Don Bradley's Kinderhook Bomb

[_wenglund]

Sorry haven't seen it from your posts.

Likewise. That makes us even. Have a nice night.

You also have ignored these.

We all know why you did, so have a nice your day yourself. :)

We all know that you don't know what you are talking about. So, again, we are even. Have a nice night..

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Themis]

We all know that you don't know what you are talking about. So, again, we are even. Have a nice night..

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

And yet you cannot back up what you were saying. LOL Have a good night Wade.

[_Socrates]

On August 7, 2011, two days after his FAIR presentation, onandagus was more definitive and declarative about his findings than he is now. He has clearly claimed that the character match and revelation are mutually exclusive.

Here's the gist:

The content Clayton says Joseph got from the Kinderhook plates can all be derived from a single character definition given in the GAEL. A character matching the one thus-defined is found at the top of one of the Kinderhook plates and is even arguably the most prominent character on the plates.

Joseph Smith could thus have derived the entire "translation" from the Kinderhook plates by a simple character match. And--in fact--I have an eyewitness account, written six days after the Clayton journal entry, in which someone sees Joseph comparing these characters and identifying a match, using the "Egyptian alphabet"--the GAEL.

Making a visual match of characters is not revelatory: it's something anyone can do. Thus Joseph's reported translation from the Kinderhook plates is not a revelatory one, but a visual and intellectual one.

I hope that's clearer.

Don

Don continued as late as August 15, 2011 at 8:06 p.m.

Since that's not a revelation from God but merely a character match, it actually doesn't heighten my sense of how God works in mysterious ways.

Finally at 9:05 p.m. on August 15,

Discussed at great length by me above. I haven't said it [character match] rules out revelation. I've pointed out that it makes it redundant.

No longer does the fact of a character match exclude revelation. It's just not likely now, due to 'redundancy'. Of course, Don continues to cling to the canard that it follows from the character match by the 'prophet, seer, translator and revelator', for whom God gives the 'power and light' for translation (D&C 3:12), that God had no part. God must, therefore, only work in mysterious, unnatural ways.

Don had claimed back on August 7, 2011, two days after the presentation, that all of Clayton's report about the Kinderhook Plates partial translation derives from the character match and corresponding GAEL explanation of the character. See the first quote in this post.

However, Don has since (August 8, 2011) answered that the part of Clayton's description that goes beyond what the GAEL explanation for the matched character will be explained by Ashurst-McGee.

Regarding the identification of the guy with whom the plates were buried as the descendant of Ham, this is easily accounted for in the scenario I'm proposing and will be explained in my joint paper with Mark Ashurst-McGee. I hesitate to lay out that part of the paper since it wasn't in my presentation and is something Mark, and not I, came up with. I hate to put you off like that, but look for the paper in the Journal of Mormon History, hopefully next year.

Seems Don's August 7 statement about "all" of Clayton's description being attributed to the GAEL explanation for the matching character isn't really "all" after all.

onandagus has also said recently that his 'demolition' of the criticism was just pre-presentation hype, a la Schryver, and he on reflection, should not have done it. See http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/styles/Revival/imageset/icon_post_target.gif where on August 15, he explained:

The tack I took in the pre-conference 'hype' was purely experimental. On reflection now, I'd say that I wouldn't expect to repeat it for future presentations and publications.

Yet after the presentation, and hype could attract no more attendees to his FAIR presentation, Don continued the 'hype' on August 7, 2011:

http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=489175#p489175

So, Don, what is taking place? Is this the unraveling of your theory that we saw with Schryver's last year, post-presentation?

[_Equality]

Good points, all. Also interesting is that Don has repeatedly failed to even attempt to answer my question: where did the English translation of the character on the GAEL come from? Don's whole theory, it seems to me, depends on the fact that Joseph Smith noticed the similarities between a character on the KP and a character on the GAEL and gave the translation of the KP character based on what the GAEL said the character meant. But he has steadfastly refused to address the question of where the translation of the character on the GAEL came from. I have asked many times for a reference to a non-Mormon, secular, academic source that renders an English translation of the character on the GAEL as having to do with Ham and the priestly descent, etc. (as it is rendered in the Book of Abraham and in Clayton's report of Joseph Smith's translation of the KP. Don simply ignores the question, I suspect because there IS no secular, academic translation of the character on the KP/GAEL that correlates with Smith's rendering. We are thus left with two possibilities: either Joseph Smith concocted the "translation" or he got it supernaturally, both of which contradict Don's conclusion that Joseph Smith translated the KP by "secular" or "academic" means. Don's research, while interesting and commendable in the realm of history, does absolutely nothing to confound the critical appraisal of Smith's "translation" of the Kinderhook Plates. I pose the question again for Don, or any other apologist that wants to take up the challenge: show me a non-Mormon academic source that says the character "ho e oop hah," which Don says is the one Smith saw as a "match" for a character on the KP, means something about a descendant of Ham, yadda yadda yadda yadda. If you can't do that, you have done nothing to assail the critics' argument that Joseph Smith: (a) made crap up; (b) claimed to translate by revelation, but clearly could not; and (c) was fooled by the hoaxsters who forged the Kinderhook Plates. Likewise, the purported "prophets, seers, and revelators" who followed in Smith's footsteps were fooled and lacked the "gift of discernment," which, if they were in possession of the same, would have enabled them to expose the hoax.

[_onandagus]

Socrates,

There are shades of meaning here that you're missing. And if I have not been perfectly consistent in my many comments, so be it. Do you suppose that if someone who values his time as little as you value yours were to collect your various statements they would all come out consistent? I wouldn't bet on it.

But let me briefly recap in case you've misunderstood my arguments over the course of this discussion:

I argued that Joseph Smith could "readily derive" the entire reported translation from the single GAEL character--the content was there. That Joseph Smith identified the person with whom the plates were buried as their author is not part of the translation, since the plates wouldn't have said "I just buried these plates with my corpse in this mound." Rather, the connection between the record and the person it was buried with is a natural surmise.

The character match--as I've shown--is visual and not revelatory. Thus the known translation that Joseph did was nonrevelatory. If someone wants to posit that somehow it really was also revelatory, they're free to do so, but this adds nothing to the explanation, and is thus redundant. I made this argument on one or both of the boards. If it was only on the other board and not this one, sue me. I can't recall in these sprawling discussions where I've posted what.

Now let's look at a sample of your misrepresentation of me:

onandagus has also said recently that his 'demolition' of the criticism was just pre-presentation hype, a la Schryver, and he on reflection, should not have done it. See http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/styles/Revival/imageset/icon_post_target.gif where on August 15, he explained:

The tack I took in the pre-conference 'hype' was purely experimental. On reflection now, I'd say that I wouldn't expect to repeat it for future presentations and publications.

Yet after the presentation, and hype could attract no more attendees to his FAIR presentation, Don continued the 'hype' on August 7, 2011:

http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=489175#p489175

When I acknowledged that the pre-conference talk had an element of hype, I also reiterated that I believe my argument does demolish the critical argument.

Also, when I said I'd reconsidered posting like that in advance of a presentation, I said this after Scratch called me on it a couple days ago. So, on August 7 I still had not reconsidered this.

Thus despite your attempts to make it look like there are contradictions here, there are none.

So, Don, what is taking place? Is this the unraveling of your theory that we saw with Schryver's last year, post-presentation?

To quote Aerosmith, dream on.

Don

[_onandagus]

Good points, all. Also interesting is that Don has repeatedly failed to even attempt to answer my question: where did the English translation of the character on the GAEL come from? Don's whole theory, it seems to me, depends on the fact that Joseph Smith noticed the similarities between a character on the KP and a character on the GAEL and gave the translation of the KP character based on what the GAEL said the character meant. But he has steadfastly refused to address the question of where the translation of the character on the GAEL came from.

The derivation of the GAEL definition is simply irrelevant to the argument I've been trying to make and is a red herring tactic you've been using to avoid having to acknowledge the refutation of your precious Kinderhook plates argument.

I came here to discuss the content of my presentation because Analytics had posted about it and asked questions about it. It does not follow from that that I have an obligation to carry out the discussion the way you want me to. Your "challenge" has nothing to do with my topic.

The fact is that I've addressed all sorts of obnoxious questions asked me here. But I see no reason to continue answering them.

If I come here sometime to discuss the source of the GAEL, I'll discuss the source of the GAEL. If you want to believe my not addressing that separate topic here in order to claim victory in the discussion of the Kinderhook plates, please refer to the last sentence of my reply to Socrates.

Don

[Guest]

Good points, all. Also interesting is that Don has repeatedly failed to even attempt to answer my question: where did the English translation of the character on the GAEL come from? Don's whole theory, it seems to me, depends on the fact that Joseph Smith noticed the similarities between a character on the KP and a character on the GAEL and gave the translation of the KP character based on what the GAEL said the character meant. But he has steadfastly refused to address the question of where the translation of the character on the GAEL came from.

The derivation of the GAEL definition is simply irrelevant to the argument I've been trying to make and is a red herring tactic you've been using to avoid having to acknowledge the refutation of your precious Kinderhook plates argument.

It's not "irrelevant" at all. Good grief, Don. Why not just concede at this point that your "hype" was misguided? George Miller popped in earlier to weigh in on the notion of a "two-pronged" critique, with your paper attacking one portion of that critique, but without a full and objective and persuasive and believable, doctrine-supported account of the way that revelation works, you are out to sea here. If the Prophet Joseph applied "revelation" in order to get the GAEL character, and if his interested in the KP was inspired by said "revelation," you can't very well dismiss the notion that he felt the KP was also worthy of being regarded on the same level as the initial "revelatory" character.

You haven't "crushed" anything, friend.

[_onandagus]

Fellow Discussants,

I came onto this board to discuss the thread topic. While here I've posted a great deal of substantive argument and evidence and, overwhelmingly, I've been very courteous even to posters who have misrepresented my arguments, dismissed me as a rank apologist, and relentlessly harangued me, tried to one-up me, and grandstanded when I supposedly lost the argument by refusing to let them frame it or change the topic at hand. None of these things fit my definition of meaningful discussion: they are its antithesis.

I bring substance and I'm largely polite to other posters. But there is a flipside to this, because I believe in reciprocity. Experience has shown me that there's only so long that I should continue to attempt courteous discussion with others who are determined to attack, misrepresent, one-up, or simply annoy me. Better by far to terminate discussion with those people by selectively blocking posters who show that they aren't willing to attempt to understand me accurately or who show more interest in one-upmanship than substance.

I'm not here for target practice, and I won't continue to engage posters who act as if I am.

I very much appreciate the polite and productive posts by a number of you. I'll forget some of you here whom I should thank. Please pardon that if you fit in this category but I fail to mention you. I've enjoyed the posts by a number, including Grindael, Dan Vogel, Themis, Analytics, Dr. Scratch, Honorentheos, and Malkie, each of whom has genuinely tried to understand my position and arguments and has discussed things agreeably even when disagreeing. If more posters took the approach they've taken, there would be more scholars participating here, more productive discussion, and just a more enjoyable time.

Thanks again to those who've contributed to productive and pleasant discussion on this topic.

Don

[_onandagus]

Dr. Scratch,

I've plowed this ground so many times already in the last two weeks that I don't see what I would achieve by running my plow over the same furrows yet again in response to this post would achieve. For my response, simply re-read above.

Cheers,

Don

[_onandagus]

by the way, I do acknowledge that George has said the critical argument was two-pronged, and he is correct. I believe a review of my posts in the last two weeks, as well as a few years ago, will show that I've generally acknowledged that there is what I consider a strong form of the critical argument from the KPs and a weak form. What I believe I have refuted, and have more than one critic here agreeing with me on, is the first, based on Joseph Smith supposedly making a revelatory translation from the KP, not the second, which just says that a prophet should not have initially taken the KPs' genuineness in good faith but should have been warned by God from the get-go that the KPs were fake.

My pre-conference "hype" didn't acknowledge the second form of the argument, which my presentation did not address. This was an omission on my part, but one rooted in the fact that I do not now and have not ever, even as a critic, thought this argument held any potency.

If I am guilty of hyperbole for overlooking this argument, fine. I really don't see how that changes any of the substance. And I've already acknowledged that the pre-conference "hype" was a mistake and that I won't be repeating it. So if anyone would like to further rub my face in an acknowledged mistake that I won't be repeating, please get the maximum ego satisfaction out of that that you can, 'cuz it ain't good for nothin' else.

Don