Don Bradley's Kinderhook Bomb

[_Socrates]

Does Don's thesis suppose that the GAEL was not inspired by God and was an 'off the plan' endeavor to which Joseph Smith, Jr. and his scribes spent countless hours while living off of the contributions of hard labouring Saints?

[_onandagus]

Equality,

Chris Smith has given an honest and accurate summary of the critical based on the KP and how this affects it on the "secular translation" thread:

The traditional "anti-Mormon" objection to the KP incident has been that if Joseph translated a portion of the KP by revelation, then the "revelation" was based on the false premise that the KP were authentic. Don's paper successfully resolves this problem by showing that no revelation was involved in the translation of the plates.

Chris also notes that this KP find has implications for the Book of Abraham discussions. I agree. But it would be disingenuous to insist on the implications this has for the Book of Abraham discussion without acknowledging that it effectively disarms Joseph Smith's translation of the Kinderhook plates as itself a point of criticism. Chris, to his great credit, is the first nonbeliever in Mormonism to acknowledge that.

Don

[_Socrates]

Equality,

Chris Smith has given an honest and accurate summary of the critical based on the KP and how this affects it on the "secular translation" thread:

The traditional "anti-Mormon" objection to the KP incident has been that if Joseph translated a portion of the KP by revelation, then the "revelation" was based on the false premise that the KP were authentic. Don's paper successfully resolves this problem by showing that no revelation was involved in the translation of the plates.

Chris also notes that this KP find has implications for the Book of Abraham discussions. I agree. But it would be disingenuous to insist on the implications this has for the Book of Abraham discussion without acknowledging that it effectively disarms Joseph Smith's translation of the Kinderhook plates as itself a point of criticism. Chris, to his great credit, is the first nonbeliever in Mormonism to acknowledge that.

Don

Are the fruits of revelation only the illogical, unnatural? If it is logical or explainable, then it must be without prophetic involvement?

How does use of the GAEL take God out of the equation that Joseph Smith, Jr. was using when he pronounced the KP to be about Zelph?

[_Dad of a Mormon]

Equality,

Chris Smith has given an honest and accurate summary of the critical based on the KP and how this affects it on the "secular translation" thread:

The traditional "anti-Mormon" objection to the KP incident has been that if Joseph translated a portion of the KP by revelation, then the "revelation" was based on the false premise that the KP were authentic. Don's paper successfully resolves this problem by showing that no revelation was involved in the translation of the plates.

Chris also notes that this KP find has implications for the Book of Abraham discussions. I agree. But it would be disingenuous to insist on the implications this has for the Book of Abraham discussion without acknowledging that it effectively disarms Joseph Smith's translation of the Kinderhook plates as itself a point of criticism. Chris, to his great credit, is the first nonbeliever in Mormonism to acknowledge that.

Don

It would weaken the criticism but to say it disarms it completely is going too far. It isn't necessary to contend that Joseph Smith claimed to make a revelatory translation to throw doubt on Joseph Smith's credibility, and to focus on this strong form of the criticism misses the fact that you can't do a translation of bogus plates, secular or revelatory.

However, the claim that this translation may have come from a single character may make his mistake more understandable. We are moving away from fraud to mere incompetence. But he is still boldly making a claim to have translated something he had no ability to translate. It still would mean that he displayed a false sense of confidence that would only strengthen the perception of his authoritativeness among his followers. It still throws a bad light on the "prophet" to be sure. Where was his sense of discernment? How could he not realize, if he had any special relationship to God at all, that this was a fraud?

But that doesn't lessen the significance of your claim, if proven true. I concur that this would be a game changer. It significantly changes how apologists will defend the KP and how critics will evaluate the episode as well. But before I'm willing to say that the game has changed, I would like to see the evidence.

[_Equality]

It would weaken the criticism but to say it disarms it completely is going too far. It isn't necessary to contend that Joseph Smith claimed to make a revelatory translation to throw doubt on Joseph Smith's credibility, and to focus on this strong form of the criticism misses the fact that you can't do a translation of bogus plates, secular or revelatory.

However, the claim that this translation may have come from a single character may make his mistake more understandable. We are moving away from fraud to mere incompetence. But he is still boldly making a claim to have translated something he had no ability to translate. It still would mean that he displayed a false sense of confidence that would only strengthen the perception of his authoritativeness among his followers. It still throws a bad light on the "prophet" to be sure. Where was his sense of discernment? How could he not realize, if he had any special relationship to God at all, that this was a fraud?

But that doesn't lessen the significance of your claim, if proven true. I concur that this would be a game changer. It significantly changes how apologists will defend the KP and how critics will evaluate the episode as well. But before I'm willing to say that the game has changed, I would like to see the evidence.

This is basically the point I was trying to make. Smith was engaged in fraud and deception with respect to the KP whether his purported "translation" resulted from his consultation of a bogus lexicon or from a direct revelation from God. What's the difference? That's the question I would like to see answered. So far, I don't think Chris or Don have really addressed that particular point. I do think this is an interesting topic and certainly congratulate Don on a provocative presentation (from the secondhand accounts; I haven't yet seen it myself).

[_onandagus]

However, the claim that this translation may have come from a single character may make his mistake more understandable. We are moving away from fraud to mere incompetence. But he is still boldly making a claim to have translated something he had no ability to translate. It still would mean that he displayed a false sense of confidence that would only strengthen the perception of his authoritativeness among his followers. It still throws a bad light on the "prophet" to be sure. Where was his sense of discernment? How could he not realize, if he had any special relationship to God at all, that this was a fraud?

But that doesn't lessen the significance of your claim, if proven true. I concur that this would be a game changer. It significantly changes how apologists will defend the KP and how critics will evaluate the episode as well. But before I'm willing to say that the game has changed, I would like to see the evidence.

I appreciate that, Dad of a Mormon. I hope the video and transcript are up for you asap.

Don

[_onandagus]

This is basically the point I was trying to make. Smith was engaged in fraud and deception with respect to the KP whether his purported "translation" resulted from his consultation of a bogus lexicon or from a direct revelation from God. What's the difference?

The difference is that the new argument you offer above looks at Joseph Smith's Kinderhook plates translation as part of a pattern of fraud, rather than using it as primary evidence of the alleged fraud, which is what the old project does. In other words, if one doesn't already hold with you that Joseph Smith is a fraud, one can't conclude it merely from his application of the GAEL to the Kinderhook plates. The old argument could extrapolate from the premise of translation of fake plates to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was a false prophet: "Only a bogus prophet translates bogus plates." Your new argument extrapolates from the premise that Joseph Smith was a false prophet to the conclusion that his attempt to translate from the Kinderhook plates was fraudulent.

I do think this is an interesting topic and certainly congratulate Don on a provocative presentation (from the secondhand accounts; I haven't yet seen it myself).

Why thanks!

Don

[_Dad of a Mormon]

This is basically the point I was trying to make. Smith was engaged in fraud and deception with respect to the KP whether his purported "translation" resulted from his consultation of a bogus lexicon or from a direct revelation from God. What's the difference? That's the question I would like to see answered. So far, I don't think Chris or Don have really addressed that particular point. I do think this is an interesting topic and certainly congratulate Don on a provocative presentation (from the secondhand accounts; I haven't yet seen it myself).

The difference is that it wouldn't have been fraud and deception. If Joseph Smith had reason to think that he did a partial translation, then it wasn't fraud or deception. I might quibble with whether a single character can reasonably called a "portion", but he may have thought that he really did translate something.

I still think that you can rightly criticize his lack of competence and discernment, but those are different problems than fraud and deception.

[_jon]

Don,

Did you cover off the other possibility in your presentation?

The one where the KP characters were used to complete the GAEL.
The reverse of Joseph using the Gael to understand the KP.

[_grindael]

It seems that the crucial new evidence is an eyewitness of Smith consulting the GAEL. That raises a few
questions. Is the account dated? Is there evidence that Smith linked the exact character from the GAEL to the KP? (besides modern visual observation) How does Charlotte Haven’s account fit in to all this? Who is this witness, and were they there at the time? Is there any way we can see a reference quote to this witness?