Posted by:
elderolddog
(
)
Date: August 26, 2015 04:22AM
Man, I'm drawing a blank right now... The Anthon manuscript,
http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/2000s/anthon2a.gif , is supposed to be an example of reformed Egyptian. It's been a number of years, but I recall coming across a story about how some of these figures appear on some British or European set of writings, and that they were known to some people in the N/Eastern states, prior to the BofM, and that JS could have been aware of them, and copied them.
Aha! I found it:
http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php/discussions/viewthread/19000/ the thrust of the argument is that, ""Reformed Egyptian", as copied into the Anthon "Caracters" transcript, by Joseph Smith, were comprised largely of Latin shorthand known as Tironian Notes (notae Tironianae)."
A comparison is presented in the PostMo post, along with highlights of how JS would have known about these characters.
The scholarship behind these claims is found here:
http://olivercowdery.com/smithhome/2000s/2001RBSt.htmRegarding this latter URL, I commented at that time, 11/2009:
"What I read (26 pages, three of which are footnotes) is a pretty stunning bit of scholarship. The copyright is 2001, so I'm curious as to why Stout's work isn't more well known. I highly recommend ... reading Stout's entire piece. Because not only does he touch on the Anthon "caracters" problem, but does a lot of 'correcting' of the JS Story. Stout's conclusion that the BoM is bogus will come as a shock !!
Sounds like me, huh?