Proof of Reformed Egyptian in The Book of Mormon? 

Thanks

@@james8996 they did exist and the very first verse in the book proves it. Nephi says he is born of goodly parents and knows the goodness of god. Turns out nfr (no vowels) in Egyptian means good. Joseph Smith made that up. You can keep fighting God but he gave you the book and you will be judged by it whether you read it or not.

Thanks, so much. I don't bother to make a video unless I think I can offer new insights. Really glad you got something out of it.

Not sure who you heard, but the facts don't really back that argument up. Anthon absolutely had access to everything going on in Europe, and I'll try to back that up. All the relevant scholars had access to the Demotic that was on the Stone by that time. It was the newest, hottest thing, and they'd had more than 6 years to study it before Anthon met Martin Harris. And the characters matched well with Demotic as I prove in this video. Sure, Anthon may have overstated his ability to determine the accuracy of the translation, but he would have certainly recognized the Demotic for being real, and would have known enough to come to his own conclusion that the translations coordinated with what he knew by then. But Martin Harris was no liar, in my book. You're likely referring to Brian Hauglid, an emeritus BYU Professor who has made that claim and has also backtracked on his belief in the authenticity of Joseph Smith's claims about the translation of the Pearl of Great Price. He is one voice, and many other BYU professors strongly disagree with him. The Appeal to Authority logical fallacy is probably the most abused these days, and I hate it. If we can't check things out ourselves, then it's often not science. His claim that learning about the translation of the Rosetta Stone hadn't "hopped the pond" is a really strange one, since a very quick check on newspaper articles in the US at the time prove him obviously wrong. Even the general public had this news within months and there are multiple Newspaper articles in the US that talked about it soon afterward. Charles Anthon was not just studying ancient Greek, he was writing the Greek textbooks for all the other American professors. His expertise in Greek names was world-class. There were no experts in the Ancient Egyptian language at the time, the experts concerned with the Rosetta stone were mostly experts in ancient Greek, since they knew that the Coptic script at the bottom of the stone would be the key to unravelling the mystery. The Rosetta Stone was in Anthon's sweet spot. Twenty years before the Stone was translated, the Maryland Gazette in 1801 (not long after the Stone was discovered) reported that they hadn't identified the Demotic at that point, but "The remaining portion consists of 53 lines in Greek.... One of the members of the French institute, having undertaken to read and explain this part,..." "It will be submitted to the examination of the learned through all Europe." That was more than two decades before the Stone was finally translated by Champollion in late 1822. To think that Anthon wasn't heavily interested and invested in this work and in constant contact with scholars in England on this topic is silly. He was literally at the top of the specific field of study used to break the Rosetta code. Also, Champollion was helped by an earlier breakthrough in 1819 by an Englishman Thomas Young, who was a polymath and also an expert in Greek. It's difficult to imagine or argue that Anthon was in a vacuum and unaware of all this. In the 1820's there was very regular trade and mail between London, Paris, and New York. It only took about 21-29 days for letters and newspapers to cross the Atlantic. The idea that Anthon was isolated from what was happening in Europe, in spite of Newspapers talking about it in the U.S. for two decades doesn't make any sense. Remember, Martin Harris visited Anthon in 1828, six years after it was translated. By then every linguist in America, especially Greek linguists would have had years of experience with the information. Think about Thomas Jefferson's library, deep in rural Virginia far from New York or Annapolis. Yet, his was one of the most up-to-date libraries in the world, and that was in the 1700s when Virginia was still a colony. So, yeah, I reject Hauglid's perspective, especially on that point, and can't help but wonder if he hasn't developed a bit of a personal agenda, seeing that he's intentionally ignoring well established information to shed doubt on Smith's and Martin Harris's character, where it's not necessarily merited.

Interesting point. I failed to point out in the video that the Nephites would have lost their Hebrew MUCH more quickly had it not been for the brass plates, which would have been in Hebrew.

@@JJBrown-lw1dv you know what I may have misstated the script used but the theory about the delta between the two is correct

I'll have to check it out.@@kz6fittycent

And we might as well add Little Women by Louisa May Alcott because when we make things up, it's better to be entertaining! Not mention that she may have possibly almost have heard about Joseph Smith, which, as we all know, absolutely proves the Book of Mormon.

Glad it was helpful!

Glad it was helpful!

Yes, he's done a lot of good work on this, which I discovered after I'd done this video. We used similar tactics, but he's gone more in depth. He's found more hieratic characters than I have. The hieratic I see are more hieratic numerals and the other characters I think are more demotic, which is the later script from Lehi's day. Those who used the demotic script just adopted the numerals from hieratic. Demotic doesn't have its own numbering system.

You are very welcome

Thank you so much 😀

You're welcome! Hope you you heard something new.

Glad you enjoyed it

@@JJBrown-lw1dv I can't say that I have ever heard a presentation like that before. It was quite informative.

I think I've been looking at that verse wrong, but you meant Mosiah 1: "4 For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates; for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children, that thereby they could teach them to their children, and so fulfilling the commandments of God, even down to this present time." I assumed Laban's plates were Hebrew and that the plates preserved Hebrew among them; but you're right, verse 4 seems to imply that Laban's plates had at least some element of Egyptian. It could have been that they started in Hieratic, because they may have been Joseph's personal record. But it may have also developed into Demotic or Hebrew as new record keepers kept them up to date over time, all the way up to Jeremiah's prophecies. Which meant they were incredibly up to date. It also makes me wonder if Zoram wasn't one of the record keepers, and he, too, would have known the languages and different scripts. That fits in with Sherem possibly being a Zoramite. Because he seemed very educated and fairly devoted to the teachings of the Plates of Laban over the visions of Nephi and Lehi. But it seems clear that Hebrew was preserved among the Nephites more than among the Lamanites and the Mulekites, because they had written records. So, it seems reasonable that the newer entries on the plates of brass contained Hebrew, even if its oldest sections were in old Hieratic and later in Demotic.

thanks, so much.

Thanks for the info!

The document I show in this video is not the one Harris took to Dr. Anthon. To me, it seems like more of a random sampling of the characters found on the plates. This guys has done a video that goes much more in depth on the characters. You may want to check it out. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DppMy1mycKM.html

Thanks for watching!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks so much for watching it and for your comment.

I don't know much about Arabic script, but I believe it was first only a spoken language, but then as it moved into areas that used alphabets, it would adopt those alphabets to represent its spoken words. Written Arabic continued to develop and adopt new letters as Arabic speakers moved into areas with new alphabets. So that would fit with Demotic, it seems.

Thanks, so much!

You should watch the entire video before attempting to debunk it. It can leave you exposed. You should also familiarize yourself with the Demotic script before pretending to be an authority on ancient Egyptian. At the end of the video, I clearly show that the majority of Joseph Smith Characters match well with the Ancient Egyptian Demotic script. It's an exercise that anyone can duplicate for themselves.

Ok, closed-minded closed canon dogmatic Pharisee gatekeeper!

True, but most appeared to have been made up. Some do appear to be like the characters on the Smith's magical/occultic items, which were indeed taken from books of darkmagicks.

@@user-yr9lt7dz8k You don't have to be a "closed-minded closed canon dogmatic Pharisee gatekeeper" you know. Have you tried ballet?

It's a good question, but I don't have any indication that this is the Anthon manuscript. It seems to be more of collection of different characters, so it's hard to say if it would be worth trying to translate.

Glad you enjoyed it

Thanks, very much! I have seen May talk about that, but I haven't done any personal study into it. You make a good point that the Melmac tribe comparisons provide support for post-Nephite evidence of Smith's characters, while I was focused on pre-Nephite support. Isn't it interesting that the academics, even at BYU, almost seem to be blinded somewhat to the truths that make the most sense in support of the BoM? And since you brought up grottochronology, I realized after I posted that video that the Nephites having the Brass Plates as their basic scripture probably had a lot to do with the fact Moroni could still write in Hebrew a full thousand years later. If the brass plates hadn't been included some Hebrew, their language would have been long gone by that time.

@@JJBrown-lw1dv Great point with the brass plates! Like what happened with the Mulekites with their language being corrupted. Omni 1:17.

Higher attic, rather than hi rattic.

Thanks, you're correct, but so am I. (higher ATtic) is a UK pronunciation. I use the American, which is (hi RAttic) dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/hieratic

Yes. Pretty sure I say Demotic throughout the video. If I said demonic somewhere, that was a verbal typo.

That's a valid question and it's been around since the Book of Mormon was published, but it's an argument that has been overtaken by events. There have been multiple studies in recent years revealing that brass was being made unintentionally as far back as 2,000 BC and intentionally being produced and used as far back as 1,000 BC. Here are two of them, but there are others. Christopher P. Thornton, “Of Brass and Bronze in prehistoric Southwest Asia,” in Metals and Mines: Studies in Archaeometallurgy, ed. S. La Niece, D. R. Hook, P. T. Craddock (London: Archetype Publications, 2007) Brass, Zinc and the Beginning of Chemical Industry, P. Craddock Published 1 June 2018

Well when kohen DNA is found in amerids. And structures and swords and breast plates and the infra structure to support such an alleged civilization is found then credible imperial archeological evidence is found then that's a starting point. Until then no evidence for such a civilization does not exist. I could name many more of a myriad of problems with this text , I will just end here, . I await your evidence.

Look up photos of the thin panels of bronze that adorned the alawat gates of Assyria which are in the British museum which are from a contemporary time period …. As far as brass specifically I found the following two references just in a quick google search …. 1. Brass was introduced around 500 BC. Brass is made from an alloy of Copper and Zinc. 2. The history of brass dates back to ancient civilizations, with artifacts found in various regions, including the Middle East and Europe. It is believed that brass was first created around 5000 BCE when metallurgists accidentally mixed copper and zinc ores during the smelting process… it is also listed with the Greeks at 300 BC but it was not widespread in its use till the Roman’s but just because it was not widespread doesn’t mean that it did not exist at all.

Regardless of the timeline of its use an ocean away, we must confess archaeology unfortunately has not verified its use, accidental or otherwise, in the Americas. Possessing the original plates (trusting that they in fact exited physically & not just in the spiritual eyes of the prophet) would help. Archeology, anachronism, & biographical accounts about his life aside, faith in the prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. will continue whether the findings of man support it or not.

Joseph made a mistake when he wrote that the plates were in gold. This made it impossible for him to forge a set. He did this because they were treasures hunters, and he wanted everyone to believe that he finally succeeded in colluding with the spirits of the dead in finding treasure. I think JS made it all up, but since they were into the occult, used blackmagic methods and implements to call up spirits, it is possible that the underworld helped write the books.

Thanks! Proof of spiritual things requires personal revelation. God calls us to reach through the veil to Him to find real truth. It can't be given except by an overt act of will or agency on our behalf. So no video or anything else can substitute for a "desire" to know. But God rewards an initial effort of faith by opening up endless wonders of truth for as long as we're willing to seek it. I'm always hoping my videos serve in some way as an impetus or a reward for active seekers, but they'll never be proof of anything, especially for non-seekers.

Thanks for watching. Have you seen this one? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-j6zw-gg-NEM.html

Thanks for the technical corrections. I saw a graphic calling the ancient Greek Coptic on the Rosetta Stone, so I went with that, but you're correct. Coptic wasn't developed until later. Demotic is considered logographic, which makes it technically a script. But is was also often transliterated, and had uniliteral signs that could represent sounds and allowed it to be used more like an alphabet than a purely logographic script. It's adaptability is what supports the point I tried to make in the video that Demotic can be adapted to other languages like it was with the Papyrus Amherst 63. I'm no linguist but wiki talks about this characteristic of Demotic: wiki "Like its hieroglyphic predecessor script, Demotic possessed a set of "uniliteral" or "alphabetical" signs that could be used to represent individual phonemes. These are the most common signs in Demotic, making up between one third and one half of all signs in any given text; foreign words are also almost exclusively written with these signs"

@@JJBrown-lw1dvYes. Coptic was spelled with mainly Greek letters, but with a few demotic characters thrown in. Yes, there are some demotic letters which function alphabetically. However, the true value of demotic is that it is shorthand, like Gregg shorthand, in that it can be used to take verbatim dictation. That is what Gregg shorthand was used for by all court reporters in America at one time. Shorthand always features logograms which have one or two squiggles for an entire word or phrase. Reformed Egyptian did that to save space. Only proper names would be spelled out.

Awesome info. Thanks!

Ridicule is no substitute for actual criticism. It's a weak-minded tactic whenever it's used. If you have any substantive claims about any facts I used, I'll consider them. In my video I clearly stated that the connection between the characters and the demotic alphabet don't prove the truthfulness of the Book or Mormon. The facts I used were based on well established knowledge of ancient Egyptian and how the Hebrews and others incorporated the Egyptian alphabet in the 650-600 BC time frame.

Doesn't it bother them at all that they have NO source material? No actual Book of Mormon, and NO copies? There is NO source document of the witnesses. The godly thing to conclude is that they are not of God.

@@JJBrown-lw1dv Would you mind providing ANY source material or direct copies of the source material? That way, we can all speak intelligently on the matter? Also, I'd like to see some holy and academic credentials of anyone involved with creating the actual source materials.

@@ts-900 Do you believe in the Bible. If so, can you provide any original source material for it? Thanks.

@@ts-900 There is no original source material for the Bible either. Not one scrap.