Egyptian Grammar And Alphabet Online

[awyatt]

Very cool stuff as part of The Joseph Smith Papers website. They've apparently just made available the Egyptian Grammar and Alphabet. Those interested in early Mormonism or things related to the Book of Abraham may want to peruse these new resources.

-Allen

[canard78]

I think Wade Englund has a thread started on this too - you might want to contribute on that one

[William Schryver]

Very cool stuff as part of The Joseph Smith Papers website. They've apparently just made available the Egyptian Grammar and Alphabet. Those interested in early Mormonism or things related to the Book of Abraham may want to peruse these new resources.

-Allen

I just played around with the images a bit. Very high resolution! It looks to me like they have uploaded the full 600 dpi scan images that a few of us have had for a few years. I think that's great! It means that everyone will be on equal footing from now on when it comes to the quality of the source materials with which we are working.

It is kind of silly, I think, that they uploaded all the blank pages from the GAEL ... but I guess that is appropriate in a situation like this.

The only draw back I see at present, in terms of people doing research into the EA/GAEL, is that EA-OC (Oliver Cowdery) and the all-important EA-WP (William Phelps) are still not available online. People really need all three EA documents as well as the GAEL in order to do proper comparative analyses of the materials.

One last thing: I'm a little confused as to why they have published the GAEL as part of the "Joseph Smith Papers." It was created by William Phelps, and there is no evidence I have seen (as of yet) that Joseph Smith had much, if anything, to do with its creation.

Edited March 5, 2013 by William Schryver

[Scott Lloyd]

I just played around with the images a bit. Very high resolution! It looks to me like they have uploaded the full 600 dpi scan images that a few of us have had for a few years. I think that's great! It means that everyone will be on equal footing from now on when it comes to the quality of the source materials with which we are working.

It is kind of silly, I think, that they uploaded all the blank pages from the GAEL ... but I guess that is appropriate in a situation like this.

The Joseph Smith Papers is a documentary editing project, and as such, I think they are into reproducing and distributing items as thoroughly and accurately as possible.

Just my take on it.

The only draw back I see at present, in terms of people doing research into the EA/GAEL, is that EA-OC (Oliver Cowdery) and the all-important EA-WP (William Phelps) are still not available online. People really need all three EA documents as well as the GAEL in order to do proper comparative analyses of the materials.

One last thing: I'm a little confused as to why they have published the GAEL as part of the "Joseph Smith Papers." It was created by William Phelps, and there is no evidence I have seen (as of yet) that Joseph Smith had much, if anything, to do with its creation.

As it has been explained to me, the project seeks to assemble together all the papers that Joseph Smith either created or caused to be created. If Phelps undertook this at Joseph's direction, it would probably qualify in that respect.

[USU78]

It is kind of silly, I think, that they uploaded all the blank pages from the GAEL ... but I guess that is appropriate in a situation like this.

There's a tale going around about an Anti Evie who attended a Temple open house in a major American city. During the tour, he kept spouting the typical anti-Mo screeds about holy deflowerings and such nonsense, and insisting on looking into every closet and office during the tour. Towards the end, having been thwarted in finding his smoking gun shagadelic pleasure pad anywhere, and standing just outside a sealing room, he looked across the hall to see an unmarked door. "That's it!" he cried, "That's where the virgins get deflowered by old men in masonic gear on their wedding days!" The tour guide, having tried unsuccessfully to keep things on point, walked over to the door and opened it for all to see . . . it was a janitorial closet . . . thunderous suppressed guffaws followed, along with a red-faced, but unconvinced, anti-Mo towards the exit.

The point being, it doesn't matter a d@mn what the evidence shows. The anti-Mo will remain anti-Mo no matter how ridiculous it makes him look. If the blank pages were left out, they'd scream "Conspiracy!" and "Coverup!"

[canard78]

I agree that scanning 60 or so blank pages is an act of genious. It makes it look so much more 'open book' - and every time there's a set of blanks coming up they put a note to say where you need to skip to.

[wenglund]

The only draw back I see at present, in terms of people doing research into the EA/GAEL, is that EA-OC (Oliver Cowdery) and the all-important EA-WP (William Phelps) are still not available online. People really need all three EA documents as well as the GAEL in order to do proper comparative analyses of the materials.

Good news. Of all people, Cobalt-70 informed me on another thread:

By the way, I don't know if you noticed that the Phelps version of the EA is up on the Joseph Smith Papers website now too, as is the Cowdery version.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[William Schryver]

I've been playing around on the Joseph Smith Papers website this morning. Found out I was wrong on at least two counts:

1. Egyptian Alphabet documents EA-OC and EA-WP are available online.

2. I haven't verified this in terms of the KEP yet, but the scans of the papyri appear to be 1200dpi, meaning they have performed a new set of digital scans of all of these things since I obtained my set of images in 2010 (which are 600dpi).

I would hope no one will ever complain again that the Church is attempting to hide its history.

Edited March 10, 2013 by William Schryver

[canard78]

I've been playing around on the Joseph Smith Papers website this morning. Found out I was wrong on at least two counts:

1. Egyptian Alphabet documents EA-OC and EA-WP are available online.

2. I haven't verified this in terms of the KEP yet, but the scans of the papyri appear to be 1200dpi, meaning they have performed a new set of digital scans of all of these things since I obtained my set of images in 2010 (which are 600dpi).

I would hope no one will ever complain again that the Church is attempting to hide its history.

The Joseph Smith papers project fills me with real hope that the Church is being increasingly open with its history. This site too: http://history.lds.org/?lang=eng

I do wonder whether Joseph's polyandry will eventually be more openly discussed by an official church source. But that's off-topic to this thread I guess.

[cinepro]

I would hope no one will ever complain again that the Church is attempting to hide its history.

We all hope no one will ever have reason to.

Keeping in mind that the Church's relationship towards its history hasn't been one of consistently increasing openness over the decades, but instead seems to be a dance of two-steps-forward, one-step-back.

[MormonMason]

...

It is kind of silly, I think, that they uploaded all the blank pages from the GAEL ... but I guess that is appropriate in a situation like this.

There is wisdom in doing that. In that way it preempts claims of the critics that the Church is hiding something. It also shows just how badly fragmented and disjointed the project was before they abandoned it.

The only draw back I see at present, in terms of people doing research into the EA/GAEL, is that EA-OC (Oliver Cowdery) and the all-important EA-WP (William Phelps) are still not available online. People really need all three EA documents as well as the GAEL in order to do proper comparative analyses of the materials.

I am sure they will show up eventually, if they haven't and are not just listed under different names.

One last thing: I'm a little confused as to why they have published the GAEL as part of the "Joseph Smith Papers." It was created by William Phelps, and there is no evidence I have seen (as of yet) that Joseph Smith had much, if anything, to do with its creation.

Anything having to do with translations of scripture in the Church will be part of the project, even if not actually written by Joseph Smith.

I do not know whether or not they still will be doing this or not with another document that was written by Oliver Cowdery but that was the plan, even though Joseph Smith had nothing to do with it. I have looked at that document. It is supposed to have been written in Hebrew sentences that were translations of English sentences from the Book of Mormon. With possible exceptions of portions of a couple words, the whole lot of the rest is anything but Hebrew.

The crazy thing is, Joseph Smith learned Hebrew and knew how to translate it. Joseph Smith was given a letter/certificate of appreciation from Joshua Seixas stating that Joseph Smith was successful in translating Hebrew to Seixas' entire satisfaction.

If Joseph Smith had been behind it during the Kirtland Period it would have contained actual Hebrew.

Some one I know advised people against publishing the document as part of the Joseph Smith Papers but only time will tell what will happen in this regard. The Tanners actually very poorly reproduced it as part of their "Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar" publication some years back. It is definitely written on watermarked, Kirtland Era paper but it is not part of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers collection.

Edited March 10, 2013 by MormonMason

[David T]

The Joseph Smith papers project fills me with real hope that the Church is being increasingly open with its history. This site too: http://history.lds.org/?lang=eng

I do wonder whether Joseph's polyandry will eventually be more openly discussed by an official church source. But that's off-topic to this thread I guess.

It is addressed in the intro to Journals 2 in the print JSPP.

[mfbukowski]

Regarding P 7- the beginning paragraphs of the text:

I would like to point out, and let those who have ears to hear comprehend, that there are three symbols represented in the endowment, the compass, the square and the straight line, represented both graphically there, as well as in gestures, and that if one understands the first part of this passage, coupled with what is shown in the facsimilies for decoding the gestures, it is a key to temple worship. Temple worship becomes a living demonstration of what is described in the first few lines here, in the multiplication of importance by repeating the symbols in gestures.

I have thought this for years, but this just plain explicitly states what I had always known.

Not sure how to link to the image- but it is there on page 7

[wenglund]

Regarding P 7- the beginning paragraphs of the text:

I would like to point out, and let those who have ears to hear comprehend, that there are three symbols represented in the endowment, the compass, the square and the straight line, represented both graphically there, as well as in gestures, and that if one understands the first part of this passage, coupled with what is shown in the facsimilies for decoding the gestures, it is a key to temple worship. Temple worship becomes a living demonstration of what is described in the first few lines here, in the multiplication of importance by repeating the symbols in gestures.

I have thought this for years, but this just plain explicitly states what I had always known.

Not sure how to link to the image- but it is there on page 7

What document are you here referring to? I would like to read it. (a link to the document would be appreciated)

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[mfbukowski]

What document are you here referring to? I would like to read it. (a link to the document would be appreciated)

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Sorry! I thought it would be clear since we are talking about the Grammar and Alphabet etc- but now I realize of course there are a few "documents" mentioned in the OP

http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/grammar-and-alphabet-of-the-egyptian-language-circa-july-circa-december-1835?dm=image-only&zm=zoom-inner&tm=expanded&p=7&s=undefined&sm=none

To make a long story shorter, I think some of the symbols mentioned in my earlier post are represented and repeated as gestures and each time the gesture is repeated it has the same effect of "amplification"- or as the text mentions, of increasing its "signification".

The key to this is in facsimile 2 section 7- and yes I know about Min and all that silliness- the key is what Joseph saw and what it meant to him and what revelations were prompted by what he saw.

So I think we should drop any notion that any of this was "translation" in the usual sense and go with a full-on catalyst theory and try to understand the way Joseph saw this.

If Joseph was looking at clouds and saw visions of the Book of Abraham and made his "translation" as revealed by the Lord from what Joseph saw in the clouds, it would, to me at least, be the same as Joseph seeing the papyri.

What he saw and what he understood allowed the Lord to reveal His Word to Joseph, and I think that this Grammar gives a great insight into how Joseph understood it and indeed how all the influences on him- masonry, his study of Hebrew- etc etc- all of it- resulted in his receiving the revelations he did.

So I hope that clarifies my somewhat cryptic post without getting too close to what is too sacred to be discussed publicly.

[wenglund]

Sorry! I thought it would be clear since we are talking about the Grammar and Alphabet etc- but now I realize of course there are a few "documents" mentioned in the OP

http://josephsmithpa...defined&sm=none

To make a long story shorter, I think some of the symbols mentioned in my earlier post are represented and repeated as gestures and each time the gesture is repeated it has the same effect of "amplification"- or as the text mentions, of increasing its "signification".

The key to this is in facsimile 2 section 7- and yes I know about Min and all that silliness- the key is what Joseph saw and what it meant to him and what revelations were prompted by what he saw.

So I think we should drop any notion that any of this was "translation" in the usual sense and go with a full-on catalyst theory and try to understand the way Joseph saw this.

If Joseph was looking at clouds and saw visions of the Book of Abraham and made his "translation" as revealed by the Lord from what Joseph saw in the clouds, it would, to me at least, be the same as Joseph seeing the papyri.

What he saw and what he understood allowed the Lord to reveal His Word to Joseph, and I think that this Grammar gives a great insight into how Joseph understood it and indeed how all the influences on him- masonry, his study of Hebrew- etc etc- all of it- resulted in his receiving the revelations he did.

So I hope that clarifies my somewhat cryptic post without getting too close to what is too sacred to be discussed publicly.

I figured as much, but I wanted to clarify for my sake and more so for readers who may be unfamiliar with the Grammar.

Fascinating stuff!! I hadn't noticed that before. It is amazing what marvelous things can be learned in consequence of the critics nipping at our heals.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited March 11, 2013 by wenglund

[mfbukowski]

I figured as much, but I wanted to clarify for my sake and more so for readers who may be unfamiliar with the Grammar.

Fascinating stuff!! I hadn't noticed that before. It is amazing what marvelous things can be learned in consequence of the critics nipping at our heals.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

One of these days we will have to meet in a temple and discuss it in detail!