Reformed Egyptian

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The Book of Mormon (a sacred text of Mormonism) states that it was written with "reformed Egyptian" (Mormon 9:32) characters on plates of ore (1 Nephi 19:1) by Messianic Israelite prophets between 600 B.C. and A.D. 421. Joseph Smith, Jr. (the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement) said that the last of those prophets appeared to him on September 21, 1823 in resurrected form, told him gold plates were deposited near his home, and commanded him to translate them. Smith published the Book of Mormon in 1830 as that translation. There is no consensus outside Mormonism that the Book of Mormon is a translated ancient record, but Latter Day Saints generally believe that the book was produced entirely from these ancient gold plates inscribed with reformed Egyptian characters.

1 Claims of the Book of Mormon
2 The Anthon transcript or Caractors document
3 The Hofmann Forgery
4 Reformed Egyptian Studies
5 External links

[edit] Claims of the Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon says "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). The book also describes this language as consisting of the "learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians" (1 Nephi 1:2). While the term "reformed Egyptian" apparently does not refer to any other language, some Mormons have hypothesized that "reformed Egyptian" was Hebrew written in an adaptation of Egyptian hieroglyphics similar to demotic or hieratic script.

Moroni (quoted above) also states that if the plates were larger, they may have done their writing in Hebrew, and if they had done so then "there would be no imperfection." He also states that the Hebrew had been changed by them over time.

Because there is no known archaeological, linguistic, or other evidence of the use of Egyptian writing in ancient America, some have suggested that the claims of the Book of Mormon regarding reformed Egyptian are implausible. Mormons have generally responded that the Book at least allows for, or suggests, that reformed Egyptian writing was solely used for writing on sacred plates, and that the choice of Egyptian for the scribal language of sacred plates is plausible in light of the statements in the Book of Mormon and the historic influence and development of Egyptian writing. However, while critics have asserted that historic records show that all writings of Israelite origin from the period used the Hebrew script there is at least one known example of Egyptian script writing of Israelite origin.

In either case, even within Mormonism, studies of Book of Mormon reformed Egyptian are necessarily limited to linguistic footprints in the translated text itself and a seven-line sample that may be the characters Joseph Smith and associates said were copied from the gold plates. Some Mormons, however, believe that the writing system may have existed in Mesoamerica outside the Book of Mormon, and that evidence that it did exist may someday be discovered.

According to Joseph Smith, Jr. and his associates, Smith translated reformed Egyptian characters engraved on Golden Plates into English through various means including the use of an ancient device called the Urim and Thummim which, like the plates, were said to have been eventually returned to the angel Moroni who originally gave them to Smith.

[edit] The Anthon transcript or Caractors document

Caractors document.

The Anthon transcript or the Caractors document, was part of David Whitmer's estate. David Whitmer published a statement in 1887 that "I have in my 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...." (Address to All Believers, p. 11) The sample is alleged to have been copied by Smith. This event is recounted in Joseph Smith-History. The Anthon transcript is currently owned by the Community of Christ.

It is unclear whether the Caractors document is the same as the one seen by Anthon. According to his account, the letters were definitely not "reformed Egyptian", and could in fact be identified as Greek, Hebrew, and Latin letters flipped around or turned on their sides.[1]

[edit] The Hofmann Forgery

In the early 1980s, convicted forger Mark Hofmann sold some so-called McLellin papers to various Mormon investors and the LDS Church (see Mark Hofmann and Salamander Letter). The papers included an alleged sample of reformed Egyptian characters. According to one researcher, the sample appears to have been copied from the Caractors Transcript somewhat carelessly (line for line in the first four lines) to more closely agree with a description given by Charles Anthon. 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."

[edit] Reformed Egyptian Studies

Most study of reformed Egyptian in Mormonism is via the proxy of the English text of the Book of Mormon. Some Mormons and non-Mormons have made attempts to study and decipher the Anthon transcript. However, LDS Egyptologist, John Gee has noted:

A major obstacle faces those attempting a translation of the Anthon transcript—the corpus is not large enough to render decipherment feasible. [2]

The following are examples of studies and attempts in decipherment of the Anthon transcript.

[edit] Ariel L. Crowley’s study

In the February 1942 issue of the Improvement Era magazine, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ariel L. Crowley, a young 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 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.

[edit] Blair Bryant’s translation

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.

[edit] Stan and Polly Johnson’s translation

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, book reviewer, John Gee notes:

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. [3]

[edit] A common malapropism

Many people, both LDS and non-LDS, use the incorrect term "Reformed Egyptian Hieroglyphs." This terminology was never used by Joseph Smith himself, nor is it used by anybody with knowledge of ancient Egyptian writing systems.