Caractors

Smith's translation of the Caractors. According to Martin Harris (Joseph Smith - History, 1:64), "I went to the city of New York, and presented the characters which had been translated, with the translation thereof, to Professor Charles Anthon, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anthon stated that the translation 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 they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters."

Speak right up now in all truthfulness. Isn't it revealing how Smith started out making a stab at creating believable "caractors" but quckly gave up and produced nothing but squiggles, ending up with a series of nothing more than crude little scribbles? Yet Professor Anthon supposedly translated them. The man must have been an all-time world-class genius!

*Harris must have had two or three pieces of paper with him—one with characters and a translation of them (on the same paper or a separate one) and one with untranslated characters—quite likely the "Caractors." Some Mormon "scholars" have gone out on a limb, sawed it off, and knocked themselves out trying to translate from these true Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic characters a segment that would correspond with a verse from 1 Nephi.

Modern-day experts in Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic. In 1829, any knowledge of these languages possessed by U.S. scholars would have been rudimentary at best. Expertise in them has vastly improved since then. So go ahead, do it. Get any modern expert in these languages to identify which of these "Caractors" are Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic. Better still, accept the claim of Mormon apologists that Anthon did indeed so testify and that his appraisal of the Caractors was correct. (Op. cit, pp. 73-75)

Save your money! Samples of Assyriac/Aramaic and Arabic writing:

What say you? Which of Smith's "Caractors" resemble the Assyriac and Arabic ones? No need to pay experts for their analysis. A child could accurately check this out. These writing systems have remained constant for well over 3000 years.

Apparently God has failed us here. (No blasphemy intended.) How did "the translation thereof" get lost? Why didn't Smith safeguard it—make multiple copies—so that we could readily find this text from the gold plates in every edition of The Book of Mormon ever published?

The "Caractors" supposedly are random, non-contiguous characters copied form the gold plates. Nonetheless, inasmuch as most of them would have to be in "Reformed Egyptian," present-day scholars should be able to translate them much more easily than Anthon. Locating the translated words in The Book of Mormon could then be accomplished by simply finding them in the exhaustive Book of Mormon INDEX. Go for it, ye great Egyptologists!

Strangely, from Nephi to Moroni, not one single scribe mentions Chaldaic, Assyriac or Arabic, so how account for the inclusion of these among the "Caractors"? Hmmm. Are we faced here with Reformed Chaldaic, Reformed Assyriac and Reformed Arabic? "None other people knoweth our language; therefore [the Lord] hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof." (Mormon 9:34) Shouldn't that have read "knoweth our languages"?

Amazing that the "Reformed Egyptian" of Champollion and that of the Book of Mormon ended up being so similar that, according to Martin Harris, Anthon could promptly verify that Smith's translation was correct. And without the Urim and Thummim! No problem. None other people knoweth our language except for Champollion, Charles Anthon and other learned scholars like him—all of them without access to Smith's magical peep stones or any need for them.

If Smith was at all consistent, wouldn't he know that of all earth's inhabitants he alone, thanks to the Urim and Thummim, could translate caractors in language(s) that none other people knoweth? Nonetheless, Anthon was Smith's ticket to supposed fulfillment of Isaiah's non-prophecy, so he disregarded all obvious, logical implications. Devout true blue Mormons: Take a second to objectively, dispassionately, honestly think of this. Has the world ever witnessed a more mixed-up, messed-up ridiculous farce?

Cut throats. The authors of "What did Charles Anthon Really Say" have cleverly cut their own throats. "In 1834," they write, "Professor Charles Anthon vehemently denied that he told Martin Harris that the Book of Mormon characters resembled Egyptian. ...having unwittingly fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 29, Anthon took the easy way out: He tore up the statement he had innocently given to Harris and denied Harris's story. Today Anthon's cover-up appears more blatant than ever." (Reexploring the Book of Mormon, p. 75)

Well, thank you, Mormon apologists. Now the rest of us can join in your excitement to know that in addition to Egyptian and Hebrew, Ancient Americans knew and used Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic too. A pity that over a period of 1000 years all of these languages were written exclusively on perishable materials. However, impressive numbers of engravings on stone, gold, brass and tumbaga alloy (gold and copper) indubitably will be discovered no later than a week or so before the Millennium. (The Mayans—ancient America's only fully literate people—left records engraved on stone and other materials that are totally unrelated to Near Eastern writing systems. Nonetheless, because of their literacy, Mormon scholars tend to locate Book of Mormon events in Maya territory.)

Actually, Chaldaic and Assyriac are two names for one language. The best-known version of it is Aramaic, spoken by the Babylonians at the time of the captivity and by the Jews after their return. Aramaic and Hebrew are closely related Semitic languages. Jesus, of course, knew Hebrew (the language of the Law and the Prophets) as well as Aramaic (used in everyday speech). Talitha cumi (Damsel, I say uno thee, arise — Mark 5:38-42) is Aramaic. Quite possibly the 12-year-old little girl didn't know Hebrew.

O.K., LDS scholars, did Lehi and company leave for the land of Jerusalem before or after the Babylonian captivity?

Why, before, of course!

Where did the Jews learn to speak Aramaic as a common language?

Well, naturally, in Babylon. Where else?

Then how come Lehi and his descendants were using this language in America? And where did they pick up Arabic? Be honest and admit that this "Caractors" story couldn't be more incriminating and damning. Be honorable. Be ethical and forthcoming! Doesn't your religion constantly teach and preach this? Aren't you supposed to be a light and an example to the world? Live up to your thirteenth Article of Faith: "We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men..."

Didn't anyone realize the potential value, as a collectible, of the paper on which Smith had translated an Egyptian text from the Book of Mormon? It would be worth at least a million. How come Mark Hofmann, the celebrated forger of Mormon documents, didn't forge this one?

A new concept. The gold plates remained safely in Joseph Smith's hands until when, according to arrangements, the messenger [Moroni] called for them (Joseph Smith—1:60). Those gold plates, it seems, have been taken to heaven despite the general consensus that there is no place in celestial spheres for terrestrial things. Inasmuch as these incredibly valuable plates, unlike the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc. are not available for examination and research, thank God that we at least have this "book," these Caractors, copied from them to breathlessly, reverently contemplate and analyze.

Would the gold they were engraved on make the plates sacred? Too sacred to be viewed except through angelic intervention? A find as spectacular as this should have been announced enthusiastically to the press, and scientists should have been invited to examine the fabulous plates. To properly get his amazing story out to the whole wide world, II Nephi surely would have insisted on this.

What a pitiful public relations man Moroni turned out to be for his fantastic people! What a lousy job he did! If God really wanted the world to know the words of the book, would it have been surrounded by such elaborate, peculiar secrecy and mystery? No. Instead, a farmer, for example, could have been caused to stumble upon it and immediately report his discovery to competent authorities. The publicity the gold plates would have received world-wide would have far, far surpassed that accorded the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The stupid recruiting of non-professional "witnesses" who spoke only English to attest to the authenticity of the characters is what it is: a no-brainer. Linguists from anywhere could have confirmed and corroborated the accuracy of all attempts at translation. Why not by Prof. Anthon—or by Champollion himself? Thankfully, God has endowed us with brains, and as the apostle James stated, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." (James 1:5)

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