Joseph Smith And Ancient Egyptian

[JNclone]

This is a thread that stems from Book of Abraham discussions on this board, but I would be grateful if posters could refrain from derailing onto that as the main issue.

I am concerned here with material said to have been published in Times and Seasons, a journal of which Joseph Smith is said to have been an editor. I do not seem to have an archive of this publication near me, and so I have to quote from one of several on-line sources that include it:

On November 13, 1843, Smith wrote a letter that appeared in the newspaper Times and Seasons (of which he had served as editor) which stated in part:

Were I an Egyptian, I would exclaim Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is; [O the earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun.]

See for instance 'By his own hand upon papyrus' at http://www.irr.org/mit/Books/BHOH/bhoh4.html

Now this thread will end, and I will happily ask the moderators to delete it entirely, if anyone is willing to assert and document the fact that this material does NOT appear in 'Times and Seasons' as stated over the name of Joseph Smith.

But supposing that my post survives that test (and I have found no on-line signs suggesting it will not), then here is an observation and some questions.

I do not read very much ancient Egyptian - enough to decipher the easier parts of fairly conventional tomb inscriptions; I can only work with full hieroglyphic script, and hieratic and demotic are closed to me. But on that basis I strongly suspect that the words presented as Egyptian by Joseph Smith in his letter have nothing to do with that language whatsoever.

[Another way for the thread to stop is for someone to state and effectively document at this point the proposition that these words ARE in fact ancient Egyptian. If not, we go on ...]

Now I should like to ask these questions:

a. Did Joseph Smith wish his readers to think that he knew ancient Egyptian?

(JNclone provisional response: If he did not, he went about it in a very strange way ... according to the source quoted he seems to have been keen on demonstrating linguistic prowess: in "a small pamphlet published in 1844 entitled The Voice of Truth" we see him offering fragments and translations from languages ranging from French to Chaldean and (again) Egyptian)

b. Did Joseph Smith really believe he knew ancient Egyptian?

c. If so, how could he have come to a conclusion that seems so obviously wrong - since on the basis of his specimens of the language he could not even render convincing Egyptian in transliteration (i.e. represent the sounds in roman script), let alone say what it mean in English?

d. If not, why did he publish something so clearly intended to make his readers think he DID know ancient Egyptian, when he did not?

[PacMan]

a. Did Joseph Smith wish his readers to think that he knew ancient Egyptian?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Your inevitably going to get side conversations becaues the theme is based on whether or not you believe the BoA came before or after the GAEL. I'm pretty convinced that the BoA came first and that the GAEL was a reverse-engineering of sorts. That being the case, I think he wanted to believe he figured it out as much as anyone. Remember, he and the brethren took language classes. It was a sort of fascination for them, and Egptian gave them a shot at trying to figure it out.

b. Did Joseph Smith really believe he knew ancient Egyptian?

Again, I don't think so. Just like Hebrew, he had to learn it.

The part that I've yet to hear argued is that his phonetic, romanized words were wrong. Certainly they don't jive with current scholarship, but its awful hard to know how a dead language "sounds," in contrast to what the written script might mean. Given that, who knows...he might be right.

c. If so, how could he have come to a conclusion that seems so obviously wrong - since on the basis of his specimens of the language he could not even render convincing Egyptian in transliteration (i.e. represent the sounds in roman script), let alone say what it mean in English?

Because, your assumptions that make your thesis are likely incorrect.

d. If not, why did he publish something so clearly intended to make his readers think he DID know ancient Egyptian, when he did not?

Because he probably really thought he was making good progress on it all.

PacMan

[JNclone]

So far as I can see from his post, PacMan holds it to be uncertain whether Joseph Smith wished the readers of his Times and Seasons letter to carry away the impression that he (Joseph Smith) could read ancient Egyptian (in the sense of transliterate it into roman script - our current alphabet) and translate it (in the normal sense of the word). Well, the intentions of someone long dead and hence not capable of being questioned will always uncertain to some degree.

But if Joseph Smith says that "Were [he] an Egyptian" he would "exclaim" something, then does so, and then gives an English phrase, I think you have to be hyper-sceptical not to believe that he intended to give the impression that he could both utter Egyptian words and then say what they meant.

PacMan says:

The part that I've yet to hear argued is that his phonetic, romanized words were wrong. Certainly they don't jive with current scholarship, but its awful hard to know how a dead language "sounds," in contrast to what the written script might mean. Given that, who knows...he might be right.

I am glad if I have brought up a new point on this board.

Now on the one hand I want to be really modest about my ability to read Egyptian. On the other hand, I think everyone knows that after completing a semester or two of studying a language you begin to get a pretty good sense of what possible words in it are like. I have to say that to me the words of Joseph Smith "Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is" are as far from what I have read of ancient Egyptian as is "wooloomooloo pifpaf" from ancient Greek.

Of course I can hardly expect anybody on this board to accept my word against that of Joseph Smith, when he suggests that "Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is" is Egyptian. So I sent an email to a colleague who is a research Egyptologist at no mean university (not Ritner,BTW), asking these questions:

Suppose someone said to you that:

"Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is"

was a 19th century attempt at a transliteration (perhaps in a peculiar system) of a few phrases in ancient Egyptian, what would you say? My own feeling is that it is quite obvious that it is not even vaguely like a transliteration of anything genuine, however crude and idiosyncratic the system used - just as obvious as (for instance) that wooloomooloo pifpaf is not transliterated from ancient Greek.

Then supposing they said that it meant:

"O the earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun."

Would you say it was the case that the words used to say that in Egyptian (however approximately) would bear no resemblance to the transliteration above?

The response was:

The Egyptian ( and I am *very* grateful indeed to remain anonymous on that one):

The word for

- earth would be t3 (pronounced "ta") (as in t3 mri "beloved land" for "Egypt")

- power would be wsrw, pronounced "useru" or "weseru"

- moon would be i'h, pronounced "iach" or "jach"

- sun "r3" pronounced "ra"

So I would have a very hard time indeed to identify any of your quote as any Egyptian.

I therefore, pending further enlightenment, feel pretty confident that it is reasonable to say that "Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is" is not ancient Egyptian for "O the earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun.", or for anything else meaningful.. It seems, so far as this sample goes, that Joseph Smith did not know ancient Egyptian at all.

Yet in his Times and Seasons letter, and in the other pamphlet I have mentioned, he writes in a way that seems designed to convey that he does know the language. That leaves us on the horns of a dilemma:

Either:

a. Joseph Smith was deluded in his belief that he knew ancient Egyptian (and the delusion that you know a language that you do not know is a pretty strong delusion)

Or:

b. Joseph Smith knew that he did not know ancient Egyptian, but was content for others to get from his writings the impression that he did. (I phrase that as mildly as I can).

Either way there is damage to his credibility. Which side of the dilemma should we take?

Of course one way out would be to produce an Egyptologist on your side to explain that Joseph's strange words are a transliteration (though perhaps a rather non-standard one) of real Egyptian, and that they mean what he said they mean. If your Egyptologist is as anonymous as mine insists on being, that might produce a stand-off, so to encourage you to go further I will accept that it is a strike against me if you can produce a named professional Egyptologist to say such things. (Should be possible: there are professional Egyptologists with jobs in universities who are LDS and should not mind being seen to defend Joseph Smith's abilities, whereas most non-LDS Egyptologists don't want to get involved is such matters in public one way or another.)

Another way out would be to show that the Times and Seasons quote was not in fact written by Joseph, even if it was as alleged signed by him, and published in a journal he edited.

Can anyone argue (with documentation) that either of those two escape routes is open? If not, the dilemma operates.

[juliann]

He must have plagiarized it from this Order of Nazorean Essenes site

http://essenes.net/hypo.htm

#7 Is Called In The Egyptian Enish Go On Dosh. This Is One Of The Governing Planets Also, And Is Said By The Egyptians To Be The Sun, And To Borrow Its Light From Kolob through The Medium Of Kae E Van Rash, Which Is The Grand Key, Or In Other Words The Governing Power Which Governs Fifteen Other Fixed Planets Or Stars, As Also Floeese The Moon, The Earth, And The Sun In Their Annual Revolutions.

[caudicus]

If this was the only piece of evidence that Joseph Smith lacked the divine ability to translate ancient text, one might overlook it. Unfortunately, there are numerous examples of his complete lack of ability to translate ancient egyptian, or to even be able to tell the difference between egyptian heiroglyphics and chinese characters off of a box of tea.

Homestar Runner once posed a question to me... if the plates turned up and scientists all claimed their validity, would I begin to believe in the LDS faith... my answer was yes, but we all know that will NEVER happen. I posed a question in return... if we could prove that Joseph Smith lacked the ability to translate ancient texts using divine powers, would you still believe in the church? Homestar Runner said no such proof exists, but I beg to differ.

I think this post is a clear example of Joseph Smith's inabilities. Why else would he get the translation wrong?

[PacMan]

You've got a couple problems:

So far as I can see from his post, PacMan holds it to be uncertain whether Joseph Smith wished the readers of his Times and Seasons letter to carry away the impression that he (Joseph Smith) could read ancient Egyptian (in the sense of transliterate it into roman script - our current alphabet) and translate it (in the normal sense of the word). Well, the intentions of someone long dead and hence not capable of being questioned will always uncertain to some degree.

But if Joseph Smith says that "Were [he] an Egyptian" he would "exclaim" something, then does so, and then gives an English phrase, I think you have to be hyper-sceptical not to believe that he intended to give the impression that he could both utter Egyptian words and then say what they meant.

Reading is different than speaking. You're confounding the argument.

And concerning the Egyptian...how does anyone know? It's all guess work because it's DEAD! No one knows it! Moreover, if you have any language background, you're going to be ill-advised to assume that one language has one, consitent dialect, etc. You're baseing this e-mail of yours on the assumption that the language stayed constent through the thousands of years, never changing, nor being treated differently by those in other regions. In fin, I think this opinon is just a best educated guess that's tremendously off of reality.

a. Joseph Smith was deluded in his belief that he knew ancient Egyptian (and the delusion that you know a language that you do not know is a pretty strong delusion)

Or:

b. Joseph Smith knew that he did not know ancient Egyptian, but was content for others to get from his writings the impression that he did. (I phrase that as mildly as I can).

Either way there is damage to his credibility. Which side of the dilemma should we take?

None, if it's a false dilemma (which this is).

I don't think he was deluded at all, but thought he was really figuring it out. What's the big deal with that?

PAcMan

[Tarski]

a. Did Joseph Smith wish his readers to think that he knew ancient Egyptian?

Yes obviously . I can't believe this is even in question.

[PacMan]

I agree with Tarski. How can we possibly know what was in Joseph's mind?

[William Schryver]

I find it interesting that any â??research Egyptologistâ? would not apprise an investigator of the fact that there are such radical differences between Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, Ptolemaic, and Roman-era versions of Egyptian that a reader/writer in one era would not be able to understand something written or spoken in another era. The evolution of sounds is radical from first to last. The evolution of meanings for individual hieroglyphs/hieratic characters is radical from first to last. Furthermore, the propensity of Egyptians (especially as time went on) to â??play gamesâ? with the script is well-documented and has rendered many inscriptions all but undecipherable.

According to my research, most modern Egyptologists focus on meanings that are tied to Middle Kingdom Egyptian.

And, assuming that we are talking about a text produced by Jews or Jewish-oriented Egyptians in 250 B.C., then the complications take on an entirely different magnitude of difficulty. To take a document written at that time and place, and to authoritatively assign it an interpretation based on an understanding of Middle or New Kingdom Egyptian, is a venture doomed to failure.

But, in answer to the question of the original post, I have concluded that Joseph Smith sincerely believed he could and that he did translate Egyptian. And, I believe that he we will one day discover (when the wisdom of the wise has perished) that â??Enish go on dosh â?¦â? and all the rest is, in fact, precisely what Joseph said it was.

[JNclone]

Pacman:

Reading is different than speaking. You're confounding the argument.

And concerning the Egyptian...how does anyone know? It's all guess work because it's DEAD! No one knows it! Moreover, if you have any language background, you're going to be ill-advised to assume that one language has one, consitent dialect, etc. You're baseing this e-mail of yours on the assumption that the language stayed constent through the thousands of years, never changing, nor being treated differently by those in other regions. In fin, I think this opinon is just a best educated guess that's tremendously off of reality.

I know that anyone who does know anything about how ancient Egyptian was deciphered, or indeed about the study of ancient languages, will realise that your claims of our total ignorance of the pronunciation of ancient Egyptian are quite baseless.

I don't want to turn this thread into a tutorial on how ancient Egyptian writing was finally read after being forgotten for centuries. But as you can easily find from using sources on the internet, the key was the famous Rosetta Stone, which bore the text of a decree of Ptolemy V Epiphanes who reigned 204â??181 BCE.

This decree was recorded in three languages - Greek, Egyptian in hieroglyphic script and Egyptian in demotic script. The names of several rulers were mentioned in the Greek text - whose original sounds are known pretty well. So when Champollion realised that the signs in the frames called 'cartouches' in the hieroglyphic text were probably the same names, he had his first key and could begin matching Greek sounds to the hieroglyphs. Added to that, he was familiar with Coptic, a language still used, which is related to ancient Egyptian as Italian is to Latin. That's how it got started.

Ancient Egyptian has been studied intensively for nearly two centuries, and you will not find an Egyptologist (whether LDS or not) who is in doubt about our ability to translate what most pieces of ancient Egyptian mean quite well. As for the sounds, since ancient Egyptian is a language that does not mark vowels (like ancient Hebrew) we are in some doubt about the pronunciation of parts of the word that are non-consonantal (which really makes me wonder how Joseph Smith can have been sure that "Jah-oh-eh" was genuine Egyptian). But the language is almost (though not quite) as well understood as is Hebrew nowadays.

Of course everyone knows that ancient Egyptian changed over the centuries, and no doubt it was pronounced with regional accents like every other language. People changed the way they said conventional phrases: thus on 11th-dynasty stelae we just read prt-hrw 'a voice offering'; whereas from the mid 12th dynasty di=f prt-hrw ' that he may receive a voice offering' is more common. So what? Scholars know plenty about that sort of thing.

You seem determined to maintain your position by mere assertion of the contrary of my position. I think you will have to produce some evidence - such as an Egyptologist with a job in a university who agrees with you that "Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is" is anything like any Egyptian of any place or time, and can mean anything like "O the earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun."

I bet you can't!

By the way, I don't understand what you mean by:

Reading is different than speaking. You're confounding the argument.

Joseph Smith claims to be able to say words in ancient Egyptian (and to known what they mean). Since I don't suppose you will claim he learned to speak the language in the streets of ancient Thebes, surely these must have been words that he originally read somewhere?

Until you can produce better arguments than mere assertions, you are still faced with the dilemma: either JS was deluded about his Egyptian language abilities, or he was content for others to be deluded.

If you like you can believe that what he wrote on this topic gives us no guide to 'what was in his mind' - whatever makes you feel comfortable. But I am concerned with the silent third parties reading this post. I suspect I know what they will think!

[Tarski]

I agree with Tarski. How can we possibly know what was in Joseph's mind?

Because he spoke!

[JNclone]

I find it interesting that any â??research Egyptologistâ? would not apprise an investigator of the fact that there are such radical differences between Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, Ptolemaic, and Roman-era versions of Egyptian that a reader/writer in one era would not be able to understand something written or spoken in another era. The evolution of sounds is radical from first to last. The evolution of meanings for individual hieroglyphs/hieratic characters is radical from first to last. Furthermore, the propensity of Egyptians (especially as time went on) to â??play gamesâ? with the script is well-documented and has rendered many inscriptions all but undecipherable.

According to my research, most modern Egyptologists focus on meanings that are tied to Middle Kingdom Egyptian.

And, assuming that we are talking about a text produced by Jews or Jewish-oriented Egyptians in 250 B.C., then the complications take on an entirely different magnitude of difficulty. To take a document written at that time and place, and to authoritatively assign it an interpretation based on an understanding of Middle or New Kingdom Egyptian, is a venture doomed to failure.

But, in answer to the question of the original post, I have concluded that Joseph Smith sincerely believed he could and that he did translate Egyptian. And, I believe that he we will one day discover (when the wisdom of the wise has perished) that â??Enish go on dosh â?¦â? and all the rest is, in fact, precisely what Joseph said it was.

This is the same stuff as PacMan, only phrased in a more classy and high-toned kind of way.

Have you noticed that the date of the Rosetta Stone, the key from which the whole process of decipherment started, is right in the middle of the period you are talking about here?

You top it off with the Fallacy of Future Proof: "I am sure that one day Joseph Smith will be seen to have been right". Yes, of course Will, of course ...

The same challenge goes for you: find an Egyptologist with a job at a university who agrees that there is any resemblance between "Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is" and a piece of meaningful ancient Egyptian of any time or period, and I will count a strike against myself. Two strikes if you can get him or her to say it means anything remotely like "O the earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun."

Somehow I can't help feeling that if it could be done, an LDS Egyptologist would have done it by now.

You say:

I have concluded that Joseph Smith sincerely believed he could and that he did translate Egyptian.

Well then, the example I give makes it look like he sincerely believed wrong.

[Chris Smith]

JNclone,

I would be interested in reading your Egyptologist colleague's reaction to this statement from Michael Rhodes:

Also in his explanation of figure 1, Joseph Smith states that the Earth is called Jah-oh-eh by the Egyptians. The Egyptian word for the Earth is 3h.t, which is approximately pronounced "yoh-heh".

A search of the FARMS website for references to Enish-go-on-dosh or Flo-ees-Flos-is-is, inluding variants thereof, doesn't seem to turn up anything. So I'd say that the FARMS Egyptologists don't seem to have an answer on those counts.

-CK

[PacMan]

JN

I know that anyone who does know anything about how ancient Egyptian was deciphered, or indeed about the study of ancient languages, will realise that your claims of our total ignorance of the pronunciation of ancient Egyptian are quite baseless.

[My emphasis...]

Let's see...

I don't want to turn this thread into a tutorial on how ancient Egyptian writing was finally read after being forgotten for centuries. But as you can easily find from using sources on the internet, the key was the famous Rosetta Stone, which bore the text of a decree of Ptolemy V Epiphanes who reigned 204â??181 BCE.

This decree was recorded in three languages - Greek, Egyptian in hieroglyphic script and Egyptian in demotic script. The names of several rulers were mentioned in the Greek text - whose original sounds are known pretty well. So when Champollion realised that the signs in the frames called 'cartouches' in the hieroglyphic text were probably the same names, he had his first key and could begin matching Greek sounds to the hieroglyphs. Added to that, he was familiar with Coptic, a language still used, which is related to ancient Egyptian as Italian is to Latin. That's how it got started.

Ancient Egyptian has been studied intensively for nearly two centuries, and you will not find an Egyptologist (whether LDS or not) who is in doubt about our ability to translate what most pieces of ancient Egyptian mean quite well.

THAT is what I mean by confounding the argument. You are confusing the argument between translating and pronouncing a language. Let me in no uncertain terms tell you that I'm VERY familiar with Champollion (moreso than any normal person should be). And...your historic summary doesn't touch a thing I've said.

As for the sounds, since ancient Egyptian is a language that does not mark vowels (like ancient Hebrew) we are in some doubt about the pronunciation of parts of the word that are non-consonantal (which really makes me wonder how Joseph Smith can have been sure that "Jah-oh-eh" was genuine Egyptian). But the language is almost (though not quite) as well understood as is Hebrew nowadays.

Haha! There we go! [My emphasis]

So...a dead language is dead and there is doubt! Don't know how I sound ignorant...

Of course everyone knows that ancient Egyptian changed over the centuries, and no doubt it was pronounced with regional accents like every other language. People changed the way they said conventional phrases: thus on 11th-dynasty stelae we just read prt-hrw 'a voice offering'; whereas from the mid 12th dynasty di=f prt-hrw ' that he may receive a voice offering' is more common. So what? Scholars know plenty about that sort of thing.

Where do you get the romanized transcription for this? If you'd like to explain more fully how we know how Egyptian was once pronounced (I didn't say anything about reading) considering how long is was lost, I'd be very interested in that. Honestly, I really don't know that answer to that.

You seem determined to maintain your position by mere assertion of the contrary of my position.

No...I just don't clammor for false dilemmas and am but keeping the argument honest.

I think you will have to produce some evidence - such as an Egyptologist with a job in a university who agrees with you that "Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is" is anything like any Egyptian of any place or time, and can mean anything like "O the earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun."

Why? So an ignoramus can make an authoritative statement?

Understand, I have not yet said, "Joseph was right on." Understand my argument for what it is...that yours has some holes. We use our paradigm to make certain assumption...and such assumptions are often very broad, and very creative.

PacMan

[Jerubaal]

JNclone:

We don't know how any ancient languages were pronounced by their ancient speakers. Not Greek, nor Hebrew, nor Coptic, nor Chinese, nor any other language.

[Chris Smith]

JNclone:

We don't know how any ancient languages were pronounced by their ancient speakers. Not Greek, nor Hebrew, nor Coptic, nor Chinese, nor any other language.

We can get a pretty good idea. As a simple example, medieval Latin pronounced it's "v"s as "v"s. We have since learned, through the study of classical Latin poetry, that Latin "v"s were once upon a time pronounced as "w"s. Study of Latin poetic meter has also helped us understand which syllable to stress. Study of ancient languages has produced many similar insights into the pronuciation of those languages. Hebrew is a little more difficult because it lacks vowels, but we still are able to draw some useful inferences regarding the pronunciations of some words.

In other words, we don't know everything, but that's a far cry from saying we don't know anything.

[Jerubaal]

We can get a pretty good idea. As a simple example, medieval Latin pronounced it's "v"s as "v"s. We have since learned, through the study of classical Latin poetry, that Latin "v"s were once upon a time pronounced as "w"s. Study of Latin poetic meter has also helped us understand which syllable to stress. Study of ancient languages has produced many similar insights into the pronuciation of those languages. Hebrew is a little more difficult because it lacks vowels, but we still are able to draw some useful inferences regarding the pronunciations of some words.

While I agree we aren't totally in the dark, it is still quite difficult to pin down ancient pronunciations, due to the simple fact that we have no ancient speakers.

[Chris Smith]

PacMan,

You wouldn't happen to be SamMB of BCC, would you?

-CK

[JNclone]

JNclone,

I would be interested in reading your Egyptologist colleague's reaction to this statement from Michael Rhodes:

Also in his explanation of figure 1, Joseph Smith states that the Earth is called Jah-oh-eh by the Egyptians. The Egyptian word for the Earth is 3h.t, which is approximately pronounced "yoh-heh".

A search of the FARMS website for references to Enish-go-on-dosh or Flo-ees-Flos-is-is, inluding variants thereof, doesn't seem to turn up anything. So I'd say that the FARMS Egyptologists don't seem to have an answer on those counts.

-CK

I shall try it CK, and report back - though as you probably know non-LDS Egyptologists are not very interested in talking about this kind of thing, for reasons it would be provocative to state here. (And I can definitely say it's not because they are scared they might end up being persuaded to convert).

I am glad to have you confirm my impression that FARMS have not tried to plug this particular hole. No doubt this thread may stimulate them to further efforts.

[JNclone]

JNclone:

We don't know how any ancient languages were pronounced by their ancient speakers. Not Greek, nor Hebrew, nor Coptic, nor Chinese, nor any other language.

OK, OK Jerubaal, if you say so it must be true. We know nothing at all. Right.

[Turns to door of office and shouts down corridor - OK fellas, its all been a complete waste of time. This guy on the MAD board has spoken: the libraries of scholarship totter, the scholars fall to gibber in the dust unheard.]

We know nothing ...

[William Schryver]

I wrote:

But, in answer to the question of the original post, I have concluded that Joseph Smith sincerely believed he could and that he did translate Egyptian. And, I believe that we will one day discover (when the wisdom of the wise has perished) that â??Enish go on dosh â?¦â? and all the rest is, in fact, precisely what Joseph said it was.

To which JNclone replies:

You top it off with the Fallacy of Future Proof: "I am sure that one day Joseph Smith will be seen to have been right". Yes, of course Will, of course ...

The same challenge goes for you: find an Egyptologist with a job at a university who agrees that there is any resemblance between "Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is" and a piece of meaningful ancient Egyptian of any time or period, and I will count a strike against myself. Two strikes if you can get him or her to say it means anything remotely like "O the earth! the power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun."

Somehow I can't help feeling that if it could be done, an LDS Egyptologist would have done it by now.

JNclone fails to note that I never suggested that Joseph Smith could translate Egyptian (at least not as we currently understand it) but only that he believed he could. It would seem that he was mistaken.

That said, I have this nagging suspicion that we just may find out one day that Enish-go-on-dosh (and all the other strange phrases JS used) do in fact mean what he said they meant â?? if not in Egyptian, then in some other obscure variant. This hardly qualifies as a logical fallacy â?? Iâ??m simply expressing my faith.

I donâ??t expect modern Egyptologists to ever conclude that Joseph Smith knew anything about ancient Egyptian. And Iâ??m not concerned in the least if they donâ??t.

As far as my observations about the great differences between Egyptian through the ages, it was simply to underscore the fact that the field of Egyptology is still nascent. There is more they donâ??t know than they know. I donâ??t intend to make that observation in defense of Joseph Smithâ??s â??translationsâ? of Egyptian. But I am still amused by people who act as though Egyptology is a field of certainties. It is not.

[JNclone]

Will Schryver:

I donâ??t expect modern Egyptologists to ever conclude that Joseph Smith knew anything about ancient Egyptian. And Iâ??m not concerned in the least if they donâ??t.

I am happy for you.

As far as my observations about the great differences between Egyptian through the ages, it was simply to underscore the fact that the field of Egyptology is still nascent.

C'mon Will. Not that nascent. I know Nibley says that kind of thing, but ...

I donâ??t intend to make that observation in defense of Joseph Smithâ??s â??translationsâ? of Egyptian.

Excellent. Until you can do that convincingly, I think our readers will just have to conclude that if such an urbane and scholarly minded person as you can't defend Joseph Smith's "translations" nobody can (I respect you more for your use of the quotes round "translations". That took guts.)

But I am still amused by people who act as though Egyptology is a field of certainties. It is not.

Gad Schryver old chap, you really are a devil of a fellow! When you raise an amused eyebrow, the rest of us can only shrink away in shame. We just can't find the face to argue any further. Yes, one can always point to the rat-hole labelled "we don't know everything yet" and scuttle away down it!

Meanwhile, it does seem that the best judgement that can be made in the present state of our knowledge is that Joseph Smith:

a. Probably didn't know any Egyptian

b. Wrote a letter in a journal he edited which can only be read as intending to suggest he did.

And so .... what can we say about that?

[Anijen]

Though I agree to a point. I am still not satisfied. I know two languages and none are close to Egyptian. But I have observed what one might say in Washington the very same word and spelling can sound completely different in Alabama or Fargo North Dakota. My son who has autism speaks very fast and I have noticed that hardly anyone who does not know him or around him cannot understand him, but I can, even though it is the same language. I also have trouble understanding the welsh people when they are speaking English because the accent is so strong. The point I guess I am trying to make is, it could be the same word but could be spelled differently and still be phonetically correct depending on the variables I have mentioned. But then its just my opinion...

[Jerubaal]

OK, OK Jerubaal, if you say so it must be true. We know nothing at all. Right.

[Turns to door of office and shouts down corridor - OK fellas, its all been a complete waste of time. This guy on the MAD board has spoken: the libraries of scholarship totter, the scholars fall to gibber in the dust unheard.]

We know nothing ...

I never said any such thing. I never implied any such thing. And I would appreciate it if you did not attribute to me such a thing.

[peeps]

He must have plagiarized it from this Order of Nazorean Essenes site

http://essenes.net/hypo.htm

I do believe that it may have been the other way around! (That is one funky site, btw).