I was forwarded a missionary's post and asked to respond. The forwarding email:

>Subject: Richard, what do you make of this?

It was posted by a returned missionary defending Joseph Smith.

Critics often bring up the fact that linguists and archaeologists do not refer to any written language as “reformed Egyptian” and suggest that it is “proof” that Joseph Smith was a fraud.

In truth, they do not use this term to refer to any one written language simply because it encompasses too many written languages. Nearly all phonetic alphabets in the world originate from a single phonetic script invented on the Sinai Peninsula thousands of years ago…based on Egyptian characters.

Also, it is well established that people in the Levant did, in fact, use Egyptian characters in a logographic manner, altering them to better fit their own needs. (A logographic language may be used to write different spoken languages. This happens today in China.) Archaeologists have found literally hundreds of examples of locals in the Levant using Egyptian characters logographically.

The type of written language that Joseph Smith claimed to have been translating from most definitely did exist. He referred to “Reformed Egyptian” as if it were one specific language because he did not know any better. Scholars today would never do so because they know that there were many such derivations of written Egyptian.

==========
My response:


The writer is correct on three points: Smith's referring to the original BoM languages as "reformed Egyptian" is not on its face proof against the BoM; and, all modern (western) alphabets (including Hebrew) are derived from "Egyptian" (rather, "proto-semitic") writing; and examples of Egyptian writing have been found in ancient Palestine.

However, there are still significant problems with the BoM's claim that the Lehites and their descendants kept their history and sacred writings in any form of Egyptian.

The BoM claims that these Jews would have kept their sacred writings and history in the Egyptian language. There is no evidence of that, and it contradicts the general attitude of Jews toward the sacredness of Hebrew and their hate of Egyptians.

The BoM claims that Egyptian was "the language of [their] fathers." This is blatantly false.

Of course there exist examples of Egyptian writing and Egyptian alphabet use in ancient Palestine. Palestine was often occupied by Egypt, and Egyptian authorities and troops would be stationed there. That they left scraps of writing there, from communiations among themselves and other records, is no suprise, but it is not evidence that Egyptian was widely used by the Jews themselves for their own purposes, any more than finding documents from the 1940s in France written in German would be evidence that the French had adopted German for writing documents for their own purposes.

See my articles "Linguistic Problems of Mormonism" at http://packham.n4m.org/linguist.htm#NOTVALID
and
"The Brass Plates" at http://packham.n4m.org/brassplates.htm

Quibbles regarding some of your assertions.

First, Egyptian was not a Semitic language, nor a descendant of proto-Semitic. It was a separate branch of Afro-Asiatic languages.

Second, while there was contact between ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and perhaps a realization on the former's part that writing was a valuable phenomenon, there is no good evidence that Egyptian arose from any Semitic writing system. So it takes a leap of faith to suggest that connection.

I'm also confused as to why proto-Semitic and early Egyptian would be relevant to the discussion since Hebrew and Egyptian were fully formed many centuries, even millennia, before the Hebrews compiled their scriptures. The BoM was supposed written in a form of Egyptian, not a Semitic tongue.

Ancient Egyptian is related to the Semitic languages, and was also an influence upon proto-Hebrew and other languages in the region. That much is true.

Richard said effectively that Egyptian and Hebrew are sister languages. I said they are more like second cousins living in different cities. You note that they are "related." Uh, yeah. They are cousins in different cities.

You mention proto-Hebrew. What is "proto-Hebrew?" The prefix is used to denote a language for which there is no direct evidence and must be reconstructed from later, attested languages. But Hebrew was a form of Canaanite for which there is no need to reconstruct an hypothesized earlier language.

It's like Italian. One doesn't often read about "proto-Italian" because Italian came from Latin.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The BoM was supposed
> written in a form of Egyptian, not a Semitic
> tongue.

I always interpreted Reformed Egyptian to refer to the script itself, not the language the Book of Mormon was written in. So it was Hebrew written in an Egyptian script, much like some people have written English in Hebrew script in modern times.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Quibbles regarding some of your assertions.
>
> First, Egyptian was not a Semitic language, nor a
> descendant of proto-Semitic. It was a separate
> branch of Afro-Asiatic languages.
>
> Second, while there was contact between ancient
> Egypt and Mesopotamia, and perhaps a realization
> on the former's part that writing was a valuable
> phenomenon, there is no good evidence that
> Egyptian arose from any Semitic writing system.
> So it takes a leap of faith to suggest that
> connection.
>
> I'm also confused as to why proto-Semitic and
> early Egyptian would be relevant to the discussion
> since Hebrew and Egyptian were fully formed many
> centuries, even millennia, before the Hebrews
> compiled their scriptures. The BoM was supposed
> written in a form of Egyptian, not a Semitic
> tongue.
To Lot's Wife:

You are misquoting what I said. I did not say that Egyptian was a Semitic language. I said that the original poster was not incorrect in asserting that the Hebrew alphabet was derived from Egyptian WRITING. Both Egyptian and Hebrew are Afro-Asiatic languages; when they were formed is irrelevant to their alleged use in the BoM. Nor did I suggest that Egyptian arose from a Semitic writing system.

Please read a post more carefully before you jump in to make irrelevant objections.

> You are misquoting what I said.

But I didn't quote you. For someone who purports to value linguistic precision, perhaps you should be more precise.


----------------
> I said that the
> original poster was not incorrect in asserting
> that the Hebrew alphabet was derived from Egyptian
> WRITING.

What you wrote was that the "Hebrew [alphabet is] derived from 'Egyptian' (rather, 'proto-semitic') writing." That indicates that Egyptian and proto-Semitic writing are identical or at least closely related.

But that is wrong. They are different systems and there is no evidence that Egyptian writing derived from proto-Semitic or vice versa. That you recognize your error is evident in the fact that you have now rewritten your assertion to say that the "Hebrew alphabet was derived from Egyptian WRITING". Correcting a misstatement--removing the equivalence with proto-Semitic--is all to the good. But it is silly then to turn around and say my criticism was "irrelevant" when you just encorporated it in your restatement.


------------------
> Please read a post more carefully before you jump
> in to make irrelevant objections.

Please write your posts correctly the first time rather than making a mistake, blaming someone else, and then pretended that your revision was what you meant all along.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2020 06:27PM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife wrote:

>What you wrote was that the "Hebrew [alphabet is] derived from 'Egyptian' (rather, 'proto-semitic') writing." That indicates that Egyptian and proto-Semitic writing are identical or at least closely related.

Read up on the origin of the alphabet. Start with (for easy access) the Wikipedia article "History of the Alphabet" which says:

" Its [the alphabet's] first origins can be traced back to a Proto-Sinaitic script developed in Ancient Egypt to represent the language of Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in Egypt. Unskilled in the complex hieroglyphic system used to write the Egyptian language, which required a large number of pictograms, they selected a small number of those commonly seen in their Egyptian surroundings to describe the sounds, as opposed to the semantic values, of their own Semitic language.[2][3] This script was partly influenced by the older Egyptian hieratic, a cursive script related to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
"Mainly through Phoenician, Hebrew and later Aramaic, three closely related members of the Semitic family of scripts that were in use during the early first millennium BCE, the Semitic alphabet became the ancestor of multiple writing systems across the Middle East, Europe, northern Africa and South Asia. "

You are doing it again. You are writing something new and pretending that you said it from the beginning.

What you originally claimed was that "Hebrew [writing] derived from "Egyptian" (rather, "proto-semitic") writing."

The proto-Semitic claim is an absurdity. The earliest Akkadian documents date to about 2,300 BCE, meaning that the proto-Semitic writing system was long gone by the time the Hebrew culture came into existence over a millennium later. You effectively admit that when you now slip in "proto-Sinaitic" instead of "proto-Semitic." Did you think no one would notice that sleight-of-hand?

I also wonder why you propose the Sinaitic origins for the script when the consensus is that proto-Sinaitic is more properly termed proto-Canaanite, an origin for which there is much more evidence. Yet you reproduce only those portions of Wikipedia articles that put the origin of the writing system in the Sinai.

Why do you omit the more widely accepted view? Could it be that you don't want to acknowledge that what you called an Egyptian origin was in fact probably a Canaanite one? The bottom line is that your proto-Semitic assertion is risible and your proto-Sinaitic one is probably incorrect.

This sort of legalistic sophistry--making an assertion, restating it when you are caught in an error, then attempting surreptitiously to alter the subject of your sentences while pretending that nothing has changed--is transparent. If you make a mistake, correct it. There is no shame in honing an argument to be more accurate.

All right. I give up. I quit. But please, since you are obviously much more learned in this than I am....

How would YOU have responded to the missionary?

I would simply have removed that first, confused passage. The rest of what you wrote is excellent.

If pressed, I might have added that

1) There are no existing examples of the Hebrew scriptures written in any form of Egyptian; and

2) It would be bizarre to write in an Egyptian script given that Canaanite/Hebrew scripts were already available when the Hebrew scriptures were first recorded. Sort of like translating a NYT article into Swahili for the benefit of future readers of English.

But those are details. You hit the main points admirably.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2020 10:22PM by Lot's Wife.

"He [Smith] referred to 'Reformed Egyptian' as if it were one specific language because he did not know any better."

No, he referred to it as one specific language because that's exactly what the BOM called it.

Mormon 9:32
"And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech."

not logged in Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "He referred to 'Reformed Egyptian' as if it were
> one specific language because he did not know any
> better."
>
> No, he referred to it as one specific language
> because that's exactly what the BOM called it.
>
> Mormon 9:32
> "And now, behold, we have written this record
> according to our knowledge, in the characters
> which are called among us the reformed Egyptian,
> being handed down and altered by us, according to
> our manner of speech."

Yep, that sounds like what I said. Hebrew written in an Egyptian script. Or at least one which had been adapted to Hebrew and altered.

Not sure about that.

1 Nephi 1:2
"Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians."

"language of my father" = "language of the Egyptians"

Mosiah 1:4
"[Lehi] having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings"

When I was still in the church, I heard apologetic arguments maintaining that simple transliteration served as "reformed XXX," such as "domo arigato" could be an example of Reformed Japanese, or "do svidaniya" as Reformed Russian. That seemed like a cop-out to me then, and still does.

I'm not going to carry this further as it's all BS anyway.

Or Hebrews are reformed Egyptians but Lehi fell off the wagon.

He called it "Egyptian" because he thought it would impress his audience. It was really cool at the time. Plus, JS had no background in anything else from antiquity.

Nailed it! If written these days, Smith might have said "Written in Elvish" or "Venusian" or "proto-Denisovan."

I may be mistaken, but the Hebrew language has historically been zealously kept intact; another mistake by Smith to say to "...handed down and altered..."--Jews are famous for NOT changing things over thousands of years.

Might I ask the following.

Has anyone actually tried to hand engrave Hebrew or Demotic on plates of different metals?

One point Joseph makes is that Egyptian was used for ease of engraving over Hebrew as well as Egyptian used less space than reformed Hebrew. (Mormon 9:32,33)

Engraving a random verse in Hebrew and Coptic (I doubt there is a Demotic translation) on a strip of brass and of copper and of silver and yea even a strip of gold and of ziff should test if it is even feasible to write either script and test the claim Egyptian takes less room.

I discuss the problem in my article "Linguistic Problems of Mormonism" at

http://packham.n4m.org/linguist.htm#ENGRAVED

Thank you, Richard!

Thanks. Appreciate the response.

Reformed egyptian is deformed english.

I always thought it was weird that, even after 1.000 years of the arrival of the Lehites in America, their Hebrew-ish descendants still mastered "Reformed Egyptian" -- well enough to write countless pages of sacred text on golden plates...

They were all prophets, goldsmiths, master linguists -- all at once.

Human gullibility has no limits.

Interesting thing about the RM’s language, it is just plausible enough to believe if you are already inclined to believe.

I fully admit that the work of the apologists, Peterson included, worked to keep my shelf from falling. They certainly knew more than me, and the language certainly was scholarly sounding etc; and so, believing that they knew their own work in the same way a dentist knows their own work better than non-dentists, I gave it a pass. They didn’t even have to be correct, their work just had to raise enough quibbles and enough controversy for my TBM mind to be fooled.

I’m grateful to you and the many scholarly minded RfMers over the years for digging down and getting the details right. I ate up those posts when I first found RfM.

fascinating topic. But I don't know much about it, so I'll take RPackhams interpretation to be right.

So are there many books written about the holocaust by Jewish survivors in reformed German?

There must be a whole library wing if history repeats itself.
I mean just look at all the literature produced during the 400 years of captivity enjoyed by the Jews in ancient Egypt.

What? They were all sealed in a cardboard box and taken to heaven? Darn that shifty used book dealer Moroni!

+Rpackham:
“Critics often bring up the fact that linguists and archaeologists do not refer to any written language as “reformed Egyptian” and suggest that it is “proof” that Joseph Smith was a fraud.

In truth, they do not use this term to refer to any one written language simply because it encompasses too many written languages. Nearly all phonetic alphabets in the world originate from a single phonetic script invented on the Sinai Peninsula thousands of years ago…based on Egyptian characters.”

==This is called blowing smoke out of your ass.
I have spoken to a mormon apologist. I asked him:
“Where is the evidence of reformed egyptian?”

His response:
“My poor boy, you are writing in reformed egyptian right now”

There are of course many ways to respond to a question.
Either you understand the question and you respond like a slimy politician (or a slimy apologist)
or you understand the question and you answer it directly instead of avoiding it
or you don’t understand the question and your response is not connected to the idea I am trying to convey.

I’m sure that the mormon apologist understood very well what I am asking.
He decided to be a slimy politician (or a slimy apologist).


“The type of written language that Joseph Smith claimed to have been translating from most definitely did exist. He referred to “Reformed Egyptian” as if it were one specific language because he did not know any better. Scholars today would never do so because they know that there were many such derivations of written Egyptian.”

==Nope, there is no reformed egyptian. Anyway, why would jews write in another script?
Proto-Canaanite script dates to 11 to 10 BCE.

Source:
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/inscriptions/precursor-to-the-paleo-hebrew-script-discovered-in-jerusalem/

~~~~iceman9090

How serendipitous that you posted that link. I didn't even know how badly I wanted it. Thank you.