Champollion smith. Vogel vs lindsay

[CA Steve]

Dan Vogel’s book on Book of Abraham Apologetics is out. Book of Abraham Apologetics: A Review and Critique by Dan Vogel. For those interested in staying current with the debate surrounding the Book of Abraham, it is an important volume that deserves attention. I am not attempting to write a review here, but rather I would like to discuss a single point in his book that has drawn the attention of Jeff Lindsay. That point is the assertion by Vogel that Joseph Smith learned from Chandler that

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“any translation he would eventually offer to the public could not be confirmed or rejected by the learned.” (pg x) And, “This gave Smith freedom to imagine whatever he wished about Egyptian Grammar”. (pg 7)

As far as I can tell Vogel is making this assertion purely on the unsupported assumption that Chandler told Smith no one could actually translate Egyptian at this time, which seems to be contradicted by the fact that Chandler actually gave Smith a certificate testifying to the accuracy of a translation Smith did of some of that characters. In all likelihood even though Chandler was in no position to make such a statement it certainly it should not have left Smith with the feeling no one could translate besides him.

Jeff Lindsay responded to this in a blog post on Mar 17 2021. Just Started Dan Vogel's New Book: Already Chagrined by the Treatment of Champollion

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“There are numerous sources from the United States prior to Joseph's work with the papyri showing that Champollion was a household name and that his decipherment of the Rosetta Stone was well known.”

“It is not reasonable to make the assumption that Joseph and the early Saints remained largely ignorant of Champollion's work and its general significance.”

 

What references does Lindsay give to back up his assertion that Smith and the early Saints knew about Champollion’s work? The only direct connection he can make is second hand source that,

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Claim[ed] that when Martin Harris took a copy of some Book of Mormon characters to seek assistance from scholars, Dr. Samuel Mitchill told Martin that the characters resembled those that Champollion had found. Even if Martin had not been told anything about Champollion by Mitchill, the article would surely have stirred curiosity if the Saints were still in the dark.

Note that according to this source, Mitchill did not say anything about a translation, only that the characters Harris brought resembled ones found by Champollion.

 

I believe that both Lindsay and Vogel are overstating their cases about the possible influence or lack thereof on Smith and associates. I think Vogel is speculating on what Chandler might have told Smith and even seems to contradict that when he talks about Chandler’s certificate. Lindsay, on the other hand, has only shown one possible tenuous connection between Chandler and Smith and has not shown any evidence that it impacted Smith’s, Phelp’s, or Cowdery’s part in the KEP. In fact Lindsay acknowledges that

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 “W.W. Phelps, based on his writings in the GAEL, may have continued to entertain the notion that Egyptian characters could have many levels of meaning and might convey a sentence or phrase when translated. But we have no reasonable basis to assign that belief to Joseph.”

Lindsay’s last sentence, like Vogel, overstates his case. There is ample evidence to assume that whatever Phelps might have believed he would have shared that with Smith since they worked side by side in this process, and how is it Smith would have been aware of the impact of Champollion’s work and Phelps not? Phelps was much better read and educated than Smith. Of the two it is much more likely he would have been aware of the impact of Champollion’s work.

 

I realize Vogel is coming from a critical perspective, just as Lindsay is defending a particular faithful point of view. Can we keep to the question at hand instead of gratuitous attacks on either one?

 

What do you think? Is there any evidence that knowledge or the lack of knowledge of Champollion’s work impacted the production of the Book of Abraham & the KEP?

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, CA Steve said:

Dan Vogel’s book on Book of Abraham Apologetics is out. Book of Abraham Apologetics: A Review and Critique by Dan Vogel. For those interested in staying current with the debate surrounding the Book of Abraham, it is an important volume that deserves attention. I am not attempting to write a review here, but rather I would like to discuss a single point in his book that has drawn the attention of Jeff Lindsay. That point is the assertion by Vogel that Joseph Smith learned from Chandler that

As far as I can tell Vogel is making this assertion purely on the unsupported assumption that Chandler told Smith no one could actually translate Egyptian at this time, which seems to be contradicted by the fact that Chandler actually gave Smith a certificate testifying to the accuracy of a translation Smith did of some of that characters. In all likelihood even though Chandler was in no position to make such a statement it certainly it should not have left Smith with the feeling no one could translate besides him.

Jeff Lindsay responded to this in a blog post on Mar 17 2021. Just Started Dan Vogel's New Book: Already Chagrined by the Treatment of Champollion

What references does Lindsay give to back up his assertion that Smith and the early Saints knew about Champollion’s work? The only direct connection he can make is second hand source that,

Note that according to this source, Mitchill did not say anything about a translation, only that the characters Harris brought resembled ones found by Champollion.

I believe that both Lindsay and Vogel are overstating their cases about the possible influence or lack thereof on Smith and associates. I think Vogel is speculating on what Chandler might have told Smith and even seems to contradict that when he talks about Chandler’s certificate. Lindsay, on the other hand, has only shown one possible tenuous connection between Chandler and Smith and has not shown any evidence that it impacted Smith’s, Phelp’s, or Cowdery’s part in the KEP. In fact Lindsay acknowledges that

Lindsay’s last sentence, like Vogel, overstates his case. There is ample evidence to assume that whatever Phelps might have believed he would have shared that with Smith since they worked side by side in this process, and how is it Smith would have been aware of the impact of Champollion’s work and Phelps not? Phelps was much better read and educated than Smith. Of the two it is much more likely he would have been aware of the impact of Champollion’s work.

I realize Vogel is coming from a critical perspective, just as Lindsay is defending a particular faithful point of view. Can we keep to the question at hand instead of gratuitous attacks on either one?

What do you think? Is there any evidence that knowledge or the lack of knowledge of Champollion’s work impacted the production of the Book of Abraham & the KEP?

I have not gotten a copy of Vogel's new book yet, but several things should be made clear:

We dealt with all these questions in detail at FARMS decades ago, and published a detailed analysis of the Champollion and American scholarly connection.  A copy of that was even up on the Maxwell Institute website, along with a plethora of FARMS publications -- all of which were removed in recent years.  That wholesale removal allows anyone to come on scene now and make outrageous claims without apparent fear of contradiction.  I am referring to “Martin Harris’ Visit With Charles Anthon: Collected Documents on Short-Hand Egyptian,” FARMS Preliminary Report STF-85a (Provo: FARMS, 1985); 73pp; in BYU Library, Americana Collection, BX 8608 .A1a no.6012a  (Quarto / Floor 1–N); revised by J. W. Welch, ed., STF-90 (Provo: FARMS, 1990). 

Scholars like Mitchill and Anthon were almost certainly aware of the work of Champollion, from such American sources as “Egyptian Hieroglyphics,” American Quarterly Review, I/2 (June 1827), which was a review of J.-F. Champollion’s Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens, I (Paris, 1824).  William W. Phelps even alludes to Champollion's "short-hand" Egyptian in his letter to Eber D. Howe, January 15, 1831, concerning the February 1828 Martin Harris visit to Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia College.  And, of course, Howe went on to discuss “reformed” and “short hand Egyptian” in his Mormonism Unvailed (1834), 269.

As we said in our summary FARMS Update for May 1985, reprinted in John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon: The F.A.R.M.S. Updates (Provo: FARMS/SLC: Deseret Book, 1992), 73-76, online at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/66/  ,

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. . . in 1831 W. W. Phelps wrote a letter in which he reported that Anthon had translated the Book of Mormon characters and declared them to be "the ancient shorthand Egyptian." This is a most telling clue, for where else, except from Anthon, would Harris and hence Phelps have gotten this precise phrase, the phrase shorthand Egyptian? It was not part of Harris's environment or education. Indeed, the phrase is so singular that it appears only this one time in LDS history.

On the other hand, this precise term was known to scholars, Anthon included.  In 1824, Champollion had used an equivalent term, "tachygraphie," in his landmark Préçis du système hieroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens (a copy of which Anthon owned), to describe hieratic Egyptian script. In June 1827, this book was reviewed in the American Quarterly Review, calling hieratic Egyptian script "short-hand" Egyptian. Anthon knew this review: He owned a copy and he cited it in his Classical Dictionary. Anthon would have read this review only months before Harris's visit.

Thus it becomes highly probable that Phelps indeed heard this peculiar phrase from Harris, who in turn got it from Anthon, the only person involved who was likely to have known it. Anthon probably mentioned shorthand Egyptian because he was struck by certain obvious similarities in the transcript to hieratic or demotic Egyptian.

 

It is noteworthy that a modern Egyptologist, William C. Hayes (Metropolitan Museum of Art), similarly considered the so-called "Anthon Transcript" (now termed the "Caractors Transcript") to be Egyptian hieratic script.

Since we do not have the actual Anthon Transcript taken by Martin Harris to Mitchill and Anthon, we cannot say anything with certainty on that question, but we have enough evidence to make some excellent extrapolations.  We have discussed this many times on this board, but it still feels like Ground Hog Day, since no one seems to have learned anything from those repeated discussions.

@Jeff Lindsay

Edited March 27, 2021 by Robert F. Smith

[OGHoosier]

On the point of Phelp's close work with Smith, I think there's actually reason to believe that he was more of a wild child than might be expected. He believed in himself as an independent linguistic authority and actually went to the extent of contradicting Smith's translations at times. I wrote a somewhat lengthy post on this a while back. It's not clear to me if Phelps disregarded Smith's authority or just didn't do his homework, but either way it seems that Phelps was not overly concerned with keeping in lockstep with Joseph's translations and priorities. 

[CA Steve]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We have discussed this many times on this board, but it still feels like Ground Hog Day, since no one seems to have learned anything from those repeated discussions.

Hi Robert,

 

I was hoping you would chime in.

I think I asked a pretty specific question here, one I do not think has been discussed before. 

3 hours ago, CA Steve said:

Is there any evidence that knowledge or the lack of knowledge of Champollion’s work impacted the production of the Book of Abraham & the KEP?

What do you think?

[CA Steve]

1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

On the point of Phelp's close work with Smith, I think there's actually reason to believe that he was more of a wild child than might be expected. He believed in himself as an independent linguistic authority and actually went to the extent of contradicting Smith's translations at times. I wrote a somewhat lengthy post on this a while back. It's not clear to me if Phelps disregarded Smith's authority or just didn't do his homework, but either way it seems that Phelps was not overly concerned with keeping in lockstep with Joseph's translations and priorities. 

That is certainly a view shared by those who believe that Smith was not involved in the GAEL or the Alphabets, but that is not what I was asking. See above for my specific question.

[Robert F. Smith]

57 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

.........................

I think I asked a pretty specific question here, one I do not think has been discussed before. 

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CA Steve said:

Is there any evidence that knowledge or the lack of knowledge of Champollion’s work impacted the production of the Book of Abraham & the KEP?

 

What do you think?

Although one could certainly discuss Champollion in the context of Mitchill, Anthon, Phelps, and Howe, as I have done repeatedly, and although such a discussion does clarify all the talk about "reformed Egyptian,"  and "short-hand Egyptian," it is far less clear how the text of the Book of Abraham might have been affected by that.  In fact, I cannot find any specific connection.  You are right to doubt that Chandler's claims are substantive, but it is highly speculative to suggest that Phelps and Joseph Smith are connected at the hip.  Phelps had begun his cypher program long before the arrival of the mummies and papyri in Kirtland, and KEP need be no more than an extension of Phelps' attempt to find a cypher key.  Smith may or may not have gone along with it, and any of us may suppose what we like, but that sort of speculation only leads to a dead end.  It is much more productive to take the actual BofA text and Joseph's explanations to the three illustrations (facsimiles), compared to the actual Egyptian texts, to determine anything useful.  I have done just that in my “Brief Assessment of the LDS Book of Abraham,” version 12, Feb 28, 2020, online at https://drive.google.com/file/d/19IhGHuIFNHqmE1fICdIzvvkYOXv459bc/view?usp=sharing .  Most of that I first presented here on this board in 2012.  It did not convince @Chris Smith (no relation), but he did mention it in his own private blog.

[OGHoosier]

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Although one could certainly discuss Champollion in the context of Mitchill, Anthon, Phelps, and Howe, as I have done repeatedly, and although such a discussion does clarify all the talk about "reformed Egyptian,"  and "short-hand Egyptian," it is far less clear how the text of the Book of Abraham might have been affected by that.  In fact, I cannot find any specific connection.  You are right to doubt that Chandler's claims are substantive, but it is highly speculative to suggest that Phelps and Joseph Smith are connected at the hip.  Phelps had begun his cypher program long before the arrival of the mummies and papyri in Kirtland, and KEP need be no more than an extension of Phelps' attempt to find a cypher key.  Smith may or may not have gone along with it, and any of us may suppose what we like, but that sort of speculation only leads to a dead end.  It is much more productive to take the actual BofA text and Joseph's explanations to the three illustrations (facsimiles), compared to the actual Egyptian texts, to determine anything useful.  I have done just that in my “Brief Assessment of the LDS Book of Abraham,” version 12, Feb 28, 2020, online at https://drive.google.com/file/d/19IhGHuIFNHqmE1fICdIzvvkYOXv459bc/view?usp=sharing .  Most of that I first presented here on this board in 2012.  It did not convince @Chris Smith (no relation), but he did mention it in his own private blog.

By cypher, are you referring to William Schryver's theory about the KEP being a code key?

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

By cypher, are you referring to William Schryver's theory about the KEP being a code key?

Hugh Nibley had long before made an assumption that the "Alphabet & Grammar" was an attempt to "reverse engineer" Champollion-style the meaning of Egyptian characters via comparison with an already extant Book of Abraham text.  Bill Schryver was correct to conclude that KEP was not an attempt to translate the BofA.  We do know for certain that there was an attempt to create a Acipher-key@ for encipherment-by-substitution of portions of Joseph Smith=s revelations then being prepared for publication as the 1835 D&C.^[1]

Schryver showed conclusively that Phelps began his cipher-key work before the arrival of the Egyptian papyri and mummies in Kirtland, and that he was the Adominant force@ in that cipher-key effort which, among other things, utilized significant portions of already extant revelations (D&C 76 and 88).^[2]

One might also want to take a look at William F. Albright's discussion of the AEgyptian enigmatic or cryptographic system@^[3] B a cryptographic system which goes back to at least the 11^th Dynasty, and continued intermittently in use through at least the Ptolemaic period.^[4]  An excellent example of this system B in which a single Aglyph could stand for an entire word, phrase, or concept@ B was found in the remains of a Ramesses II temple underneath the Haggag Mosque in Luxor.^[5]

---

^[1] David J. Whittaker, ASubstituted Names in the Published Revelations of Joseph Smith,@ BYU Studies 23/1 (Winter 1983):103-112, online at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?article=2203&context=byusq ; Christopher C. Smith misses the point in his AThe Inspired Fictionalization of the 1835 United Firm Revelations,@ Claremont Journal of Mormon Studies, 1/1 (Apr 2011):15-31; cf. Samuel Brown, AJoseph (Smith) in Egypt: Babel, Hieroglyphs, and the Pure Language of Eden,@ Church History, 78/1 (Mar 2009):26-65; Samuel Brown, “The Language of Heaven: Prolegomenon to the Study of Smithian Translation,” JMH, 38/3 (Summer 2012):51-71, online at https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1070 &context=mormonhistory ; Howard J. Wing, ACryptograms from the Fractal Chiasmus of Messianic Speech in the Doctrine and Covenants,@ School of Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, undated; copy in BYU Special Collections, MSS 3776, Box 6, Folder 107.

^[2] William Schryver, AThe Meaning and Purpose of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers,@ paper delivered at the 2010 FAIR Conference, available online at http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair‑conferences/2010‑fair‑conference/ 2010‑the‑meaning‑of‑the‑kirtland‑egyptian‑papers‑part‑I (Vimeos at http://vimeo.com/user439270/ videos/sort:oldest ).  Cf. May 27, 1835 letter of Phelps to his wife.

^[3] Albright, Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment, HTR 22 (Harvard/Oxford, 1966 /1969):7 n. 27; S. Sauneron, AL=écriture ptolémaïque,@ in Textes et langages de l=Egypte pharaonique: Hommages à Jean-François Champollion, Bibliothèque d=Etude LXIV/1 (Cairo: IFAO, 1972), 45-56; H. W. Fairman, ANotes on the Alphabetic Signs Employed in the Hieroglyphic Inscriptions of the Temple of Edfu,@ Annales du Service des Antiquités de l=Egypte, 43 (1943):301.

^[4] Marilina Betrò, “The cosmic side of Otherness Nun, borders, and the Bas of the four cardinal points, “ Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni, 84/1 (2018):50-64, online at https://www.torrossa.com/it/resources/an/4440256 , on four cryptographic texts devoted to the Bas of the four cardinal points: É. Drioton, ARecueil de cryptographie monumentale,@ Annales du Service des Antiquités de l=Égypte, 40 (1940):305-308, with a complete bibliography; Drioton, ALes principes de la cryptographie égyptienne,@ Comptes-rendus des séances de l=Akadémie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (Paris, 1953), 355-364; H. G. Fischer, AHieroglyphen,@ in LÄ, II:1196; W. Schenkel, ASchrift,@ in LÄ, V:716-717; AEin Siegelring mit kryptographischer Inschrift in Bonn,@ in Manfred Bietak, ed., Ägypten und Levante B Egypt and the Levant XX, Internationale Zeitschrift für ägyptische Archäologie und deren Nachbargebiete/International Journal for Egyptian Archaeology and Related Disciplines (Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2011), ?? ; see E. Iversen on the importance of acrophony in interpreting Egyptian cryptographic writing in Papyrus Carlsberg Nr. VII: Fragments of a Hieroglyphic Dictionary, Danish Academy of Sciences: Hist-fil. Skrifter, vol. 2 (Copenhagen, 1958), 8; O. Neugebauer mentions some of the same points in his The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 2^nd ed. (Brown Univ., 1957), 144, ad. 59.  Cf. G. Lefebvre, Grammaire de l=Égyptien classique, 2^nd ed., '56; A. Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian, 23-24; John C. Darnell, The Enigmatic Netherworld Books of the Solar-Osirian Unity: Cryptographic Compositions in the Tombs of Tutankhamun, Ramesses VI and Ramesses IX, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 198 (Fribourg: Academic Press/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004) B includes an appendix of cryptographic values, and is a very close analysis of enigmatic script, rejecting the principle of acrophony of Drioton; it is a very important theological/religious study: Although there were important precursors, the post-Amarna fusion of Osiris & Re was very significant.

^[5] Steven Stanek, AAncient Pharaoh Temple Discovered Inside Egypt Mosque,@ National Geographic News, Sept 27, 2007, online at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070927-egypt-temple.html.

[CA Steve]

19 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Smith may or may not have gone along with it, and any of us may suppose what we like, but that sort of speculation only leads to a dead end.  It is much more productive to take the actual BofA text and Joseph's explanations to the three illustrations (facsimiles), compared to the actual Egyptian texts, to determine anything useful.

I have to take issue with the classification of speculation here as to Smith's involvement with the KEP. We know from Smith's own history that he was directly involved with it. His journal entry in the latter part of July 1835 states that he was "continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham." (See DHC 2:238 See here.) I think that the textual historical evidence behind the actual Book of Abraham is every bit as important as what we know  of the history behind the production of the Book of Mormon.

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Bill Schryver was correct to conclude that KEP was not an attempt to translate the BofA.

Contra Schryver, Joseph Smith himself calls this a "translation" (see above) not some sort of cipher.

 

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Schryver showed conclusively that Phelps began his cipher-key work before the arrival of the Egyptian papyri and mummies in Kirtland

There is no doubt that Phelps was involved with attempts to produce ancient language, but Smith was directly involved too and those attempts found their way into the Alphabets and Grammar. However, it is far from settled that it was a cipher-key. In fact I am a bit surprised that you would accept so uncritically Schryver's work, after all it has never been formally published, it has never gone through any sort of peer review, Schryver himself seems to have stopped promoting it years ago and you are the only one I have seen who even mentions it. And as far as I can tell, none of the Book of Abraham works recently published even mention it. (Works by Givens, Gee, Vogel and the JSPP) At a minimum I would have expected you to demand the same level of publication of Will's work as you did with Vogel when he was promoting his videos. Until Will's work get some sort of attention that indicates it has been taken seriously it remains just an interesting untested theory.

Edited March 28, 2021 by CA Steve

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, CA Steve said:

I have to take issue with the classification of speculation here as to Smith's involvement with the KEP. We know from Smith's own history that he was directly involved with it. His journal entry in the latter part of July 1835 states that he was "continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham." (See DHC 2:238 See here.)

See the Lindsay discussions, below, on this one-to-one claim.  Turns out not be so simple as you suggest, which is precisely why it ends up being speculation as to just what KEP really was and to what extent Joseph Smith was involved.  This is tantamount to insisting that speculation in a murder investigation is every bit as important as hard forensic evidence.  That isn't how science or scholarship moves forward.

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I think that the textual historical evidence behind the actual Book of Abraham is every bit as important as what we know  of the history behind the production of the Book of Mormon.

Yes, it is, and I have created my own full-scale Critical Text of the Book of Abraham just to analyze those textual questions.

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Contra Schryver, Joseph Smith himself calls this a "translation" (see above) not some sort of cipher.

Using the word "translation" does not justify claims that KEP represents a translation.  QED?

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There is no doubt that Phelps was involved with attempts to produce ancient language, but Smith was directly involved too and those attempts found their way into the Alphabets and Grammar. However, it is far from settled that it was a cipher-key. In fact I am a bit surprised that you would accept so uncritically Schryver's work, after all it has never been formally published, it has never gone through any sort of peer review, Schryver himself seems to have stopped promoting it years ago and you are the only one I have seen who even mentions it. And as far as I can tell, none of the Book of Abraham works recently published even mention it. (Works by Givens, Gee, Vogel and the JSPP) At a minimum I would have expected you to demand the same level of publication of Will's work as you did with Vogel when he was promoting his videos. Until Will's work get some sort of attention that indicates it has been taken seriously it remains just an interesting untested theory.

I prefer the analysis of @Jeff Lindsay, AMy Uninspired >Translation= of the Missing Scroll/Script from the Hauglid‑Jensen Presentation,@ Mormanity, March 19, 2019, online at  https://mormanity.blogspot.com/2019/03/my‑uninspired‑translation‑of‑missing.html , and Jeff Lindsay, “A Precious Resource with Some Gaps,” Interpreter, 33 (2019):13-104, online at  https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/a-precious-resource-with-some-gaps/ , and Jeff Lindsay, “Review of Terryl Givens and Brian Hauglid, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism's Most Controversial Scripture,” Mormanity, Nov 19, 2019, online at https://mormanity.blogspot.com/2019/11/review-of-terryl-givens-and-brian.html .  See also Egyptologist John S. Thompson,“‘We May Not Understand Our Words’: The Book of Abraham and the Concept of Translation in The Pearl of Greatest Price,” Interpreter, 41 (2020): 1-48, online at https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/we-may-not-understand-our-words-the-book-of-abraham-and-the-concept-of-translation-in-the-pearl-of-greatest-price/ .

Lindsay points out that the format followed by KEP was already being used by Phelps before the mummies and papyri arrived in Kirtland (I cited the Phelps letter to his wife of May 1835).  The methodology was already present with Phelps.  As I have already suggested, whether Joseph Smith later bought into that methodology is largely an apriori assumption, and substitutes speculation for actual fact.  You insist that the work-product of Phelps includes Smith, and Lindsay shows how weak an assumption that is.  Also, as I pointed out, Schryver was not first on the scene with the notion of reverse-engineering the translation process.  Hugh Nibley had long since explored that approach, and John Tvedtnes had even looked into the possibility that the Breathing Certificate was a cue-word list.  In addition. I listed for you a nice bibliography of ancient Egyptian cryptography.  I have a much longer discussion in my unpublished BofA Commentary, but see no reason to buy into the automatic assumption that KEP is the source of the BofA.  I have seen nothing that would buttress that suggestion.  Actually, the opposite appears to me to be the case.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Robert F. Smith

[Kevin Christensen]

For the record, I remain very impressed by Will Schyver's presentation, as well as Robert S. Smith's impressive work on Egyptian correspondences, Gee's work, and that of several others, including Tim Barker's recent "Under the Head" presentation whch points out that in preparing the Book of Abraham facsimiles for publication, Joseph filled in gaps in Facsimile 2 with characters from the Hor Book of Breathings papryus, and then in effect declares in the published annotations to those characters that he has NOT translated them, but if the world can figure them out so be it.  Such material is tough for the critics to digest because it has a slight disemboweling effect on the narrative upon which they have built their most effective claim against Joseph Smith.  That narrative is that "Joseph claimed to translate the Book of Abraham from the Hor Book of Breathings, which is not the Book of Abraham.  Game over, check and mate, nothing to see here folks, let's all pack our bags, except for tithing slips for which there is no need, and let's all go away."  It's clearly very hard to let go of a paradigmatic, community-defining narrative.

Schryver's arguments include the following:

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Since shortly after the rediscovery of the Joseph Smith Papyri in 1967, critics have asserted that two of these documents, the ones authored by Williams and Parrish, represent the simultaneously produced transcripts of Joseph Smith’s original dictated translation of the Book of Abraham. 

 Though no substantial analysis has ever been produced to support this claim, it is understood to rest on the fact that most of the characters in the left-hand column (as John Gee has just shown us) correspond to bona fide Egyptian characters that can be found on the portion of the Joseph Smith Papyri known as the Book of Breathings.

 Slide#: 37

(Ab2; Ab3, detail)

 It has also been asserted that the textual evidence conclusively demonstrates that Joseph Smith directed both Williams and Parrish to list these characters, in the order they did, as the Prophet, one by one, interpreted them from the papyri.  They assert that the only plausible explanation for the juxtaposition of these characters with text from the Book of Abraham is that Joseph Smith was directing a translation session of this part of the scrolls.  And since Egyptologists inform us that these characters have no relationship to the Book of Abraham, then it must follow, we are told, that Joseph Smith was mistakenly or deceptively purporting to translate them into the Book of Abraham.

 Suffice it to say, at present, that the evidence I am about to present will effectively render moot all of these arguments.

 As a data-base programmer, Schyver started by creating a data-base of every word in the Egyptian Papers, and he discusses how he did this.  On completing it, he observes this:

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One of the first things that became apparent in the process of this particular study—before attempting to quantify anything—is that we are quite obviously dealing with a very limited set of unique words, with very specific applications.  As opposed to a more non-contextual selection of wide-focus building block words that one would reasonably expect to encounter in a document intended as a tool to decipher an unknown text, instead we encounter words and phrases focused on a narrow subject matter. 

Slide#: 53

(Intuitively evident that Alphabet is based on an already known text.)

 As a result, what was intuitively evident to me was that this thing was being driven by an already known text, rather than being a means by which to produce an as yet unknown text.  The substantial words are almost all proper nouns that form a lexicon of people, places, and things—almost all of them from the Book of Abraham, and often very uniquely so.

 If, as Mormon critics have argued for the past 40 years, the Alphabet and Grammar was produced before the text of the Book of Abraham was received, and was the means by which that text was subsequently “translated” from the papyri, then how likely is it that the would-be translators would include virtually nothing but unique words and phrases from an as yet unwritten book?

 Slide#: 54

(Critics’ thesis.)

 You see, the thesis of the Alphabet and Grammar as a papyri deciphering tool presupposes that the authors don’t already know the text their tool is being designed to produce!

 Slide#: 55

(Alphabet explanations reference a story that’s already been written.)

 But that is not what we find in the substantial words of the Alphabet documents.  Quite to the contrary, what we find are references to a story that’s already been written.

Slide#: 56

(Substantial Word Study Summary Observation)

 The substantial words contained in the Egyptian Alphabet explanations are related to the specific language of a clearly delimited portion of the Book of Abraham …

 Slide#: 57

(Substantial Word Study Summary Observation)

 … while not attesting a corresponding relationship to the other portions of the Book of Abraham, nor to the chapters from Genesis.

Further on:

Quote

The Alphabet and Grammar is dependent on a story that has already been written.  We are able to discern within the Alphabet and Grammar the complex contextual elements of the Book of Abraham only because we already know the story.  And the complex, interrelated aspects of the references we find simply could not have been achieved unless the whole story had already been produced.

 Slide#: 95

(The rest of the story.)

 In short, there is too little of the story of the Book of Abraham in the Alphabet and Grammar for it to have been used to produce the story, yet too much of the story for it not to be dependent on the rest of the story.

And this:

Quote

But if, as has been asserted for the past forty years, these documents were not prepared as a tool to decipher the papyri, what then was their purpose?

 Slide#: 97

(Was it reverse engineering?)

 I confess that my original thesis was consistent with Professor Hugh Nibley’s idea that the Alphabet and Grammar represent the product of an effort on the part of its authors to “reverse engineer” the Egyptian scrolls by using the pre-existing English text of the Book of Abraham as a “primer.” 

 Slide#: 98

(Replicating Champollion’s approach to the Rosetta Stone?)

 In other words, they had in their hands what they believed was an English translation of at least a portion of the scrolls they had purchased, and therefore they logically concluded that they could replicate Champollion’s approach to the Rosetta Stone. You’ll recall that Champollion used the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone as a primer to decipher the corresponding hieroglyphic Egyptian text.  I surmised that William Phelps, Joseph Smith, and Oliver Cowdery set out to do something similar with the previously received Book of Abraham text.

 Slide#: 99

(The Alphabet and Grammar not only dependent on the Book of Abraham.)

 However, as my studies of the Alphabet and Grammar materials progressed, I discovered evidence that effectively disproved such a notion.  I discovered that several of the explanations in the Alphabet and Grammar documents were dependent not on text from the Book of Abraham …

 Slide#: 100

(The Alphabet and Grammar also dependent on other revelations.)

 … but rather on very recognizable passages from others of Joseph Smith’s prior revelations, most prominently sections 76 and 88 of the Doctrine & Covenants.

 We could spend an hour discussing nothing but the dependencies on material not found in the Book of Abraham, but we will focus on just one of the impressive examples.

And this:

Quote

Slide#: 107

(Four successive characters …)

 Thus we see, in the explanations given to four successive characters from the Alphabet and Grammar, very particular references to specific passages from those two giants of Joseph Smith’s previously received revelations—sections 76 and 88.  Right in order, this so-called Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language is making reference to the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial kingdoms, followed immediately by the kingdom which is not a kingdom of glory!

 Slide#: 108

(Many other references to passages from others of Joseph Smith’s previously received revelations.)

 I went on to identify several additional references that are clearly dependent on other passages from the Doctrine and Covenants.

 I confess I was rather befuddled by this finding, and it took me several days of contemplation before I began to appreciate its import and implications.

 Slide#: 109

(To the extent the Alphabet and Grammar is partially dependent on texts that have no relationship to the Egyptian papyri, then it cannot have been intended as a tool to decipher those papyri.)

 First of all, I came to see that my initial hypothesis could not be true.  To the extent this lexicon was built partially on texts that have no relationship to the Egyptian papyri; texts that were written not in Egyptian at all, but in English, then the Alphabet and Grammar simply could not have been intended as a tool to decipher the papyri.  Indeed, the more I considered the evidence in this new light, the more I came to believe that these men were not focused on translating the Egyptian papyri at all!

 One of the keys to this conclusion was my discovery that, of the 69 characters to which explanations were assigned, most of them are not even Egyptian and do not appear on the papyri! 

 Slide#: 110

(Many, if not most of the A&G characters are not Egyptian; they do not come from the Egyptian papyri.”)

 Let me repeat: Most of the characters explained in the Egyptian alphabet documents are not Egyptian, and do not appear on the Egyptian papyri in question. 

 Slide#: 111

(“The characters that are Egyptian and which can be found on the papyri appear to have been selected arbitrarily.”)

 A few of the characters are Egyptian and can be found on the papyri, but not in any one place, and not in any order, and not with any discernible relationships.  They appear to have been selected arbitrarily.

And this:

Quote

Of the 69 characters given explanations, some of them are clearly invented; some are composites—in other words they are formed by combining two or more previously used characters …

 Slide#: 112

(Several of the Egyptian Alphabet characters can be traced to ciphers employed by the Knights Templar.)

 … and, much to my surprise, I discovered that several of the characters can be traced to ciphers used by the Knights Templar and the Freemasons.

 -PAUSE-

 So, let’s pause a minute to review the important elements of evidence at this point in the investigation.

 Slide#: 113

(“The Alphabet and Grammar is dependent on both the text of the Book of Abraham and others of Joseph Smith’s previously received revelations.”)

 First of all, we’re dealing with a document whose text is dependent on and informed by the Book of Abraham as well as others of Joseph Smith’s previously received revelations.

 Slide#: 114

(“It employs a mixture of some Egyptian characters, some apparently invented characters, and other characters selected from ciphers in use during that time period.”)

 It employs a mixture of some Egyptian characters, some apparently invented characters, and other characters selected from centuries-old ciphers.

 The next clue in our mystery comes in the form of what may well be the most instructive two pages of the entire collection of documents known as the Kirtland Egyptian Papers: the Egyptian Counting document.

 Slide#: 115

(EC documents)

 Why is this document so instructive?  Because it, more clearly than all the others, demonstrates the fundamental purpose of the project of which it is an integral part. 

 Slide#: 116

(EC characters)

 As I mentioned earlier, the Egyptian Counting document lists a series of characters …

 Slide#: 117

(EC names)

… with “names” …

 Slide#: 118

(EC English explanations)

 … and “English explanations.”

 Slide#: 119

(Egyptian Counting contains no Egyptian!)

 What is most interesting, however, is that the characters in the Egyptian Counting document are very obviously not Egyptian!  They have no relationship whatsoever to the papyri.

He then goes on to talk about cyphers:

Quote

As I pondered the ramifications of these facts, the conclusion became obvious to me: what we have here is a tool not intended to decipher Egyptian, but rather one intended to encipher the descriptive English text of the cardinal numbers! 

 Slide#: 131

(Cipher Key)

 It constitutes a specimen of what is known in cryptography as a “cipher key.”  The characters, which are not Egyptian and which do not come from the papyri, are intended to be a cipher representing the English words in the “explanations” column. 

W.W. Phelps had a pre-existing interest in this kind of thing.

Quote

In the mind of Phelps and the others, Egyptian was apparently believed to have somehow avoided the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel.  “Egyptian” therefore became a term that, for them, was synonymous with “pure language.” 

 Thus, they see no contradiction entitling as “Egyptian Counting” a document that contains not a single element that is Egyptian; nor do they perceive any contradiction entitling the other documents “Egyptian Alphabet” and “Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language,” notwithstanding the fact that most of the characters they “translate” are not Egyptian, nor are the source texts.

 Slide#: 153

(Ideographic Cipher and Lexicon)

 Again, the evidence strongly suggests that the Alphabet and Grammar was never intended nor designed to “decipher” anything!  Quite to the contrary, it was a short-lived attempt to construct an ideographic cipher and lexicon whereby those who produced it took selections of Joseph Smith’s body of revelatory texts, written in English, and assigned to them simple character values.  In their minds, the capacity of a single character to represent a word, or a sentence, or even an entire paragraph of over a hundred words, was typical of what they believed to have been the “pure language” of the ancients.

 Don’t misunderstand, I have encountered no evidence to date that they believed they were actually restoring the language of Adam, although it is possible they believed that some of the characters they produced had come to them through inspiration.  No, it appears they were merely producing their own rendition of what they believed “pure language” would be like.

 Slide#: 154

(Deciphering Egyptian scrolls was never their intended purpose.)

 The point is that deciphering Egyptian scrolls was not their purpose.  The kind of translation they were attempting ran in the other direction.

 Indeed, William Phelps had already executed the first example of a practical attempt to do just that several weeks before Michael Chandler and his Egyptian papyri ever rolled into Kirtland, Ohio!

 Slide#: 155

(A Specimen of the Pure Language)

 In this letter to his wife Sally, written more than a month before Chandler and his mummies turned up in Kirtland, Phelps includes an extract from the earliest known example of his encryption template; his “cipher key.”  He entitled it, appropriately, A specimen of some of the “pure language”.

 -PAUSE-

 Slide#: 156

(A Specimen of the Pure Language - Transcription)

 Here we see a table almost identical in format to those used in the Alphabet and Grammar.  In the left hand column are written 6 characters, followed by a column of “sounds” and English explanations that derive from elements of Joseph Smith’s previously received revelations. 

The next year Don Bradley did a FAIR presentation showing that perhaps Joseph Smith used an explanation of a character from these documents in comparison to a character on the fraudulent Kinderhook plates.  But the substance of Schryver's presentation has not been dealt with.  I've occasionally seen airy abstractions and vague appeals to some authority somewhere who dismisses Schryver.  "Have any of the rulers of of the Pharisees believed on him?"
 But not any detailed accounting of evidence and arguments.

And in the meantime, we have things like Robert S. Smith's imposing research, Gee's arguments, Vogel's new book, that ignores Barker and Schryver and Robert Smith and much else.  The dismissal of Schryver's work reminds me less of scholarship than of politics and the struggle to "control the narrative" and thereby, control both the discussion and the community.  Notice that Schryver came to his task as a data base programmer, rather than as a historian or Egyptologist.  He brought different tools, and a different approach that brought out much that the current accepted critical narrative does not consider because it does not even see it.   His work does not fit the preferred narrative and accompanying tool set.  So they don't narrate it.

Quote

No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those  that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others.  Indeed, normal scientific research  is directed to those phenomena and theories  that the paradigm already supplies."  (Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 24). 

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited March 31, 2021 by Kevin Christensen

[CA Steve]

17 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

The dismissal of Schryver's work reminds me less of scholarship than of politics and the struggle to "control the narrative" and thereby, control both the discussion and the community.  Notice that Schryver came to his task as a data base programmer, rather than as a historian or Egyptologist.  He brought different tools, and a different approach that brought out much that the current accepted critical narrative does not consider because it does not even see it.   His work does not fit the preferred narrative and accompanying tool set.  So they don't narrate it.

I am curious who you think is dismissing his work. At this point all we have is a presentation. Powerful as they might be, I am pretty sure it wasn't the critics who decided to not publish it. It isn't just the critical narrative (whatever that is?) that is ignoring it, it is pretty much everyone but Robert.

[OGHoosier]

@Kevin Christensen

Thank you for posting some of Schryver's commentary, all in all it's a good one. I do have some quibbles. 

I think that the plurality of non-Egyptian characters in the Alphabet and Grammar are pretty damning evidence against the idea that they represent translation from the papyri. Unfortunately I think a lot of Schryver's other evidence doesn't fare as well. For instance, his data-set of topic-constrained definitions could be explained by the Book of Abraham already having been received, or it could be explained by Joseph dictating in real time a focused translation like the Book of Abraham, which can only go so far afield from its central topics. Of course, I could well be misunderstanding the argument. And in any case, this latter assumption does distance the Book of Abraham from the so-called smoking gun papyri and into the realm of catalyst theories. Likewise, the portions of the Doctrine and Covenants could be understood as being present in the ancient text, the same truth revealed back then as it is now. 

I do think, however, that they were trying to reconstruct a pure language as it existed in the days of Adam, not merely as it might be. If they didn't think their production was genuinely ancient, why would Joseph refer to it when dealing with the Kinderhook plates? I would note that Joseph's reference to the Grammar and Alphabet indicates that he viewed them to be valuable to an extent. This militates against fraud hypotheses. Because he ultimately didn't take up the Kinderhook plates, clearly he didn't think the one Grammar and Alphabet character he identified was significant enough to merit further engagement. Make of that what you will. 

Ultimately I think the GAEL was an attempt at the pure antediluvian language. Perhaps it's a form of glossalalia, or perhaps it's literally right in a traditional sense and we haven't run into that text yet. 

[PacMan]

On 3/27/2021 at 11:30 AM, CA Steve said:

I realize Vogel is coming from a critical perspective, just as Lindsay is defending a particular faithful point of view. Can we keep to the question at hand instead of gratuitous attacks on either one?

What do you think? Is there any evidence that knowledge or the lack of knowledge of Champollion’s work impacted the production of the Book of Abraham & the KEP?

Vogel is about a decade behind the scholarship.  I don't say that rudely.  But it's the truth.  He relies on the old-worn (and completely incorrect) argument of antagonist Egyptologist, Robert Ritner:

“In the 1840’s in the United States the ancient Egyptian language was virtually unknown.  It had only been deciphered beginning in 1822 and that knowledge had simply had not crossed the Atlantic.  So that almost any interpretation given to an Egyptian document in 1842 or 45, or 50, or even 1860 would have been believable to a general audience who’d have no way of comparing it with the actual truth.”

The problem with this statement, is that is based on lazy supposition.  In fact, it is demonstrably wrong.  And little effort is all that is needed to prove it.

America broadly knew of Champollion in the 1820s -- AND the phonetic nature of Egyptian.  Let me say this again.  Not only was Champollion widely known, but the nature of Egyptian was also widely known prior to 1830.

You're going to have to wait for me to finish writing my own presentation.  But I'll offer a few details.  Champollion was known from Virginia to Delaware, from Alabama, to even Palmyra, New York and Honolulu, Hawaii.  Yes, Hawaii.  All these sources are prior to the publication of the Book of Abraham.  It's important to understand, that without his decipherment, Champollion means very little.  But even if that were not the case, I have a host of examples that show that Champollion was not only widely known, but so was the concept that he could actually read Egyptian.  I will offer two:

And all this is 1829!  I should note, that The North American Review ran many, many stories on Champollion.

The idea that Bradish, Mitchell, or Anthon hadn't heard about Champollion by 1828 (and his decipherment) is flat silly. 

In fact, I have a New York publication from 1826 that states, that Champollion "soon found that these phonetic characters were much more extensively employed than had been at first apprehended . . . The hieroglyphic alphabet discovered by the author . . .   The discovery of this phonetic alphabet is . . .   The Egyptian employed it in every epoch to represent the articulate sounds of their spoken language."

The case is closed.  Vogel's argument simply lacks credibility.

Ritner, Vogel, and their ilk do a great disservice to those of the early 19th Century.  Our predecessors were much more sophisticated in their dissemination of knowledge than either Ritner or Vogel would like to admit.

In fact, I have another article that evidences information regarding Champollion made it from London to the American presses within 1 months time.  Information was shared, and it was shared very quickly.  Vogel and Ritner are simply wrong.

Now, the real question is: If Joseph Smith (and his associates) knew of Champollion and his decipherment of Egyptian, what were they (whoever "they" are) doing with the hieratic in the column adjacent to the BoA manuscript?  There's an answer to that as well, but it'll have to wait....

Edited March 30, 2021 by PacMan

[OGHoosier]

12 minutes ago, PacMan said:

Vogel is about a decade behind the scholarship.  I don't say that rudely.  But it's the truth.  He seems to continue the old-worn argument of Robert Ritner:

“In the 1840’s in the United States the ancient Egyptian language was virtually unknown.  It had only been deciphered beginning in 1822 and that knowledge had simply had not crossed the Atlantic.  So that almost any interpretation given to an Egyptian document in 1842 or 45, or 50, or even 1860 would have been believable to a general audience who’d have no way of comparing it with the actual truth.”

The problem with this statement, is that is based in lazy ignorance.  It is demonstrably wrong.  And little effort is all that is needed to prove it.

Similarly, Vogel's history is simply conjecture based on wishful ignorance.  Vogel completely contradicts the American knowledge of Champollion in the 1820s -- AND the widely-known phonetic nature of Egyptian at that time.

Let me say this again.  Not only was Champollion widely known, but the nature of Egyptian was also widely known prior to 1830.

You're going to have to wait for me to finish writing my own presentation.  But I'll offer a few details.  Champollion was known from Virginia to Delaware, from Alabama, to even Palmyra, New York and Honolulu, Hawaii.  Yes, Hawaii.  All these sources are prior to the publication of the Book of Abraham.  But, not only was Champollion widely known, but so was the concept that he could actually read Egyptian.  I have a host of examples.  I will offer two:

And all this is 1829!  I should note, that The North American Review ran many, many stories on Champollion.

The idea that Bradish, Mitchell, or Anthon hadn't heard about Champollion by 1828 (and his decipherment) is far-fetched.  Better said, the hypothesis is flat silly.  In fact, I have a New York publication form 1826 that states, that Champollion "soon found that these phonetic characters were much more extensively employed than had been at first apprehended . . . The hieroglyphic alphabet discovered by the author . . .   The discovery of this phonetic alphabet is . . .   The Egyptian employed it in every epoch to represent the articulate sounds of their spoken language."

The case is closed.  No one can seriously dispute that anyone with any connection with Egypt actually knew that Egyptian had been deciphered.

Ritner, Vogel, and their ilk do a great disservice to those of the early 19th Century.  Those were much more sophisticated in their dissemination of knowledge than either Ritner or Vogel would like to admit.

High-quality post. 

In supplement to this, I would argue that, since Phelps appears to have gotten his knowledge of "short-hand Egyptian" from Anthon by way of Harris, this gives us a precedent which would support Nibley's theory of reverse-translation. Phelps, seemingly the project's main driver, clearly knew such was possible, for he knew Champollion's precedent. It would make sense that he would try the same.

Of course, I do think Schryver succeeds in demonstrating that the Grammar and Alphabet are not papyri-derived. But it is a curious note. 

Edited March 30, 2021 by OGHoosier

[PacMan]

I'll also say, that for 20+ years, the BoA has been the one troublesome part of the Church that I never felt that I could adequately explain.  The BoA has tested many testimonies.  Unfortunately, many of them have faltered.  That changed the past few years.  I find Tim Barker's work absolutely devastating to the antagonists, and in conjunction with Lindsay and many others, puts the critical view on its heals--much more so than the apologists.

There is still a lot we don't know.  But, we do know that the critics are wrong.  And their (Vogel's) new strategy of simply ignoring arguments shows just how wrong they are.

[OGHoosier]

3 minutes ago, PacMan said:

I'll also say, that for 20+ years, the BoA has been the one troublesome part of the Church that I never felt that I could adequately explain.  The BoA has tested many testimonies.  Unfortunately, many of them have faltered.  That changed the past few years.  I find Tim Barker's work absolutely devastating to the antagonists, and in conjunction with Lindsay and many others, puts the critical view on its heals--much more so than the apologists.

There is still a lot we don't know.  But, we do know that the critics are wrong.  And their (Vogel's) new strategy of simply ignoring arguments shows just how wrong they are.

Agreed. I find it absolutely illogical that, out of ALL the characters on the papyri available to him, he would fixate on the ones from which he derived the Book of Abraham...and repackage them in a context that would completely blow his cover for anybody who had been a part of the translation process or had access to his translation manuscripts which he could have easily destroyed but didn't. Basic stuff. 

It's also interesting to realize that Joseph's inclusion of those particular hieroglyphs might well be the result of a process of inspiration similar to that of Mormon including the small plates, rolling out right in front of our eyes.

[Robert F. Smith]

10 hours ago, CA Steve said:

I am curious who you think is dismissing his work. At this point all we have is a presentation. Powerful as they might be, I am pretty sure it wasn't the critics who decided to not publish it. It isn't just the critical narrative (whatever that is?) that is ignoring it, it is pretty much everyone but Robert.

I am not a personal friend of Schryver, so I don't know much about him, except that he seems to have felt deeply wounded by all the ridiculous statements about him all those years ago, and so he simply ceased to engage his critics.  I think that he is still licking his wounds down in Cedar City.

For him to be published would require his cooperation.  Not sure that he wants to expose himself to more catcalling.  Also, there was no FARMS around when he could have used one.  Perhaps by the time Interpreter got rolling in 2012, he was already so frosted that he refused to even discuss the issue.  I don't know.  Just speculating.

[PacMan]

CA Steve, I'm really hoping that you'll respond to my post.

Or better yet, get Vogel or Ritner to do it.

I'll also accept John Dehlin or Bill Reel.

Come to think of it, I'd be charmed to have Sandra Tanner show up....

Truth be told, I've got fingers crossed for James Huntsman's arrival.  Just say'n.

Edited March 30, 2021 by PacMan

[CA Steve]

8 minutes ago, PacMan said:

CA Steve, I'm really hoping that you'll respond to my post.

Since you did not directly address my OP question I am not sure what type of response you are expecting? I have no expertise in the matter of how extensive Champollion's work was known and understood. What I asked was, what evidence do we have that Champollion's work impacted what Joseph Smith and the scribes produced in the BoA  & KEP?

[PacMan]

36 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Since you did not directly address my OP question I am not sure what type of response you are expecting? I have no expertise in the matter of how extensive Champollion's work was known and understood. What I asked was, what evidence do we have that Champollion's work impacted what Joseph Smith and the scribes produced in the BoA  & KEP?

Not quite.  What you actually say is: "What do you think? Is there any evidence that knowledge or the lack of knowledge of Champollion’s work impacted the production of the Book of Abraham & the KEP?"

And the answer is, Champollion was so well-known by the time the Book of Abraham was published that he had minimal to no impact--at all.  This is important.  Joseph and his scribes knew that Egyptian read right to left.  Where'd they get (guess) that from?  Likely Champollion.  And, they also knew that the hieroglyphics did not produce large swaths of text, which explains why W.W. Phelps' attempted translation in the KEP equate the same number of characters to English words (contrary to the three manuscripts with hieratic).

But that's about it.  That's the extent of Champollion's impact on the BoA and KEP.  And that's important because the BoA was a purely revelatory work.  Champollion had nothing to do with it.  Nor did he have any place to have anything to do with it. Well, other than to give every motive not to fake a "translation," as we use the term today.

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by PacMan

[CA Steve]

5 hours ago, PacMan said:

Joseph and his scribes knew that Egyptian read right to left.  Where'd they get (guess) that from?  Likely Champollion

Or they could have deduced that from the way the scroll itself unwound.

Or most likely they assumed it was the same as Hebrew, which they just happened to be studying. It was a commonly held view at that time that Egyptian and Hebrew were closely related. Current scholarship on this very subject has stated:

Quote

[They] believed that Egyptian and Hebrew were closely related. This belief can be seen in contemporaneous efforts to use Biblical Hebrew as a key resource in the interpretation of Egyptian characters. Such efforts included attempts by prominent scholars to translate Egyptian coffin texts using Hebrew language, to use Hebrew scripture to understand Egyptian temple inscriptions, to argue that Egyptian hieroglyphs contained embedded Hebrew words, to demonstrate through the biblical creation account that Hebrew letter forms developed out of Egyptian characters, and to compare Egyptian and Hebrew with other forms of ancient hieroglyphs (including Chinese and Mayan characters) as a way of considering their shared origins and developments. Other scholars were more circumspect, but still attempted to demonstrate the parallel developments of Egyptian and Hebrew by comparing their respective pictorial forms, phonetic pronunciations, and original meanings.  This included Champollion as well as Moses Stuart, the eminent American Hebraist whose text book would be studied by Joseph Smith.

Matt Grey,  "Approaching Egyptian Papyri through Biblical Language." in Producing Ancient Scripture (SLC: University of Utah Press, 2020)396-398.

Edited March 31, 2021 by CA Steve

[CA Steve]

21 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

in supplement to this, I would argue that, since Phelps appears to have gotten his knowledge of "short-hand Egyptian" from Anthon by way of Harris, this gives us a precedent which would support Nibley's theory of reverse-translation. Phelps, seemingly the project's main driver, clearly knew such was possible, for he knew Champollion's precedent. It would make sense that he would try the same.

Can you provide more information on why you think Harris told Phelps about "short-hand Egyptian"? 

[OGHoosier]

9 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Can you provide more information on why you think Harris told Phelps about "short-hand Egyptian"? 

I found the following argument convincing:

On 3/27/2021 at 1:17 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

As we said in our summary FARMS Update for May 1985, reprinted in John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon: The F.A.R.M.S. Updates (Provo: FARMS/SLC: Deseret Book, 1992), 73-76, online at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/66/  ,

Quote

. . . in 1831 W. W. Phelps wrote a letter in which he reported that Anthon had translated the Book of Mormon characters and declared them to be "the ancient shorthand Egyptian." This is a most telling clue, for where else, except from Anthon, would Harris and hence Phelps have gotten this precise phrase, the phrase shorthand Egyptian? It was not part of Harris's environment or education. Indeed, the phrase is so singular that it appears only this one time in LDS history.

On the other hand, this precise term was known to scholars, Anthon included.  In 1824, Champollion had used an equivalent term, "tachygraphie," in his landmark Préçis du système hieroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens (a copy of which Anthon owned), to describe hieratic Egyptian script. In June 1827, this book was reviewed in the American Quarterly Review, calling hieratic Egyptian script "short-hand" Egyptian. Anthon knew this review: He owned a copy and he cited it in his Classical Dictionary. Anthon would have read this review only months before Harris's visit.

Thus it becomes highly probable that Phelps indeed heard this peculiar phrase from Harris, who in turn got it from Anthon, the only person involved who was likely to have known it. Anthon probably mentioned shorthand Egyptian because he was struck by certain obvious similarities in the transcript to hieratic or demotic Egyptian.

 

 

[PacMan]

4 hours ago, CA Steve said:

Or they could have deduced that from the way the scroll itself unwound.

Or most likely they assumed it was the same as Hebrew, which they just happened to be studying. It was a commonly held view at that time that Egyptian and Hebrew were closely related. Current scholarship on this very subject has stated:

Matt Grey,  "Approaching Egyptian Papyri through Biblical Language." in Producing Ancient Scripture (SLC: University of Utah Press, 2020)396-398.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  My point is, that Champollion was widely known and still had no bearing on the "translation" process, because the "translation" was revelatory.