Scholarly reference works on languages do not acknowledge the existence of either a "reformed Egyptian" language or "reformed Egyptian" script as it was described by Joseph Smith.[3] There is no archaeological, linguistic, and other evidence of the use of Egyptian writing in the ancient Americas.
Reformed Egyptian and the Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon uses the term "reformed Egyptian" in only one verse, Mormon9:32, which says 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 also says that its first author, Nephi, used the "learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians" (1 Nephi1:2) to write his record which constitutes the first two books of the Book of Mormon. The abridgment that the Book of Mormon says was prepared by Mormon and Moroni nearly a thousand years later in approximately 380 AD, containing most of the balance of the book, was written in "reformed Egyptian" because it took less space than Hebrew, which had also been altered after the people left Jerusalem.[5]
Latter day-Saint scholars note that other scripts were developed to write Egyptian through the centuries and have hypothesized that the term "reformed Egyptian" refers to a form of Egyptian writing similar to other modified Egyptian scripts such as hieratic, a handwritten form of hieroglyphics thousands of years old by the first millennium BC, or early Demotic, a simplified derivative of hieratic, which was used in northern Egypt fifty years before the time that the Book of Mormon states that prophet-patriarch Lehi left Jerusalem for the Americas (c.600 BC).[6] The archaeological record includes occasional use in the Land of Israel, known as Palestinian Hieratic, mostly of isolated hieratic symbols, dating from the 8th through early 6th centuries BC.[7]
Although accounts of the process differ, Smith is said to have translated the reformed Egyptian characters engraved on gold plates into English through various means, including the use of a seer stone or the interpreter stones, or both.[8] Smith said when he had finished the translation, he returned the plates to the angel Moroni, and therefore they are unavailable for study.[9]
1844 broadside with reformed Egyptian characters, "the same that was taken to Professor Anthon of New York, by Martin Harris, in the year 1827."
The "Anthon Transcript" is a piece of paper on which Joseph Smith is said to have transcribed reformed Egyptian characters from the golden plates—the ancient record from which Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Mormon. A manuscript known as the "Caractors" document was previously thought to be this transcript. However, handwriting analysis suggests the document was most likely written by John Whitmer, one of the Eight Witnesses.[10] This handwriting analysis casts doubt on the idea that "Caractors" document was the Anthon Transcript because John Whitmer was not affiliated with the Church until June 1829, while the Anthon Transcript was taken to New York in the winter of 1828.
Smith said that when this sample was presented by Smith's colleague Martin Harris to Columbia College professor Charles Anthon, a noted classical scholar, that Anthon had attested to the characters' authenticity in writing but had then ripped up his certification after hearing that the plates had been revealed by an angel.[11] Anthon wrote, to the contrary, that he had believed from the first that Harris was the victim of fraud.[12]
In 1844, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints published a broadside about the Book of Mormon called "The Stick of Joseph" that reprinted some "reformed Egyptian" characters that resemble those on the first three lines of the "Caractors" document. The broadside said that the characters were those that had been shown to Anthon.[13] But it is unlikely that the characters on the broadside came directly from the "Caractors" document because Whitmer was excommunicated in 1838 and took his papers with him.[14]
Mainstream scholarly view of reformed Egyptian
Standard language reference works contain no reference to "reformed Egyptian"[3] and is described with this term only in the Book of Mormon. No non-Mormon scholars acknowledge the existence of either a "reformed Egyptian" language or a "reformed Egyptian" script as it has been described in Mormon belief. For instance, in 1966, John A. Wilson, professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, wrote, "From time to time there are allegations that picture writing has been found in America . ... In no case has a professional Egyptologist been able to recognize these characters as Egyptian hieroglyphs. From our standpoint there is no such language as 'reformed Egyptian'."[15] Anthropologist Michael D. Coe of Yale University, an expert in pre-ColumbianMesoamerican studies, wrote, "Of all the peoples of the pre-Columbian New World, only the ancient Maya had a complete script."[16] Fifteen examples of distinct writing systems have been identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, many from a single inscription.[17]
Reformed Egyptian characters copied by Joseph Smith's scribe, Oliver Cowdery, written in the early 1830sReformed Egyptian characters copied by Joseph Smith's scribe, Frederick G. Williams
Mormon studies of reformed Egyptian are necessarily limited to whatever linguistic evidence can be obtained from the text of the Book of Mormon plus the extant seven-line "Caractors" document that may or may not be the symbols said to have been copied from the gold plates.[20] Four Mormon non-linguist translators with varying levels of education have attempted to decipher the "Caractors" document.[21] According to Brigham Young University Egyptologist John Gee, "the corpus is not large enough to render decipherment feasible."[22]
Terryl Givens has suggested that the characters are early examples of Egyptian symbols being used "to transliterate Hebrew words and vice versa," that Demotic is a "reformed Egyptian", and that the mixing of a Semitic language with modified Egyptian characters is demonstrated in inscriptions of ancient Syria and the Land of Israel.[23] Other Mormon apologists have suggested that the characters resemble those of shorthand for various languages[24][25][26][27][28] including Hebrew,[29][30]Demotic (Egyptian),[31]Hieratic (Egyptian),[32]Coptic (Egyptian),[33]Mayan/Olmec,[34] and Irish ogham ciphers.[35]Hugh Nibley argued that a "revealed text in English" is preferable to trying to understand the original language.[36]
↑ Hardy, Grant (2010). Understanding the Book of Mormon: a reader's guide. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. p.6. ISBN978-0-19-973170-1. Joseph and his associates insisted from the beginning that the Book of Mormon was a translation from an authentic ancient document written in "Reformed Egyptian" on metal plates and buried by the last ancient author about AD 421.
1 2 Standard language references such as Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, eds., The World's Writing Systems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) (990 pages); David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Cambridge University Press, 1997); and Roger D. Woodard, ed., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages (Cambridge University Press, 2004) (1162 pages) contain no reference to "reformed Egyptian." "Reformed Egyptian" is also ignored in Andrew Robinson, Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts (New York: McGraw Hill, 2002), although it is mentioned in Stephen Williams, Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991).
↑ According to the Book of Mormon prophet Moroni (more than a thousand years after Nephi began the record): "And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also ..." Mormon9:33
↑ Hamblin, William J. (2007). "Reformed Egyptian"(PDF). FARMS Review. 19 (1). Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-05-14. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
↑ Wimmer, Stephan (2008). Palastinisches Hieratisch: Die Zahl- und Sonderzeichen in der althebraischen Schrift. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp.10–55. ISBN978-3447058629.
↑ 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 character, 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.""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.
↑ "Joseph Smith Interview with Peter Bauder, October 1830" in EMD, 1: 17; "Joseph Smith Interview with Leman Copley, 1831" in EMD, 1: 24–25. Yet even after Smith had returned the plates to the angel, other early Latter Day Saints testified that an angel had also showed them the plates. Grant Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 201. In 1859, Brigham Young referred to one of these "post-return" testimonies: "Some of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt ... One of the Quorum of the Twelve, a young man full of faith and good works, prayed, and the vision of his mind was opened, and the angel of God came and laid the plates before him, and he saw and handled them, and saw the angel." Journal of Discourses, June 5, 1859, 7: 164.
↑ John A. Wilson, March 16, 1966, cited in Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1979), ch. 5. Richard A. Parker, department of Egyptology at Brown University, wrote, "No Egyptian writing has been found in this [Western] hemisphere to my knowledge". Parker to Marvin Cowan, March 22, 1966, in Jerald and Sandra TannerThe Changing World of Mormonism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1979), ch. 5. In the same letter Parker said, "I do not know of any language such as Reformed Egyptian". In 1959, Mormon archaeologist Ross T. Christensen said that "'reformed' Egyptian" is a "form of writing which we have not yet identified in the archaeological material available to us". Book of Mormon Institute, December 5, 1959, BYU, 1964 ed., p. 10, cited in Jerald and Sandra TannerThe Changing World of Mormonism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1979), ch. 5. In 1956 a request for review of the Caractors Document was made to three recognized Egyptologists, Sir Alan Gardiner, William C. Hayes, and John A. Wilson. Gardiner replied that he saw no resemblance with "any form of Egyptian writing." Hayes stated that it might be an inaccurate copy of something in hieratic script and that "some groups look like hieratic numerals," adding that "I imagine, however, that the inscription bears a superficial resemblance to other scripts, both ancient and modern, of which I have no knowledge." Wilson gave the most detailed reply, saying that "This is not Egyptian writing, as known to the Egyptologist. It obviously is not hieroglyphic, nor the "cursive hieroglyphic" as used in the Book of the Dead. It is not Coptic, which took over Greek characters to write Egyptian. Nor does it belong to one of the cursive stages of ancient Egyptian writing: hieratic, abnormal hieratic, or demotic." Wilson added that "it does not conform to the normal pattern of cursive," and that because it was purported to be altered it may "remove this context from the professional analysis by the Egyptologist." https://www.academia.edu/31894670/1956_Statements_of_Egyptologists_on_the_Caractors_Document. Earlier in 1956 Hayes had provided his analysis of his assertion of hieratic numerals within the Caractors Document. https://www.academia.edu/38458222/2002_Sunstone_article_Dr._Hayes_analysis_of_Caractors_Document_characters_as_numerals;
↑ Michael D. Coe, Breaking the Maya Code, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999), preface.
↑ Macri, Martha J. (1996). "Maya and Other Mesoamerican Scripts," in The World's Writing Systems. England: Oxford. pp.172–182.
↑ Some Mormons also accept the Kirtland Egyptian papers and Frederick G. Williams note as genuine. "BYU". "100 Years". Reformed Egyptian.
↑ Shields, Steven L. (2021). "The Quest for "Reformed Egyptian"". The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. 41 (2): 101–125. The four translators identified are Blair B. Bryant, Jerry D. Grover, Jr, Mary Jo Jackel and Stanley Q. Johnson.
↑ See Some Notes on the Anthon TranscriptArchived 2016-09-24 at the Wayback Machine by John Gee. Various LDS Church authors have made the attempt. In the February 1942 issue of Improvement Era, Ariel L. Crowley, a Mormon attorney from Boise, Idaho, presented evidence that the "Caractors" document characters could be of Egyptian origin. See The Anthon Transcript. He discussed Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic in relation to hieratic and demotic Egyptian, the "Caractors" document 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. Stan and Polly Johnson, in the book Translating the Anthon Transcript (Parowan, Utah: Ivory Books, 1999) 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.
↑ "A revealed text in English is infinitely to be preferred to an original in a language that no one on earth could claim as his own. It frees the members and leaders of the Church as it frees the investigating world from the necessity of becoming philologists or, worse still, of having to rely on the judgment of philologists, as a prerequisite to understanding this great book. At the same time, it puts upon the modern world an obligation to study and learn, from which that world could easily plead immunity were the book in an ancient language or couched in the labored and pretentious idiom that learned men adopt when they try to decipher ancient texts." Hugh Nibley, "New Approaches to Book of Mormon Study," The Prophetic Book of Mormon (1989), 97 (link hereArchived 2013-12-21 at the Wayback Machine for the specific excerpt from the book)
The Angel Moroni is an angel whom Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, reported as having visited him on numerous occasions, beginning on September 21, 1823. According to Smith, the angel Moroni was the guardian of the golden plates buried near his home in western New York, which Latter Day Saints believe were the source of the Book of Mormon. An important figure in the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, Moroni is featured prominently in its architecture and art. Besides Smith, the Three Witnesses and several other witnesses also reported that they saw Moroni in visions in 1829.
Hieratic is the name given to a cursive writing system used for Ancient Egyptian and the principal script used to write that language from its development in the third millennium BCE until the rise of Demotic in the mid-first millennium BCE. It was primarily written in ink with a reed brush on papyrus.
According to Latter Day Saint belief, the golden plates are the source from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the faith. Some accounts from people who reported handling the plates describe the plates as weighing from 30 to 60 pounds, gold in color, and composed of thin metallic pages engraved with hieroglyphics on both sides and bound with three D-shaped rings.
Martin Harris was an early convert to the Latter Day Saint movement who financially guaranteed the first printing of the Book of Mormon and also served as one of Three Witnesses who testified that they had seen the golden plates from which Joseph Smith said the Book of Mormon had been translated.
Oliver H. P. Cowdery was an American religious leader who, with Joseph Smith, was an important participant in the formative period of the Latter Day Saint movement between 1829 and 1836. He was the first baptized Latter Day Saint, one of the Three Witnesses, which included him stating he had seen the Book of Mormon's golden plates, one of the first Latter Day Saint apostles and the Assistant President of the Church.
The relationship between linguistics and the Book of Mormon is two-fold. First, the relationship between linguistic patterns of the languages of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas can be compared to claims from the Book of Mormon; secondly, linguistic analysis of the book itself can be employed by either the book’s defenders or critics in arguing for or against the book’s historicity.
Charles Anthon was an American classical scholar. Anthon was a professor at Columbia College and became headmaster of its grammar and preparatory school. He produced classical works for schools, which contained assistance and translations in the notes. He had a disagreement with Martin Harris over an account where they discussed the authenticity of the Anthon Transcript of the Book of Mormon. Anthon was also an acquaintance of writer Edgar Allan Poe. He died in New York City at the age of 69.
The "Anthon Transcript" is a piece of paper on which Joseph Smith wrote several lines of characters. According to Smith, these characters were from the golden plates and represent the reformed Egyptian writing that was on the plates.
The Three Witnesses is the collective name for three men connected with the early Latter Day Saint movement who stated that an angel had shown them the golden plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon; they also stated that they had heard God's voice, informing them that the book had been translated by divine power. The Three are part of twelve Book of Mormon witnesses, who also include Smith and the Eight Witnesses.
The "lost 116 pages" were the original manuscript pages of what Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, said was the translation of the Book of Lehi, the first portion of the golden plates revealed to him by an angel in 1827. These pages, which had not been copied, were lost by Smith's scribe, Martin Harris, during the summer of 1828 and are presumed to have been destroyed. Smith completed the Book of Mormon without retranslating the Book of Lehi, replacing it with what he said was an abridgment taken from the Plates of Nephi.
Demotic is the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Nile Delta. The term was first used by the Greek historian Herodotus to distinguish it from hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts. By convention, the word "Demotic" is capitalized in order to distinguish it from demotic Greek.
The life of Joseph Smith from 1827 to 1830, when he was 22–25 years old, begins in late 1827, after Smith announced he had obtained a book of golden Plates buried in a hill near his home in Manchester, New York. Because of opposition by former treasure-seeking colleagues who believed they owned a share of the golden plates, Smith prepared to leave the Palmyra area for his wife's home town of Harmony, Pennsylvania. From late 1827 to the end of 1830, Smith would translate the golden plates, publish the Book of Mormon, and establish the Church of Christ.
The Book of Mormon witnesses were a group of contemporaries of Joseph Smith who claimed to have seen the golden plates from which Smith translated the Book of Mormon. The most significant witnesses were the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses, all of whom allowed their names to be used on two separate statements included with the Book of Mormon. Critics have challenged the nature and reliability of the accounts, but church leaders contend that none of the witnesses ever denied what they saw.
The historicity of the Book of Mormon is the historical actuality of persons and events that are written in it, meaning the quality of it being part of history instead of being a historical myth, legend, or fiction. Many members of the Latter Day Saint movement believe that the Book of Mormon is historically accurate. Most, but not all, Latter Day Saints hold the book's connection to ancient American history as an article of their faith. This view finds no confirmation outside of the movement in the broader scientific and academic communities. Relevant archaeological, historical, and scientific facts are not consistent with the Book of Mormon being an ancient record of actual historical events.
Adherents to the Latter Day Saint movement view the Book of Mormon as a work of divinely inspired scripture, which was written by ancient prophets in the ancient Americas. Adherents mostly believe Joseph Smith's account of translating ancient golden plates inscribed by prophets. Smith preached that the angel Moroni, a prophet in the Book of Mormon, directed him in the 1820s to a hill near his home in Palmyra, New York, where the plates were buried. An often repeated and upheld as convincing claim by adherents that the story is true is that besides Smith himself, there were at least 11 witnesses who said they saw the plates in 1829, three that claimed to also have been visited by an angel, and other witnesses who observed Smith dictating parts of the text that eventually became the Book of Mormon.
The Book of Abraham is a work produced between 1835 and 1842 by the Latter Day Saints (LDS) movement founder Joseph Smith that he said was based on Egyptian papyri purchased from a traveling mummy exhibition. According to Smith, the book was "a translation of some ancient records ... purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus". The work was first published in 1842 and today is a canonical part of the Pearl of Great Price. Since its printing, the Book of Abraham has been a source of controversy. Numerous non-LDS Egyptologists, beginning in the mid-19th century, have heavily criticized Joseph Smith's translation and explanations of the facsimiles, unanimously concluding that his interpretations are inaccurate. They have also asserted that missing portions of the facsimiles were reconstructed incorrectly by Smith.
The standard works of Mormonism—the largest denomination of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints —have been the subject of various criticisms. Latter-day Saints believe the Book of Mormon is a sacred text with the same divine authority as the Bible; both are considered complementary to each other. Other Mormon sacred texts include the Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants, which are also recognized as scripture. Religious and scholarly critics outside Mormonism have disputed Mormonism's unique scriptures, questioning the traditional narrative of how these books came to light and the extent to which they describe actual events. Critics cite research in history, archeology, and other disciplines to support their contentions.
Engraved metal plates hold a special significance in the Latter Day Saint movement because in 1827, the founder of that religion, Joseph Smith, claimed to have obtained a set of engraved golden plates from an angel and from them translated into English the Book of Mormon, a religious text of that religious tradition.
Subjects of criticism of the Book of Mormon include its origins, authenticity, and historicity, which have been subject to considerable criticism from scholars and skeptics since it was first published in 1830. The Book of Mormon is a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement, which adherents believe contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from approximately 2200 BC to AD 421. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith as The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi, who said that it had been written in otherwise unknown characters referred to as "reformed Egyptian" engraved on golden plates. Contemporary followers of the Latter Day Saint movement typically regard the text primarily as scripture, but also as a historical record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Book of Mormon:
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