"Sign of the 5th Degree of the 2nd Part"

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Hauglid, in his 2008 FAIR presentation, explained his understanding of the stemma of the four Abr Mss. to be:

Abr Ms 2 (Abr 1:4-2:6; F G Williams scribe), from which was taken...

Abr Ms 3 (Abr 1:4-2:2; Warren Parrish, scribe), from which was taken...

Abr Ms 1 (1:4-2:18, Warren Parrish scribe, but not the 1:1-1:3, W W Phelps portion scribed before any others), from which was taken...

Abr Ms 4 (1:1-2:18 and 3:18-3:26, Williard Richards scribe, published in the Times and Seasons on 3/1/1842 along with twelve Explanations to and Facsimile No. 1).
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Abr Mss 2 and 3 both have at the top of the first pages, "Sign of the Fifth Degree of the Second Part". This phrase was written by FG Williams on Abr Ms 2 (Abr 1:4-2:6) before the beginning line of Abr 1:4. Scribe Parrish carried this phrase forward, ahead of Abr 1:4 in writing Abr Ms 3 (Abr 1:4-2:2).

Scribe Parrish, when picking up on Abr Ms 1 where scribe WW Phelps left off (1:1-1:3), did not first add the line "Sign of the Fifth Degree of the Second Part" before jotting down the first line of Abr 1:4. (Neither did Abr Ms 4, Abr 1:1-2:18 and 3:18-3:26, include the line "Sign of the Fifth Degree of the Second Part".)

Observation One: The "Sign of the Fifth Degree of the Second Part" phrase--a clear reference to the structure of the EG--being on Abr Mss 2 and 3, but not 1 (or 4) suggests to me that Abr Mss 2 and 3 were working drafts, not intended to be a phrase Joseph Smith wanted in the final draft for publication.

Observation Two: I think it is more than a mere coincidence that Abr Ms 3 scribed by Parrish stopped just short of Abr 2:3-2:5 (the dittograph on Abr Ms 2, scribed by Williams). However, when Parrish then scribed on Abr Ms 1 (following Phelps' Abr 1:1-1:3 portion), Parrish scribed in Abr 2:3-2:5 as it appeared in Williams' 1st iteration of the dittograph on the 4th page of Abr Ms 2, stopping the paragraph mid-thought with "Therefore he continued in Haran". Instead of continuing that paragraph as Williams had in the 2nd iteration of the paragraph dittograph at the end of Abr Ms 2 with "but I Abram and Lot my brothers son prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared", Parrish began at that point of Abr Ms 3 a new paragraph with "But I Abram and Lot my brothers son prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared".

"and the Lord appeared" is where Abr Ms 2 (Williams scribed) ends (unless there's another, missing page). Parrish, in Abr Ms 3, continues with finishing Abr 2:6 and continuing through Abr 2:18.

To the left of the first line of the paragraph that Parrish began with "But I Abram and Lot my brothers son prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared", and each new paragraph after that, there is a hieratic character in that left hand margin.

Observation Three: Joseph Smith appears to have started the Abr translation with scribe W W Phelps, and they complete 1:1-1:3 that is stylistically different than the rest, with a repetitive, expanding style similar to the Egyptian Grammar. Phelps is no longer used in the Abr Mss. [Comment: if, as Chris Smith posits, this style involving Phelps was relying on the 5 degree expansion in two parts of the EG, was too laborious to continue, it was therefore stopped by Joseph Smith.]

Instead of continuing on the same paper, Smith has scribe F G Williams begin where Phelps had left off, with Abr 1:4. At the top of that first page, there is written: "Sign of the Fifth Degree of the Second Part", then it goes into Abr 1:4. Smith continues with Williams through the 2:3-2:5 paragraph dittograph, and even into the beginnings of 2:6. Williams is no longer used in the Abr Mss. [Comment: Williams scribing is difficult to read, the margins are uneven and apparently the paragraph dittograph has something to do with Smith's stopping his use of Williams as a scribe as it is at the tail end.]

Once again, in shifting to a new scribe, Smith has scribe W Parrish begin on a fresh piece of paper. Only this is different than the transition from Phelps to Williams as scribes. There, there was no re-write of what Phelps, the prior scribe, had already accomplished (Abr 1:1-1:3). Rather, in going from scribe Williams to scribe Parrish, the first thing that Smith has Parrish do is to re-write what Williams had written down, from 1:4 on through 2:2. Smith had Parrish stop there, before either iteration of the paragraph dittograph at the end of Williams' scribing. [Comment: Smith at this point did not want Parrish to wade into the dittograph mess that Williams had written down, for whatever reason.]

Next, Smith had Parrish take the page that W W Phelps had begun the Abr Ms process on, and then add--without the phrase "Sign of the Fifth Degree of the Second Part"--transcribe onto that page 1:4 and so forth (on successive pages) through 2:2. When they got to the dittograph, Smith had Parrish re-write 2:3-2:5 just as the first iteration appeared. Then in picking up as a new paragraph was what continued in a thought, sentence and paragraph in the 2nd iteration and is the first portion of2:6.

[Comment: In getting passed Williams' dittography mess (2:3-2:5), Smith had Parrish end the paragraph where it abruptly stopped in the first iteration (I say abruptly stopped because that is how it appears as contrasted with the continuation in the 2nd iteration beyond that point in the text without starting a new paragraph). After having ended that paragraph (2:3-2:5) where Williams left it off at the end of the 1st iteration, Smith then had Parrish start a new paragraph (2:6) with the continuation in the 2nd iteration verbiage after the point therein that the 1st iteration had stopped.

[If Williams was, in the 2nd iteration of the dittograph copying from a parent text, then either (a) the parent text did not have a paragraph break between "Therefore he continued in Haran" and "but I Abram and Lot my brothers son prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared", and thus for some reason Williams abruptly stopped the 1st iteration after "Therefore he continued in Haran" (either coming from dictation or copying the parent text) and began re-writing a repeat of that paragraph that he continued on passed the point the 1st iteration stopped, or (b) the parent text did have a paragraph break between "Therefore he continued in Haran" and "But I Abram and Lot my brothers son prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared", Williams stopped the first iteration at the correct point for a paragraph stop, but then when re-writing that paragraph in its second iteration Williams missed the paragraph break in the parent text, continuing right on in that paragraph with text from the next paragraph of the parent text.

[#(b) seems unlikely to me because after just having completed and stopped the paragraph correctly (1st iteration), not only does Williams repeat the paragraph but in doing so errs in not stopping it at the correct point. Then we have #(a) which has Williams abruptly stopping the 1st iteration before getting to the end of that paragraph from the parent text, and starting over.

[What then accounts for the abrupt stop in Williams' transcription (Abr Ms 2) at the end of the 1st iteration? Why when Parrish was re-writing as part of Abr Ms 1 the 2:3-2:5 and beginning of 2:6 would Smith have instructed Parrish to perpetuate in the re-write Williams' premature paragraph stop (compared to the parent text), and begin a new paragraph (2:6) when the 2nd iteration by Williams would have it correct per the parent text to continue the 2:3-2:5 paragraph rather than starting a new one? Smith's doing so suggests to me that there was no parent text of Abr through 2:6. This was happening as the translation was in progress and Abr Ms 2 was the first manuscript being made of an oral pronouncement by Smith of the translation.

[Also, Smith was obviously pleased with the one and only transcription of 1:1-1:3 as rendered by scribe W W Phelps, as he did not have Parrish re-write it. It was not until scribe W Richards was preparing Abr Ms 4 for publication was their any copying or re-writing of Abr 1:1-1:3.]

Observation Four: The hieratic characters appear in the left margins of Abr Mss 2, 3 and 1. Not until scribe W Richards was preparing Abr Ms 4 and the text for publication were the hieratic characters left off. [Comment: Just as Smith did not want any English translation published alongside Egyptian characters of the Facsimiles, he did not want the text published with corresponding Egyptian characters. Had he published any characters with specifically tied translations to each, Smith knew that someone would, either then or in the future, be able to dispute and prove the Smith translation wrong. He wisely chose to keep out of publication these tie-ins, and that I theorize is the reason that the EA and EG were not published by Smith and why the KEP were kept under wraps by the Mormon Church for decades after the migration to Utah.]