Reformed Egyptian

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The Book of Mormon, a sacred text of Mormonism, states that it was written in reformed Egyptian characters ^[1] on plates of "ore"^[2] by prophets living in the Western Hemisphere between 600 B.C. and A.D. 421. Smith published the Book of Mormon in 1830 as that translation, and Latter Day Saints believe that the book originated from these plates inscribed with reformed Egyptian characters.^[3] Those who dispute the historicity of the the Book of Mormon also question the existence of "reformed Egyptian."

Contents 1 Reformed Egyptian and the Book of Mormon 2 The Anthon transcript or "Caractors" document 3 LDS studies of reformed Egyptian 4 References and Notes 5 External links

[edit] Reformed Egyptian and the Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon uses the term "reformed Egyptian" in only one verse, Mormon 9:32, which notes that "the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, [were] handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech" and that "none other people knoweth our language." ^[4] The book says that its first author, Nephi, was taught the "learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians." ^[5] Some LDS scholars have interpreted this to mean that while the original language of Lehi's group was Egyptian, their language evolved (possibly due in part to contact with other cultures) into a language that became a modified or reformed Egyptian.^[6] Other LDS scholars note that other languages evolved from Egyptian through the centuries and have speculated that the term "reformed Egyptian" might refer to a form of Egyptian writing known as hieratic, a priestly shorthand for hieroglyphics thousands of years old by the first millennium B.C., or early demotic, a derivative of hieratic, perhaps used in northern Egypt fifty years before the time that the Book of Mormon prophet-patriarch Lehi is said to have left Jerusalem for the Americas.^[7] Nevertheless, the Book of Mormon states that no other people knew the language of Moroni's civilization, and demotic or hieratic were understood and used for centuries in Egypt.

The Book of Mormon prophet Moroni said that he wrote in "reformed Egyptian" both because it took less space on the plates than Hebrew and because of the evolution of his language since his ancestors had left Jerusalem.^[8] Critics of Mormonism have suggested that Smith identified "reformed Egyptian" as the source language because many early nineteenth-century Americans knew Hebrew and no one in 1830 could read Egyptian hieroglyphics. Critics also suggest that "reformed Egyptian" might have been an even safer creation than "Egyptian," and claiming that New World Hebrew had also been modified over time would have provided additional insurance that no linguist might call such a language into question.^[9]

Although accounts of the process differ, Smith is said to have translated the reformed Egyptian characters engraved on Golden Plates into English through various means including the use of a seer stone and/or the Urim and Thummim.^[10] When Smith finished the translation, he said that he returned the plates to the angel Moroni, and therefore they are unavailable for study.

[edit] The Anthon transcript or "Caractors" document

The only image of what "reformed Egyptian" might have looked like is the Anthon transcript or Caractors document. In 1887, David Whitmer said that he had in his possession "the original paper containing characters transcribed from one of the golden plates, which paper Martin Harris took to Charles Anthon (a Columbia college linguist and classicist) of New York, for him to read."^[11] The sample, currently owned by the Community of Christ, is alleged to have been copied by Smith from the Golden Plates. ^[12]

According to an account attributed to Harris by Smith, Anthon "stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet translated, and he said that they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters. He gave me a certificate, certifying to the people of Palmyra that they were true characters, and that the translation of such of them as had been translated was also correct."^[13]

During this period Egyptology was in its infancy, and Anthon could not have read the script had it been written in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Anthon's report is that the transcript "consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets. Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters inverted or placed sideways, were arranged in perpendicular columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Calender given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it was derived. I am thus particular as to the contents of the paper, inasmuch as I have frequently conversed with my friends on the subject, since the Mormonite excitement began, and well remember that the paper contained any thing else but 'Egyptian Hieroglyphics.'"^[14] Anthon's description seems inconsistent with the "caractors document," which has neither perpendicular columns nor a circle "divided into various compartments" reminiscent of a Mexican calender. It has been suggested that Anthon saw a different or an additional document.

In the early 1980s, convicted forger Mark Hofmann sold forged Mormon materials to Mormon investors and the LDS Church. ^[15] The papers included an alleged sample of reformed Egyptian characters probably copied (somewhat recklessly) from the Caractors Transcript in a manner intended to make them more closely agree with the description given by Anthon. ^[16]

[edit] LDS studies of reformed Egyptian

LDS studies of "reformed Egyptian" are necessarily limited to whatever linguistic footprints might be discovered in the translated text plus the extant seven-line Anthon transcript that may be the characters Joseph Smith said he copied from the gold plates.^[17] Some Mormons have attempted to decipher the Anthon transcript but, according to John Gee, "the corpus is not large enough to render decipherment feasible."^[18] Nevertheless, various LDS scholars and one RLDS scholar, have made the attempt, including Ariel L. Crowley,^[19] Blair Bryant,(RLDS)^[20] and Stan and Polly Johnson.^[21]

[edit] References and Notes

1. ^ Mormon 9:32
2. ^ 1 Nephi 19:1
3. ^ Joseph Smith never used the term "Reformed Egyptian Hieroglyphs."
4. ^ Mormon 9:32-34.
5. ^ 1 Nephi 1:2.
6. ^ See Reformed Egyptian by William J. Hamblin, "In fact, the word reformed is used in the Book of Mormon in this context as an adjective, meaning "altered, modified, or changed." This is made clear by Mormon, who tells us that "the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, [were] handed down and altered by us" and that "none other people knoweth our language" (Mormon 9:32, 34).
7. ^ See William J. Hamblin, Egyptian
8. ^ Mormon 9:33. Hebrew is more compact than many phonetic languages because it is written without vowels, but even more information can be conveyed in the same amount of space in ideogram or logographic characters such as Egyptian or Mayan hieroglyphs.
9. ^ The Secular Web
10. ^ Michael Morse, Smith's brother-in-law, said that he watched Smith on several occasions and said his "mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face." Michael Morse interview with William W. Blair, May 8, 1879, in EMD, 4: 343. Morse was clearly awed by Smith's ability to dictate as he did and called it "a strange piece of work." David Whitmer said that at one point "the plates were not before Joseph while he translated, but seem to have been removed by the custodian angel." David Whitmer Interview with the Chicago Times, August 1875, in EMD, 5: 21. Whitmer also stated that "after affixing the magical spectacles to his eyes, Smith would take the plates and translate the characters one at a time. The graven characters would appear in succession to the seer, and directly under the characer, when viewed through the glasses, would be the translation in English." Chicago Tribune, 15 December 1885 in EMD, 5: 124. Isaac Hale said that while Joseph was translating, the plates were "hid in the woods." Hale said that Martin Harris demanded that Smith give him a "greater witness," and Smith told Harris to "go into the woods where the Book of Plates was, and that after he came back, Harris should follow his track in the snow, and find the Book, and examine it for himself. Harris informed me afterwards, that he followed Smith's direction, and could not find the Plates, and was still dissatisfied." "Mormonism, Susquehanna Register and Northern Pennsylvanian 9 (May 1, 1834): 1 in EMD 4: 286-87. "No primary witness reported that Joseph used [the plates] in any way." Grant H. Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 2-5.
11. ^ "Address to All Believers," 11.
12. ^ The event is recounted in a Mormon scripture, Joseph Smith-History.
13. ^ Joseph Smith&mdashHistory 1:62-65
14. ^ Charles Anthon to E. D. Howe, February 17, 1834, in EMD, 4: 380.
15. ^ See Mark Hofmann and Salamander Letter.
16. ^ Blair Bryant explains:"Find a copy of that forgery and you can easily compare and see how Hofmann did it. Just turn a copy of the Caractors Transcript 90 degrees clockwise. Now compare the right-hand most column (line A) with Hofmann's left-hand most column. Reorient the individual characters as in the original (rotate each individual character 90 degrees counterclockwise) and you can identify every character.... Then Hofmann added a couple of additional squiggles to the bottom. Then, go to the line B and compare it from top to bottom with Hofmann's second column and so on. He copied it character-by-character with a few changes in flourishes or combinations of elements. He did that for the first four lines. In his fifth column he took elements in sequence from line E at the top and segments of other lines for the circular figure at the bottom. In a letter written several years after the Martin Harris meeting (1834, if memory serves), Professor Anthon described the document characters as being like mixtures of ancient alphabets jumbled and that there was a circular figure similar to an Aztec calendar at the bottom. It seems apparent that Hofmann rearranged the pattern to agree with Professor Anthon's description."
17. ^ Some LDS members also accept the Kirtland Egyptian papers and Frederick G. Williams note as genuine. [1]; [2]
18. ^ See Some Notes on the Anthon Transcript by John Gee
19. ^ In the February 1942 issue of the Improvement Era magazine, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ariel L. Crowley, a LDS attorney from Boise, presented evidence that the Anthon Transcript characters could be of Egyptian origin. See The Anthon Transcript. He discussed Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic in relation to hieratic and demotic Egyptian, the Anthon Transcript characters, and Martin Harris's report that Anthon mentioned those languages when he reviewed the transcript. He also presented 194 pairs of photographs comparing characters from the Anthon Transcript with similar or identical characters in recognized Egyptian works such as the Book of the Dead and the Rosetta Stone.
20. ^ Community of Christ adherent Blair Bryant claims to have found correlation between the Caractors (Anthon) document and the Book of Mormon title page. See Blair Bryant's Caractors Translation.
21. ^ In the book Translating the Anthon Transcript (Parowan, Utah: Ivory Books, 1999) by Stan and Polly Johnson, the authors argue that the Anthon transcript corresponds to Ether 6:3–13 in the present Book of Mormon. However, John Gee notes that if the so-called Anthon transcript is the actual piece of paper that Martin Harris took to Charles Anthon, it is safe to assume that the characters came from the text they were then translating (the 116 missing manuscript pages, which contained a record from the time of Lehi to the time of King Benjamin). Thus Ether should not be a logical source for the transcript's contents. See Some Notes on the Anthon Transcript by John Gee

[edit] External links

• John Gee, Some Notes on the Anthon Transcript, Mormon apologetics.
• William J. Hamblin, Reformed Egyptian, Mormon apologetics.
• Brant Gardner,Searching for Reformed Egyptian, Mormon apologetics.
• Richard G. Grant, Reformed Egyptian: 'In the Language of My Fathers', Mormon apologetics.
• Anthon Manuscript
• Jerald and Sandra Tanner, A book excerpt critical of Book of Mormon archeology