SeattleGrunge Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 Prepping for a seminary lesson I came across the info that the word Deshret is an actual Egyptian word meaning honey bee. Knowing nothing about egyptology, was this information readily available to JS? I assume it had to be slightly available or I would have heard a lot more about it. I'm just curious as to when definitions of words like this were figured out. From what I read, the Rosseta Stone was 1799 but I'm sure it took a while to work everything out.
Mordecai Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 The Rosetta Stone had not been discovered at Joseph Smith's time so nobody knew Egyptian.
ChristKnight Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 if Egyptian wasn't known at that time, surely this seems like a very interesting find.
Bill Hamblin Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 Nibley talks about this a lot. (Abraham in Egypt 631-d
Olavarria Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/EoM&CISOPTR=5667&filename=5668.pdfWho says deseret was a Jaredite word? Didn't Mosiah translate the Jaredite record about 500 years(+/-) before Moroni was writing? Iassume Moroni was working with Mosiah's translation and not the original Ether plates.
Bill Hamblin Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/EoM&CISOPTR=5667&filename=5668.pdfWho says deseret was a Jaredite word? Didn't Mosiah translate the Jaredite record about 500 years(+/-) before Moroni was writing? Iassume Moroni was working with Mosiah's translation and not the original Ether plates.That's possible, but I assume that deseret was a Jaredite word/proper name that required a gloss/explanation by Mosiah or Moroni or Joseph. If it was just an ordinary word, it would have simply been translated.
Mordecai Posted January 17, 2011 Posted January 17, 2011 That's possible, but I assume that deseret was a Jaredite word/proper name that required a gloss/explanation by Mosiah or Moroni or Joseph.Mosiah, Moroni or Joseph, it seems to me, could simply translate it, not needing the untranslated word deseret. Perhaps the original record had the term "by interpretation..." The word deseret perhaps had its origins in Asia, eventually getting to Egypt? Is it possible deseret was a borrowed word, originally? Meh... probably not likely. Just a thought.
Olavarria Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 That's possible, but I assume that deseret was a Jaredite word/proper name that required a gloss/explanation by Mosiah or Moroni or Joseph. If it was just an ordinary word, it would have simply been translated.I guess we won't know in this life, and in the next life we won't care I must confess that I am somewhat partial to Nibley's explanation.Allow me some liberties with the text:Ether 2:3And they did also carry with them , which, by interpretation, is a ; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees, and all manner of that which was upon the face of the land, seeds of every kind.Moroni tells us that they wrote the record in modified Egyptian charactors. So who knows how they looked on the plates, or even if the characters he used for these two words derived from OW Egyptian. I have more questions than answers. So, in response to the OP, while I'm partial to Nibley's explanation, I wouldn't share it in any chapel meeting(seminary or otherwise) just because what we know is over shadowed by what we don't know.
SeattleGrunge Posted January 18, 2011 Author Posted January 18, 2011 Thanks guys. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of this before as one of the potential bulls-eyes of the BOM. Maybe the potential weaknesses are too great to tout it as a strength. BTW, I think that both the R Stone and some Egyptian were known before the BOM translation occurred. Study of the decree was already under way as the first full translation of the Greek text appeared in 1803. It was 20 years, however, before the decipherment of the Egyptian texts was announced by Jean-Fran
Olavarria Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 Thanks guys. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of this before as one of the potential bulls-eyes of the BOM. Maybe the potential weaknesses are too great to tout it as a strength. BTW, I think that both the R Stone and some Egyptian were known before the BOM translation occurred. - wikipediaI think it qualifies as a possible Egyptianism, assuming Sir Alan Gardner's Grammer is correct.
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