William Schryver wrote:In any event, mark my words, unless it can be conclusively established that Joseph Smith essentially had the entire Book of Abraham text memorized (virtually verbatim) prior to the commencement of the Egyptian Alphabet project, then it will be effectively impossible, via credible and responsible text-critical methodologies, for my thesis of dependency to be disproven.
I am persuaded that in order to establish this, you have a far greater challenge ahead of you than you are presently inclined to believe.
I have yet to see from you a theory that even comes close to comprehensively explaining the meaning and purpose of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, although I very much look forward to a formal exposition of your ideas at some point in the future.
Then you haven't been paying attention.
Just as I had, as noted above, anticipated virtually every counter-argument to my theses as presented in my FAIR conference address, I also anticipated this particular gambit you have now played vis-à-vis the explanations for Facsimile 2 contained in the Richards manuscripts.
At present, suffice it to say that your question clearly demonstrates to me the fact that, not only have you have failed to pay close attention to things I have said previously, you are also blinded by a number of demonstrably incorrect assumptions about the Richards manuscripts.
I trust your eventual book publication will actually have something substantive to say on the subject?
Peace,
-Chris