2 Nephi 25:5

[volgadon]

He also knows something about sarcasm that you don't.

[Olavarria]

3 Ne.9:13

13) O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me(??????? ?????), and repent(???????) of your sins, and be converted(?????????), that I may heal you?

Notes

Please see the KJV of these verses; the following links are to the Hebrew.

return unto me(Isaiah 44:22)

repent(Ezekiel 18:30)

converted(Psalm 51:13)

Polysemy in the Hebrew Bible

[David Bokovoy]

Here is a review in FARMS of Written by the Finger of G-d:

Linkee to Review

Thanks. So does the author specifically point to dabar and seeing in terms of 2 Nephi 25?

[USU78]

Thanks. So does the author specifically point to dabar and[ i] seeing in terms of 2 Nephi 25?

That's my recollection. Can't find my copy to check.

[Woody]

So what's your favorite Reformed Egyptianism in the Book of Mormon, since you apparently know something about Reformed Egyptian that others don't?

English got it's alphabet from Latin, which borrowed heavily from Greek, and the Greeks borrowed letters from the Egyptians. All along the way people reshaped the letters. Re-formed would be another word for that same thing. It doesn't mean "repented" Egyptian but reshaped Egyptian. So English has some Reformed Egyptian to it. So right now you are reading an explanation of Reformed Egyptian in Reformed Egyptian.

Scolding aside, Lance Ferm came up with an odd criticism of the Book of Mormon a while back, over on ARMF. He asserted that the American natives never had "governors", but rather chiefs. His research (a middle school encyclopedia) noted that some tribes had two chiefs - one for peacetime, and one during times of war.

After pointing out some of his false assumptions, I got to thinking about the terms "chief judge" and "chief captain". It's my belief that the BofM plates carried written symbols that encoded one word/concept per symbol, except there was also a phonetic system whereby they could spell out names. Also, that Joseph Smith translated them by learning the meaning of the symbols; when he came to a new symbol that he didn't know, he might puzzle over it a while and make a guess, ask the man upstairs if this was right; or if flat stumped he could look in the U&T and get a "dictionary lookup", as Martin Harris described. Otherwise, he'd just translate symbols he already knew, using the Spirit only for general confirmation it was correct as he went. I could go on and on about this, but the upchuck is that with one word per symbol, maybe he came to something like

<symbol meaning chief> <symbol meaning judge>

and translated it "chief judge", but what if this was a slight mistake, what if Chief is the noun and Judge is an adjective? This would line up with Lance's encyclopedic information. We would also have Chief Captain under the same mechanism. That would give the Nephites a judge chief and a captain chief, one ruling during peacetime and the other stepping forward during wars. Exactly what the text says they did. This I suppose might be a Reformed Egyptianism like you are looking for; an indication that the writing on the plates encoded one word/concept per symbol, without too much indication of grammatical parts of speech, verb conjugations, and all that. An artifact of such an encoding.

Wood

[J Green]

Since I spent approx 12 years near Cairo (and a total of 18 in the Middle East) I like to think of myself as a "reformed Egyptian."

[volgadon]

Since I spent approx 12 years near Cairo (and a total of 18 in the Middle East) I like to think of myself as a "reformed Egyptian."

Only if you've seen every Farid al-Atraf movie at least twice. =)

[J Green]

Only if you've seen every Farid al-Atraf movie at least twice. =)

Now you're talkin. I used to take oud lessons.

[volgadon]

Respect!

Back in the days of only one TV station, Friday afternoons in Israel were Arab movie time.

[David Bokovoy]

That's my recollection. Can't find my copy to check.

If anybody has a copy of this book, I would be really interested in learning if they make this same specific connection.

Thanks.

[fred57]

Thanks. So does the author specifically point to dabar and seeing in terms of 2 Nephi 25?

I've got a follow-up question to add on to the one above: What Reformed Egyptian word translates into the Hebrew word dabar?

[USU78]

I've got a follow-up question to add on to the one above: What Reformed Egyptian word translates into the Hebrew word dabar?

*Dabar.

[Olavarria]

*Dabar.

I think someone is more interested in throwing out a strawmen and red herrings to seriously engage the subject.

[volgadon]

I've got a follow-up question to add on to the one above: What Reformed Egyptian word translates into the Hebrew word dabar?

As soon as you tell me which Reformed Egyptian word translates into nudnik or chafran.

[USU78]

I think someone is more interested in throwing out a strawmen and red herrings to seriously engage the subject.

Uh, Pete? I was being a smart@r$e myself.

[volgadon]

He means Fred. You add to the conversation. BTW, on the subject of vision, though I couldn't find a direct reference to the matter of seeing words, I recommend Wolfson's Through a Speculum that Shines, which is about the visionary experience in Jewish mysticism.

[David Bokovoy]

I've got a follow-up question to add on to the one above: What Reformed Egyptian word translates into the Hebrew word dabar?

I recognize that you're just trying to be "smart" Fred, but your jokes still don't reflect a correct understanding of the issue. There were no reformed Egyptian words on the plates. A modified Egyptian script was used to write Hebrew words. It's like a quiz my Akkadian professor once gave a group of graduate students, were he wrote a series of cuneiform signs on the chalk board and instructed the students to translate the passage. No one could do it, until he revealed that it was an English phrase written with Neo-Assyrian characters. So though given with all the seriousness your silly inquiry deserved, USU78's response "dabar" is, in fact, absolutely correct.

Hope that helps!

-DB

[Smith]

I've got a follow-up question to add on to the one above: What Reformed Egyptian word translates into the Hebrew word dabar?

I think the word is - Schmuck

[fred57]

I recognize that you're just trying to be "smart" Fred, but your jokes still don't reflect a correct understanding of the issue. There were no reformed Egyptian words on the plates. A modified Egyptian script was used to write Hebrew words. It's like a quiz my Akkadian professor once gave a group of graduate students, were he wrote a series of cuneiform signs on the chalk board and instructed the students to translate the passage. No one could do it, until he revealed that it was an English phrase written with Neo-Assyrian characters. So though given with all the seriousness your silly inquiry deserved, USU78's response "dabar" is, in fact, absolutely correct.

Hope that helps!

-DB

So you've seen the Reformed "Egyptian script"?

[fred57]

As soon as you tell me which Reformed Egyptian word translates into nudnik or chafran.

Since I don't know anything about Reformed Egyptian, you'll have to ask someone else. Come to think of it, just who does know about the Reformed Egyptian language of the variety found Book of Mormon?

[David Bokovoy]

So you've seen the Reformed "Egyptian script"?

Yes, I've seen reformed Egyptian scripts. If, however, you're referring specifically to the Book of Mormon script then my observation does not reflect a personal encounter but is merely an academic observation based upon the attestation of Hebraisms in the BofM, the use of reformed Egyptian scripts to write Semitic languages in the ancient Near East, and finally, what the Book of Mormon itself actually says about reformed Egyptian and Hebrew.

[volgadon]

just who does know about the Reformed Egyptian language of the variety found Book of Mormon?

The BoM mentions no such language.

[rameumptom]

In the vision of the Tree of Life, we do find an interesting Egyptian word play between iron "rod" and "word". In FARMS Insights, we find:

"What Meaneth the Rod of Iron"? Matthew L. Bowen, Insights Volume - 25, Issue - 2, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute

We note that the Egyptian word mdw means not only "a staff [or] rod"2 but also "to speak" a "word."3 The derived word md.t, or mt.t, probably pronounced *mateh in Lehi's day, was common in the Egyptian dialect of that time and would have sounded very much like a common Hebrew word for rod or staff, matteh.4 It is also very interesting that the expression mdw-ntr was a technical term for a divine revelation, literally the "the word of God [or] divine decree."5 The phrase mdw-ntr also denoted "sacred writings,"6 what we would call scriptures, as well as the "written characters [or] script"7 in which these sacred writings were written.

Now consider Nephi's comparison of the word and the rod in the context of the Egyptian word mdw:

I beheld that the rod [mdw/mt.t, Heb. matteh] of iron, which my father had seen, was the word [mdw/mt.t] of God.8 (1 Nephi 11:25)

And they said unto me: What meaneth the rod [mdw/mt.t, Heb. matteh] of iron which our father saw, that led to the tree? And I said unto them that it was the word [mdw/mt.t] of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish. (1 Nephi 15:23

[Olavarria]

In the vision of the Tree of Life, we do find an interesting Egyptian word play between iron "rod" and "word". In FARMS Insights, we find:

"What Meaneth the Rod of Iron"? Matthew L. Bowen, Insights Volume - 25, Issue - 2, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute

We note that the Egyptian word mdw means not only "a staff [or] rod"2 but also "to speak" a "word."3 The derived word md.t, or mt.t, probably pronounced *mateh in Lehi's day, was common in the Egyptian dialect of that time and would have sounded very much like a common Hebrew word for rod or staff, matteh.4 It is also very interesting that the expression mdw-ntr was a technical term for a divine revelation, literally the "the word of God [or] divine decree."5 The phrase mdw-ntr also denoted "sacred writings,"6 what we would call scriptures, as well as the "written characters [or] script"7 in which these sacred writings were written.

Now consider Nephi's comparison of the word and the rod in the context of the Egyptian word mdw:

I beheld that the rod [mdw/mt.t, Heb. matteh] of iron, which my father had seen, was the word [mdw/mt.t] of God.8 (1 Nephi 11:25)

And they said unto me: What meaneth the rod [mdw/mt.t, Heb. matteh] of iron which our father saw, that led to the tree? And I said unto them that it was the word [mdw/mt.t] of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish. (1 Nephi 15:23