Don Bradley's Kinderhook Bomb

[_Socrates]

I guess my problem is I don't see how it's possible to translate a fake, period.

Have you tried looking with your spiritual eyes, and thinking with your spiritual mind? Are you sure you want badly enough to understand how a fake can be translated as spiritual information?

[_cinepro]

I'm puzzled, Cinepro. Does this mean you think my explanation mistaken or just that you think it shows Joseph pre-Nibleying Nibley?

Don

pre-Nibleying Nibley.

[_Dan Vogel]

I didn’t see Don’s presentation, but a few hints he gave in a thread on the MAD board gave me the necessary information to reconstruct some of his argument. I’ve know Don a long time and have critiqued his previous work and have to say that he does much better as a believer than a critic. Don’s theories often leave me scratching my head, but this time I think he has me saying hummm, that’s interesting. He’s quite possibly right, which is not necessarily good for those who have been trying to distance Joseph Smith from the GAEL.

The first piece of evidence is a comparison between the William Clayton journal and a passage in the GAEL.

“He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh King of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth” (DHC 5:372).

“Ho e oop hah – honor by birth, kingly power by line of Pharoh possession by birth … possessor of heaven and earth” (p. 4).

The character for this is a U with a bar across the top, or what might be characterized as a droopy eye. A similar, character appears at the top of one of the Kinderhook plates, although it is divided by lines into four parts. I’m only guessing at this. However, I note that some elements of the Clayton source are missing from the GAEL passage. Other characters in the GAEL would have to be considered. For example, Ho e-oop: “a true descendent for Ham” (p. 9-10); and Phah he e oop: “royal blood, a true descendant for Ham … Kingly” (p. 4).

One source I believe Don used is the New York Herald for 30 May 1843:

“He compared them in my presence with his Egyptian alphabet, which he took from the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated, and they are evidently the same characters.”

This letter is dated “Nauvoo, Ill., May 7, 1843,” and signed “A Gentile”. A question arises with regard to the wording of this statement since the GAEL isn’t from the Book of Mormon. However, the transcription of Book of Mormon characters has been referred to as an alphabet. Lucy Smith said Joseph Smith “was instructed to take off a fac simile of the … characters <composing the alphabet which were called reformed Egyptian> Alphabetically and send them to all the learned …” (EMD 1:343). Perhaps Joseph Smith compared the Kinderhook plates to the Book of Mormon characters just as he had done with the Egyptian papyri. Or perhaps the Gentile was confused about the origin of the GAEL.

I’m looking forward to seeing Don’s full presentation and his and Ashurst-McGee’s future publication.

[_onandagus]

Thanks, Dan.

I'll add that "A Gentile" identifies himself as a friendly non-Mormon resident of Nauvoo. His letter is dated the same day that Joseph is known from other sources to have shown the Kinderhook plates to a number of non-Mormon citizens. And the next sentence after what Dan quotes is, I believe, "He will therefore be able to decipher them."

A non-Mormon could easily be confused over what the GAEL is, associating it with the well known Book of Mormon rather than the relatively obscure Book of Abraham. And the title on the spine of the GAEL is "Egyptian Alphabet," indicating that it was known by the same name "A Gentile" uses for the GAEL.

Coupling that with the easy derivation from the GAEL of the content Clayton says Joseph translated from the Kinderhook plates we have Joseph using the GAEL to interpret the Kinderhook plates character. By reference to this one matching character, we can explain the "translated" content; and "A Gentile" confirms the character matching: he sees Joseph make a match--hence his comment "they are evidently the same characters." And it is based on this match to the "Egyptian alphabet" that he concludes that Joseph will "therefore be able to translate them."

Don

[_Equality]

Where did Joseph Smith get the idea that that character that "is a U with a bar across the top, or what might be characterized as a droopy eye" meant "He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh King of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth" or "Ho e oop hah – honor by birth, kingly power by line of Pharoh possession by birth … possessor of heaven and earth." In other words, by what "secular" means did Smith ascertain the meaning of the droopy-eye U with a bar across the top character?

[_Aristotle Smith]

Where did Joseph Smith get the idea that that character that "is a U with a bar across the top, or what might be characterized as a droopy eye" meant "He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh King of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth" or "Ho e oop hah – honor by birth, kingly power by line of Pharoh possession by birth … possessor of heaven and earth." In other words, by what "secular" means did Smith ascertain the meaning of the droopy-eye U with a bar across the top character?

From the GAEL. This leads to two possibilities.

1) The GAEL is not revealed, the scribes did it, it's all pure BS that Joseph Smith would never associate himself with (as proved by the fact that the Egyptian "translation" is a fraud). Thus one can conclude that Joseph Smith was in a jolly mood that day and decided to produce a BS translation from a BS grammar for laughs and giggles.

2) The GAEL was revealed and Joseph Smith thought it was revealed. He used the GAEL because he thought it was correct and produced a translation which he thought was correct. The contention is that somehow this was "secular" because he didn't break out the seer stones, pray, or feel warm fuzzies as he did it (no idea how that is determined historically). No, the fact that the GAEL would have to be considered revelation by Joseph Smith for this to work is completely immaterial.

In fact, this new apologetic really has a lot going for it. Mormons can now claim that they considered blacks to be the seed of Cain and cursed because of it for purely secular reasons. I mean, they just happened to read about black people in these random documents they found lying around (penned by people sometimes called "prophets of the Lord"). And you can't blame them that they saw black people and treated them accordingly. It's all a purely secular process here, how dare you imply that somehow revelation was involved in all of this!

I offer that last paragraph as a possible apologetic which utilizes the newly minted secular vs revealed dichotomy.

[_onandagus]

Speaking of word games, I've already stated more than once that the crucial distinction isn't between the words "revelatory" or "secular" but between the actions of asking God and comparing characters. And if the distinction is "newly minted," is this because a new dodge has been invented or because a new modus operandi for the KP translation has been discovered?

Don

[_Themis]

I agree <shock! ;-)> with Equality.

On the analogy with the Egyptian papyri, we wouldn't expect Joseph to do all his translating right away.

We would, however, both on that analogy and given the crucial role of ancient metal plates to his prophetic claims, expect him to purchase them. While some may want to quibble with this, the value of ancient metal plates in shoring up Joseph's Book of Mormon claims is just self-evident.

Certainly we don't know the exact course that his thought on the genuineness of the Kinderhook plates took, the best surmise from the available evidence is that he initially gave them the benefit of the doubt but was ultimately unconvinced of their genuineness.

Don

I find it a little odd that if Joseph was a prophet that he would not consult God about metal plates which have been found, especially if he had doubts about their authenticity. He was supposedly being able to communicate with God quite well and on many occasions. From a fraud or pious fraud POV if he was not sure of these plates authenticity it seems reasonable that he would not want to go to far until they have been authenticated by experts. This of course was not a problem with the Book of Mormon or the papyri.

[_Aristotle Smith]

Speaking of word games, I've already stated more than once that the crucial distinction isn't between the words "revelatory" or "secular" but between the actions of asking God and comparing characters. And if the distinction is "newly minted," is this because a new dodge has been invented or because a new modus operandi for the KP translation has been discovered?

Don

Don,

As Analytics and several other have pointed out, it's newly minted by you. No one before this was making the case that if the KP translation was secular that somehow excused Joseph, but that if revelation was involved that was what implicated him in a fraud. No, the argument has been, he produced a translation of a fraud. Period.

The answer is obvious, your theory/apologetic requires a new modus operandi for KP translation, and you think that it somehow makes a difference in explaining what happened, apologetically speaking. I still can't figure out how you are going to show that no purported revelation was involved, that's not available in the historical record. Unless Joseph Smith directly says no revelation was involved, isn't the prudent historical assumption that he proceeded very much as he had always done, which always involved revelation?

You have offered Occam's razor as the reason for this; there is no need to assume revelation to explain the process of comparing characters, therefore one can assume it didn't happen. That's a very dangerous argument for a believer to make, because the exact same arguments can be applied to every other translation that Joseph ever made, with the exact same results.

[_onandagus]

As Analytics and several other have pointed out, it's newly minted by you. No one before this was making the case that if the KP translation was secular that somehow excused Joseph, but that if revelation was involved that was what implicated him in a fraud. No, the argument has been, he produced a translation of a fraud. Period.

<SIGH>

Aristotle, none of what you say above is accurate.

First, the idea that Joseph Smith produced a "secular translation" of the KP--that he did so by matching characters with some other document or attempted translation by some other linguistic means--was first proposed by Mark Ashurst-McGee at the 1996 Mormon History Association conference at Snowbird, Utah. My research has simply proved Mark's hypothesis correct.

Second, you speak of my research drawing this distinction as if it were an unnatural one and created merely to "excuse" Joseph in translating from a forgery. You've stated twice on the board that my presentation wasn't apologetic, but then you resort to this sort of characterization in order to dismiss it. Which is it?

Third, when critics didn't draw a distinction between different types of translation activities it's simply because it never occurred to them that Joseph may have translated from the KP by any means other than revelation--they simply assumed he used revelation, as did their arguments.

You can talk till you're blue in the face saying that the distinction is only introduced now for apologetic reasons, but the fact is that it wasn't introduced earlier because of simple blindness to the facts and not because it's not a meaningful distinction.

The answer is obvious, your theory/apologetic requires a new modus operandi for KP translation, and you think that it somehow makes a difference in explaining what happened, apologetically speaking. I still can't figure out how you are going to show that no purported revelation was involved, that's not available in the historical record. Unless Joseph Smith directly says no revelation was involved, isn't the prudent historical assumption that he proceeded very much as he had always done, which always involved revelation?

I don't need to show that Joseph didn't use revelation. If 1) it's not needed to explain the resulting text and 2) an eye and ear witness understood the translation to be simply by character comparisons, that gives us, first, no reason to believe he used revelation and, second, reason to believe he didn't. This doesn't prove he didn't use revelation, but it takes away any the reason to believe he did and replaces it with the opposite. But if you want to believe without substantive reason that he did invoke revelation, hey, who am I stand between a man and his faith?

You have offered Occam's razor as the reason for this; there is no need to assume revelation to explain the process of comparing characters, therefore one can assume it didn't happen.

This is a mischaracterization. I haven't argued that one can assume it didn't happen if there's no need to assume it. I've argued that if there's no need to assume then there's no reason to assume it. The burden of proof is on the idea that he did use a method that's entirely unnecessary to explain the result.

I'm not getting anything out of this discussion, Aristotle, and you obviously aren't, since your positions remain the same regardless of the evidence or logic I present. Thus, I'm bowing out of further discussion with you.

Happy Posting,

Don