was all probably a redaction from some mysterious Jew anyway, and the surviving manuscripts were not the product of Joseph Smith but rather some rogue scribes who decided they'd translate this stuff on their own, and if that isn't what they were doing, then they were enciphering the scripture into a secret code (while transcribing them via dictation at some points, and copying them at other points) which was going to be published soon anyway, and all this they did from the wrong scroll no less!

I know the standard Book of Abraham is far more convoluted than this, but I figured why go further when Maklelan should already see the truth here. I mean, he is an objective professional who will follow the evidence and accept only the most reasonable, parsimonious explanations that account for all of the evidence. He said so himself. So Daniel, what say you? Which of the two is the most reasonable explanation that accounts for most of the evidence?

Book of Abraham apologists have consistently run away from the evidence in their search of one convoluted hypothetical after another, all for the sake of complicating the matter as much as possible so the parsimonious views could be placed on the eternal backburner until "new evidence" comes forth that appears more faith promoting. This asinine approach to truth reached its zenith when Will proposed that the whole thing was some whacked out conspiracy by the Church leaders who attempted to make a massive code out of the KEP propject. This was so brilliant it fooled even the people involved into thinking they were actually translating Egyptian.

This was the apologetic equivalent to Morpheus' explanation to Neo about the Matrix.

Take the red pill.

I never said there was. I've been willing to grant that dictation accounts for the entire corpus since before this thread began. That's why I started another thread. This thread must be aimed at someone else.



Because (1) I'm under no obligation to follow the chronological composition of a text I text-critically analyze, and (2) I've been willing to grant that dictation could have accounted for the entire collection since I posted my other thread. There's no need to try to prove what I've already said I'm willing to grant.

I've heard of beginning with a conclusion and forcing the evidence to fit that conclusion but you're taking this quite literally in this instance. ;)[/quote]



I can concede whatever the evidence dictates.



I thought we were going to refrain from insults.



And I have offered a plausible explanation that is more complete than your possible explanation. I'd like to address that.



Now you're debating me about someone else's argument. I'd like to discuss mine.



I don't think it's very helpful to pretend I've not made an argument at all.



Because it invalidates your entire premise.



This is circular and begs the question. You've yet to provide a word of evidence that supports the notion that it's problematic to conclude there was a source document.



It's the conclusion, Kevin. It's not an assumption when it's the termination of a sequence of logical evaluations of evidence.



You're begging the question again. You're simply asserting these things without bothering to address my evidence. You have to address the evidence, Kevin.



Please don't patronize me, Kevin.



I've dealt with it. Now it's your turn to deal with my concerns with your evidence.



So far my arguments have only been judged on whether or not you think they're ridiculous.



Is this kind of patronization really how you respond to my honest attempt to rebuild this academic bridge?



Then you cannot presume to assert that your theory is correct. When your argument fails to account for critical data you have to get a new argument.



Right now all I'm concerned about is what was behind the dictation or transcription. You don't seem to want to discuss that.



Then how can you presume to assert to have the better theory?



Because you say that but still seem to think that it's ok for you to just nakedly assert that I'm wrong. Here, I'll show you:



But previously:



Do you see? Your earlier assertion does not respond to a single word of evidence and fallaciously asserts I'm wrong anyway. Your subsequent claim is that you can't account for the data that my evidence accounts for.



Why would you think it's wiser when it leaves you saying stuff like this:





My theory, on the other hand, can explain exactly why the dittograph is there. You reject that a priori and turn around to say you simply think it's wiser to follow your path despite the fact that it is a dead end?



That's what the data supports. You can deal with the data or you can simply assert that it must be wrong because it's what Will and Brian think. One response is academic and the other is not.



It didn't really matter whether or not they spelled it according to the parent text or according to their preferred spelling. As I showed with several examples, spelling was a fluid principle back then, and they often spelled words differently even on the same sheet of paper (I provided you an example of that). You even asserted that two words were written differently because they heard the word and decided to write it how they thought it should be written. Now you incredulously ask how it could ever be possible that they would read a word and decide to write it how they thought it should be written?



That's utterly immaterial. Your argument is that the variant spelling of Shagreel is evidence of dictation. I've shown that it is evidence of nothing.



Please don't patronize me, Kevin.



No, it's not more likely. I've shown utterly conclusively that the equal signs and the dashes were utterly arbitrary and don't indicate a thing about dictation or transcription.



I didn't see the picture of that one on your post. Can you provide it?

[

Not at all.



No, not period. The above is a fallacy called proof by assertion. It's little different from just saying "Nu-uh!" I showed you one word spelled two different ways by the same scribe on the same sheet of paper. I've shown you plenty of evidence that spelling was not a standardized practice in the 19th century.



I'll be happy to look at it then.



We will wait and see, then.



Has Brent addressed Will's claim anywhere else since this thread?



I didn't make the claim, so I'm not responsible for substantiating it. Based on my own understanding of ink properties, however, It would seem the ink in the upstroke of the /h/ in "the" would have interrupted the drying ink pooling near the borders of the bottom of the parenthesis had it been secondary. The bottom of the parenthesis maintains its integrity and the pooling of the ink along the border of the stroke shows no inconsistencies or signs of secondary contact.



But you claimed that this thread you linked to was a debate that Brent won hands down. That's not what I saw, and now you're claiming that the conclusion of the debate actually just hinges on the accuracy of a statement Will made and Brent never responded to? Why should I believe that this "text-critic" lost this other debate?



That's not objective.



Now the whole game is rigged? You originally claimed this about that thread:



I honestly didn't see a word of evidence from Brent. It seemed he just asked Brian to post a good photo of the letters. Did you mean to link to another page of that thread?



So you just have a priori decided that Will was lying and thus Brent won?



And I showed you that the exact same thing happened between Smith's description of Kiah ah broam, Phelps' GAEL transcription of it, and the actual Abraham narrative. Your claim that we should not expect variant spellings from direct copies of something as important as scripture is not only a guess, but has simply been proven false. It happened with "high priest" and it also happened with "Haran" in Ab2. It can be academic to argue that something is not logical, but to insist that something is not logical after I've shown you conclusive evidence that it happened repeatedly in the very texts we're questioning is quite clearly not. Engage the evidence, Kevin.



There's quite a difference between legitimate words between a definite article and its noun and legitimate words between a noun and its relative pronoun. You're fudging quite a bit here.



Please provide an image where I can confirm myself what they say.



I'd like to be able to confirm for myself, and there's no photo on that thread.



It doesn't matter where it's coming from, Kevin. Spelling propensities are spelling propensities.



You're still arguing from a presentistic premise. I've provided plenty of evidence to substantiate that.



In textual criticism transcription is copying from one text to another. I've explained this before and have even linked to the standard publications on textual criticism. You now know exactly what I mean when I, as a textual critic, say transcription.



I've already shown you where a scribe spelled the same proper name two different ways on the same sheet of paper. You can't assert that we can't think it happened when I've shown you absolutely conclusive proof that it did actually happen.



No it doesn't. The text is still very much coherent.



I refer you again to the word "Hara/on" on page 4 of Ab2. That's proof, Kevin, not evidence. It happened. You presentistic assumption is wrong.



But you cannot name any.



Not when you've openly stated that your theory simply cannot account for the dittograph. You've already admitted that your argument is flawed, and you're unwilling and unable to explain why my argument is flawed. The only thing left for you to do is (1) confront my theory and present a better one of your own or (2) concede.



No problem. It happens to me sometimes too.

You can't present this as an "established fact" in the very thread where you're trying to present evidence to support it.

Can you please explain exactly what about my theory is highly unlikely?



Yes, since the one aspect of the text is what his theory said does not exist in the text.



That's because you're not engaging the evidence, you're just trying to use meta-argumentation to conjure up vague methodological problems.



This is a false analogy. In your example the conclusions are mutually exclusive. In my theory they are not. His theory neglects the one in favor of the five. Mine accounts for all six. Mine leaves no loose ends. His leaves one critical loose end.



See above.



Where did I insist they were working from a manuscript of Abraham 1-3?



Absolutely. They frequently did not maintain the orthography.



I've shown that we should never expect consistent spelling in the 19th century. I showed conclusive proof that one scribe spelled the same proper name two different ways on the same sheet of paper. Spelling was fluid during this time period. Look at a copy of the famous 1828 Webster's. It gives numerous alternative spellings! Consistent and correct spelling is a modern ideology. That's a well established fact.



Both. Additionally, the point was to show that spelling did not just vary because of different scribes or because of not hearing the word properly. The same scribe would arbitrarily alter spellings for words which were clearly not misheard.



No. "As they saw fit" applies equally to transcription. You are still operating under the presentistic assumption that they were required to spell everything the same way.



I've not examined all the manuscripts, and the copies Kevin provided are difficult to examine close up. I have closely examined Abr 1:1-3 and Abr 2:2-6, and both show clear signs of transcription and no clear signs of dictation. Kevin has provided one good, clean example of what appears to be dictation, but I've not examined it in context and am not going to commit to a conclusion.



Not at all. I explained that the evidence I have seen up till now points to both copy methods. That precludes the assertion that the homoioteleuton determines the method of production for the entire text. However, whatever the method of copy, it is not reasonable to conclude a parent text for transcription and none for dictation. The only real feasible conclusion is that there was a parent text for the whole process, or there was none. Given that transcription is heavily evidenced in at least two areas, the existence of a parent text is the best conclusion.



Not "could be." If any part of it was copied from a parent text then the whole thing is most likely copied from a parent text. I can't imagine why someone would want to argue that Smith was dictating from thin air and then said he had to go and whipped out a sheet of paper for a scribe to continue transcription from which began with the text exactly where he left off.



If you need clarification of the above, let me know.



With two scribes and dictation you can produce two separate copies of the text in less time than it takes to transcribe one copy. Dictation was usually more accurate than transcription, as well, since the scribe did not have to constantly leave his text, or break his focus on the context.

I may have missed it, but has there ever been an explanation (from either camp) as to why the dittograph section is only on one of the manuscripts?

Whether it is a copy or a dictation, this is puzzling.

"Classic hallmarks"?

Chris, where is the list of these "classic hallmarks" of dictated manuscripts? Can you please direct me to sources where these "hallmarks" are defined?

Also, Graham asserts that these corrections were made "in transition." I assume you concur. On what basis? What is the evidence you would adduce to demonstrate this phenomenon of a correction made "in transition"?

Thanks.



Edit: Incidentally, I've recently become convinced that you have never really seriously examined these manuscripts. You have simply been parroting the party line for so long you have become convinced that the evidence really does prove these things, without ever having critically examined that evidence. That is a strange course of action for someone who claims to be so objective.

I'm about to go to Alabama to visit family until Tuesday, so I don't know what kind of internet access I'll have over the weekend. Just quickly, I wanted to comment on the short responses (Mak, yours will have to wait, it is just too long and requires more time than I have right now)

I don't believe it is from dictation, all indicators point to it being a copy and I have always accepted this. I had thought it was intentional, but I am more and more convinced now that it wasn't. Mak thinks the answer can be found by supposing a mysterious Q document, for which there is no evidence. I don't accept that at this point because evidence is scant, and it begs the question, "why the hell were they dictating and copying the same short manuscript"? Parrish testified that he sat by Joseph Smith and transcribed text as Joseph Smith dictated it to him, and our model fits that picture exactly.

I don't pretend to have the answer as to why the dittograph is there, but I believe the answer probably has more to do with it being a much later emendation (Mak's suggestion earlier). That would explain why the text goes a little beyond what is present in Ms1b, so it could he could have been copying it from Ms2 that had already gone beyond Abr 2:5, and then after realizing he copied the wrong paragraph twice, he started crunching the text and then gave up on it, realizing he screwe dup his manuscript with a dittograph cover half a page. That certainly seems more plausible to me that the need to invent a nonexistent source document, which in my view, raises far more questions that it answers.

How about common sense?

When a prepared text is later emended, as you propose, you see scratched out words with the correction written above them. Why? Because there would be nowhere else to put them! Will supposes that the person making the error, already knows he is making the error, so he immediately writes in the correction in transition, and then comes back later to scratch out the error. Here, this is a graphic I created a while back but never got around to sharing it because the KEP rage died down and then I got bored with it...

I suppose Will think if he stomps and beats his chest while bellowing loudly enough we won't notice how illogical that is.

Chest beating and bellowing are irrelevant. It is merely a question of applying text-critical methodologies to the question. That is what I have done. That is what Brian Hauglid, Tom Wayment, Royal Skousen, and others have done.

The "their hearts are turn/ed" locus is one of the two ambiguous cases to which I have referred. The remainder are not ambiguous. The "whereunto unto" locus is a case in point. Just as Oliver Cowdery frequently did in making the printer's copy of the Book of Mormon manuscript, these scribes copied from the parent document everything precisely as it appeared, making no editing decisions during the process of making the copy.

The parent document would have read:



And therefore the scribes copied it exactly as it appeared, leaving the editing until later.

This very practice is attested in the printer's copy of the Book of Mormon: What appear to be obvious errors in the original manuscript are reproduced in the printer's copy, and then corrected later. That is precisely what we see in several instances in these Abraham manuscript copies.

Had the correction been made "in transition" while the scribe was taking dictation, "unto" would attest the same tone and volume of ink as does the strikeout of "whereunto". It does not. Although it is obviously an error, "whereunto unto" was written without re-dipping the pen, in a single pass.



There are also instances where an apparent error in the parent was caught and corrected as the copy was being made. (This is what I believe happened in the "their hearts are turned" situation.)

This is also consistent with what is seen in the printer's copy of the Book of Mormon. On occasion, Cowdery even reproduces, in the printer's copy, an obvious error from the original, and then corrects both the copy and the original afterwards.

Again, this is a very common occurrence in scribal copies from the period. The copyist is not supposed to correct errors. He's just supposed to make an exact copy of the original. Editing comes later. That is exactly what we see at several loci in the Abraham manuscripts.

I have done an inventory of the common emendations in Ab2 and Ab3 and will soon be publishing both a video presentation and an article that demonstrates how virtually all of them follow the pattern I have described.

These are not "corrections made in transition as part of a dictation." They are corrections to errors that appeared in the original and which were reproduced in the copy, only to be corrected later--hence the obvious secondary nature of the emendations.

It's really quite a simple concept and explanation, although I have no doubt the closed minds here will find it easy to dismiss. No matter. The case I have built, and the textual evidence to support it, are both strong and persuasive. It has and will yet persuade all open-minded and objective observers.

Actually the dittograph is the evidence. Since you've admitted you can't explain why it's there, and since the only reasonable explanation is because it was a scribal error brought on by homoioteleuton in the parent text, the conclusion is rather sound. You can provide a more logical explanation if you wish, but asserting there's no evidence for a parent text is demonstrably false.



I've explained the most likely scenario several times over. Additionally, my theory also allows for complete dictation. In either case, positing a parent text is the only way to account for the dittograph.



Parrish didn't write the dittograph, Williams did. Additionally, Parrish did not state Smith had no text in front of him, so my model fits it perfectly as well. Additionally, my model provides an explanation for the dittograph, whereas yours leaves you stating that you don't know why the dittograph is there.



I never proposed it was an emendation of any kind. I said the scribe likely took an extended break from the text, such as over night, over the weekend, etc. You're misrepresenting me. I'm curious if you're just hinting at a solution to throw me off the scent or if you intend to unpack this scenario fully. I think if you sat down to try you'd see just how little sense it makes.



It's manuscript 4 that goes beyond Abr 2:5. The dittograph occurs in manuscript 2, which is Williams manuscript. He could not have used manuscript 2 as his Vorlage. Your scenario fails, and your ad hoc guessing is starting to manifest desperation. You're messing up manuscript designations and chronology.



Begging the question. You have no evidence that a source document didn't exist, and you're responding to the evidence for the existence of a source document by just asserting that none existed.



However, and for the third time, you are unable to produce a single one of those questions. The above is a fallacy called proof by assertion.

Brian Hauglid's list here, for one-- though originally that list comes from Royal Skousen. I don't fully agree with the way Brian characterizes all of them or applies them to the Abr mss, but the list itself is fairly sound.


As I said before, I am not fully decided as to the relationship between all the Abr mss, and so don't really care to debate the issue until I can get my hands on Brian's publication and give it some more intensive study of my own.


You don't know me. You don't know how much I have examined the manuscripts, you don't know what I am convinced of, and you don't know what I claim to be.

Good luck in your future studies,

-Chris

Which is why I said Will's argument must assume:

Forgetting the fact that this scenario is preposterous, let's go ahead for the sake of argument and take Will's suggestion to its logical conclusion.

According to Will, these manuscripts represent identical representations of the original Book of Abraham manuscript. This effectively makes them a carbon copy of what they are denying they are! So what's the difference? We've been arguing that these prove Joseph Smith wasn't able to translate Egyptian based on the fact that these documents prove they were translation manuscripts. Will comes along ans says "nuh uh, these were exact copies of the original manuscripts!" Again, so how does this in any way help the apologists who are trying to distance Joseph Smith from the project and pin it on the scribes? If all these words are identical to the original source document, then so too must the Egyptian characters, since we already know they were written before each corresponding English translation and the scribes were meticulous in their transcription and placement of these characters.

Although Will's theory makes it too easy for the critics to pin this on Smith's inability to translate, I don't believe these are secondary emendations because it just makes no sense given the nature of these errors. How does he explain the instances where the same mistakes are not identical? Will would have to require two different original documents since the scribes obviously were not interested in making their copies identical. So now Will is left with arguing that they are supposed to be exact copies as far as the grammatical errors were concerned, but not necessarily exact copies with respect to spelling. In other words, he is creating a double standard to fit his predetermined conclusion.

Yes we know there were two manuscripts for the Book of Mormon, and we have the original and printers manuscripts represented in the KEP manuscripts as well. The only reason to suppose ANOTHER copy is apologetic necessity. They can't afford to have it known, so it much be missing, same as the ridiculous missing roll theory.

If Will insists the Book of Mormon's printer's manuscript was a careful xerox reproduction of the errors in the original manuscript, then he is being deceptive again, because that is not true at all. There are some similar errors as one would expect from an inexperienced scribe tryinig to copy such a long text, but nothing like what Will requires to be represented in the KEP. Oh, and why the hell are they making so many friggin copies of error-ridden texts? Will never explains this. Are these errors part of the enciphering process?

Although I suspect this will be dismissed as yet another "vague meta-methodological" objection, I will inject this point anyway. Maklelan, if I am reading him correctly, proposes a scenario in which Joseph Smith read one manuscript to two scribes to facilitate the speedy manufacture of two copies. Then, in the case of the homoioteleuton, the reader accidentally re-read a portion of his manuscript (and got fairly far before he realized it), or was given the manuscript to look at and accidentally recopied a passage in error.

Since it is my belief that historical or "external" evidences do matter in understanding the text, I think it is important to poke at the underlying assumptions about the proposed dictation or transcription. Therefore, I pose the following questions, with my preliminary answers that await refutation by those more experienced in these areas:

1) Joseph Smith seemed to be deeply concerned about inaccuracies in the scriptures. To quote him:



Given his concern, is it more or less likely that he would rely on a method of transmission that was bound to introduce errors into the text? What was the purpose of producing three manuscripts that were more likely to disagree with each other because of the unreliability of the method?

2) Is there any reason to suppose that circumstances required relying on such an unreliable method? Mak says that the reason is for speed, but why was speed necessary? Is there a historical explanation for this? After spending months working with these documents and the pure language, why haste at this point?

3) Again, the scribal tradition surrounding the biblical text (and here, again, I am not an expert) seems to me to have been one of copying from an exemplar as accurately as possible, with the errors introduced coming from misreading, skipping of the eye, nodding off, etc. Given that tradition, and Joseph Smith's apparent awareness of it, why would Joseph have taken so little care in providing for greater accuracy in the transmission of the supposed Ur manuscript of the Book of Abraham, chapters 1-2.x?

Unless there is a compelling reason to suppose that, instead of copying the Ur manuscript on sight, exigencies forced Joseph to make haste and forgo his usual concern with the accuracy of sacred text, then I think that maklelan's theory is problematic. Indeed, I should think that one must either account for the evidences for dictation as Will is attempting to do, thus showing that there is visual copying going on, or one must account for the dittography and then accept the evidence for dictation.

I would want to see some evidence that, contrary to his stated philosophy concerning the accuracy of the scriptures, instances of him transmitting a translation of ancient writings through reading from the Ur manuscript to the scribes. Then I would be more willing to entertain that theory. Otherwise, it looks like that magic bullet to me.

Finally, concerning orthography. I have never doubted that orthography in the 19th century was not standardized. In spite of that Joseph Smith thought it was important to spell out the names of figures in the Book of Mormon. And, again, although a scribe may follow his own lights in putting what he hears to writing, he is less likely to deviate from the manuscript he is copying. Or am I wrong? Anyway, I think this is problematic for Will, but obviously not for maklelan and his dictation from a written manuscript model.

As I have mentioned several times already, I will be producing a detailed narrated slideshow presentation about the dittograph on page 4 of Ab2 (followed by other video slideshows treating upon various KEP-related arguments). When it is available for public viewing, I will then invite you and Brent to engage in a debate with me and Dan McClellan (should he so desire) concerning the arguments and evidence I will present in the video presentation. This debate will be confined to just us four--no others unless we mutually decide to invite them. My thoughts at the moment are to present this information and conduct these debates on a new blog site I have created, but not yet announced.

Will you be interested in doing something like that? It won't require you to reply instantly to anything. It will consist of a leisurely, at-your-own-pace, discussion via blog, and I, for one, commit myself to dial down the rhetoric to somewhere near 1 or 2 on the dial--which is pretty good, considering my rhetoric amp "goes to eleven." ;-)

Why in the world would Dan be involved in such a debate?

Has he published anything on it yet? LOL

And do you think Will and Daniel will come to an agreement, sometime before the publication, as to whether dictation took place? Will says no, Dan says yes.

Maybe the two of them should debate this out first.