New World Egyptian
Joseph Smith, in his book, The Pearl of Great Price, claimed that his other book, The Book of Mormon, came from the translation of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics from these golden tablets he had been given. He translated them by use of the Urim and Thummim. As he says, “I commenced copying the characters off the plates. I copied a considerable number of them, and by means of the Urim and Thummim I translated some of them… Mr. Martin Harris came to our place, got the characters which I had drawn off the plates, and started with them to the city of New York. For what took place relative to him and the characters, I refer to his own account of the circumstances, as he related them to me after his return, which was as follows; ‘I went to the city of New York, and presented the characters that had been translated, with the translation thereof, to Professor Charles Anton, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anton stated that the tranlsation 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, Chaldiaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters.
Smith claimed that his translation was deemed accurate by a linguistic expert. But here is what the expert, Professor Anton, said in truth in a letter to Mr. E. D. Howe, a contemporary of Joseph Smith.
“The whole story about my having pronounced the Mormonite inscription to be ‘reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics’ is perfectly false. Some years ago, a plain and apparently simple hearted farmer called upon me with a note from Dr. Mitchell of our city, now deceased, requesting me to decipher, if possible, a paper which the farmer would hand me, and which Dr Mitchell confessed he had been unable to understand. Upon examining the paper in question, I soon came to the conclusion that it was all a trick, perhaps a hoax. When I asked the person who brought it how he obtained the writing he gave me, as far as I can recollect, the following account; A ‘gold book’ consisting of a number of plates of gold, fastened together in the shape of a book by wires of the same metal, had been dug up in the northern part of the state of New York and along with the book an enormous pair of gold spectacles… This paper was in fact a singular scrawl. It 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 nourishes, 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 Calendar given by Humboldt, but copied in such a was to not to betray the source where it was derived. I am thus particular as to the contents of the paper, insomuch as I have frequently conversed with my friend on the subject, since the Mormonite excitement began, and well remember that the paper contained anything else but ‘Egyptian Hieroglyphics.”
Just another hoax. A fraud by a charlatan who knew nothing of Ancient Egyptian
Jared Williams
Smith claimed that his translation was deemed accurate by a linguistic expert. But here is what the expert, Professor Anton, said in truth in a letter to Mr. E. D. Howe, a contemporary of Joseph Smith.
“The whole story about my having pronounced the Mormonite inscription to be ‘reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics’ is perfectly false. Some years ago, a plain and apparently simple hearted farmer called upon me with a note from Dr. Mitchell of our city, now deceased, requesting me to decipher, if possible, a paper which the farmer would hand me, and which Dr Mitchell confessed he had been unable to understand. Upon examining the paper in question, I soon came to the conclusion that it was all a trick, perhaps a hoax. When I asked the person who brought it how he obtained the writing he gave me, as far as I can recollect, the following account; A ‘gold book’ consisting of a number of plates of gold, fastened together in the shape of a book by wires of the same metal, had been dug up in the northern part of the state of New York and along with the book an enormous pair of gold spectacles… This paper was in fact a singular scrawl. It 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 nourishes, 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 Calendar given by Humboldt, but copied in such a was to not to betray the source where it was derived. I am thus particular as to the contents of the paper, insomuch as I have frequently conversed with my friend on the subject, since the Mormonite excitement began, and well remember that the paper contained anything else but ‘Egyptian Hieroglyphics.”
Just another hoax. A fraud by a charlatan who knew nothing of Ancient Egyptian
Jared Williams
