The Book of Mormon, a work of scripture of the Latter Day Saint movement, is asserted by both itself and Joseph Smith, the founder of the movement, to have been originally written in the Native American writing system of reformed Egyptian characters. 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. There is no archaeological, linguistic, or 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,, 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". The book also says that its first author, Nephi, used the "learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians" 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. 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). 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. 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. Smith said when he had finished the translation, he returned the plates to the angel Moroni, and therefore they are unavailable for study.

The "Anthon Transcript"

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. 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. Anthon wrote, to the contrary, that he had believed from the first that Harris was the victim of fraud. 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. However, 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.

Mainstream scholarly view of reformed Egyptian

Standard language reference works contain no reference to "reformed Egyptian" and it 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'." 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 Tanner The 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 Tanner The 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; Anthropologist Michael D. Coe of Yale University, an expert in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican studies, wrote, "Of all the peoples of the pre-Columbian New World, only the ancient Maya had a complete script." Fifteen examples of distinct writing systems have been identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, many from a single inscription.

Mormon studies of reformed Egyptian

Since no outside evidence exists, Mormon studies of reformed Egyptian are 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. Four Mormon non-linguist translators with varying levels of education have attempted to decipher the "Caractors" document. According to Brigham Young University Egyptologist John Gee, "the corpus is not large enough to render decipherment feasible." See Some Notes on the Anthon Transcript 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. Mormon apologist 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. Other Mormon apologists have suggested that the characters resemble those of shorthand for various languages including Hebrew, Demotic (Egyptian), Hieratic (Egyptian), Coptic (Egyptian), Mayan/Olmec, and Irish ogham ciphers. Hugh Nibley argued that a "revealed text in English" is preferable to trying to understand the original language.

Notes and references