I was reading an interesting thread that shows that JS's reformed Egyptian characters are actually Latin shorthand...and it had pictures that show it...

Have any of y'all heard about this?

The apologists on that board normally jump all over everything, but they refuse to comment on it...

Yes, I heard that, too.

Tironian?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,45106,45180

"Latin Shorthand?" The only shorthand system in Latin that I know of was developed by Tiro, a slave and chief private secretary of Marcus Tullius Cicero in the first century B.C.

Abraham lived approximately around 2000 B.C.

They can't get any sillier (or desperate),

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tironian_notes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham

http://www.alchemywebsite.com/alchemical_processes_symbols.html

As is the case with most of Joseph Smith's products, the sample of "Reformed Egyptian" characters is likely a hodge-podge of plagiarized elements that he consciously altered or embellished and put together with pure nonsense.

http://www.utlm.org/images/newsletters/43messagep5.gif

http://www.utlm.org/images/newsletters/43alphabetnumbersp4.gif



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2011 10:43PM by baura.

imagined it could be.

A person could easily take a number of well-known calligraphy styles and put some on their sides, put some upside down, tweak a bit here or there and claim to be writing in some exotic unknown alphabet.

The hoaxters who hoaxed the hoaxter with the Kinderhook plates apparently did the same based on Chinese characters seen on tea containers. I once did a comparison and found several Chinese characters and character elements in the Kinderhook engravings.

On a side note, the reason we have so many of the revelations and talks (like those in Journal of Discourses) is because of the short hand systems used by the scribes. One of the big "excuses" when talking about the Adam God Doctrine using the JofD is that the transcribers got it wrong and just mis-recorded. While this is possible, it is not as likely as a modern reader would think as we are used to using recording, etc. Even secretaries don't require it much anymore, so the knowledge of it has gone by the wayside and it is hard to imagine a way to capture all the words in short order and not just the concepts.

This just doesn't fly (or even flap its wings). Even if they got the transcription wrong, the final draft (written out fully) would have to be approved. And even if something slipped through that editing and review process, you wouldn't have something that important be printed and distributed for decades and decades, without a correction being made.

It's almost hilarious to see the irrational antics that Mopologists get up to when they try to defend the indefensible.

In MY early days of the Church there was little that was known about BY's Adam-God doctrine (He called it "doctrine" and never referred to it as a "theory"). When critics of Mormonism would pull out the one KNOWN example of BY preaching Adam-God it would be easy to say "he was misquoted." This, in fact, is exactly what Joseph Fielding Smith did in his "Answers to Gospel Questions" series.

However as historical endeavors accelerated it became evident that there were MANY references to the Adam-God Doctrine. A full sermon published in the Deseret news, an argument over it in the minutes of the Apostles, references to it in the diaries of prominent Mormon leaders etc.

IF BY would have been misquoted, he would have heard about it repeatedly and would have corrected it. However nowhere is there one instance of Brigham Young saying that he was misunderstood or misquoted on the topic. And given how quick BY was to correct others, this is telling.

Brigham Young preached that God revealed the Adam-God doctrine to him. Brigham Young preached that doctrine to the Church in his capacity as Prophet, Seer, and Revelator. Spencer W. Kimball warned the Church against the Adam-God Doctrine and denounced it as false. So, either Brigham Young was a false prophet or Spencer W. Kimball was a false prophet, or they both were false prophets. They could not have both been true prophets.

While growing up Mark E Peterson was my favorite speaker. I liked his books (series on the classical prophets) and I bought every one. I did not read the Adam one very thoroughly after getting it, and did not pick it up again until I got home from the horrible experience that was my mission. When I read his big lie concerning the AGD, that it was never really taught it really hit me hard. It did not make me a non-believer yet, but I threw out all of his books, and all of the copies of his talks I had collected. I hate a lying more than anything. I had a copy of the lecture at the veil as delivered in the Saint George temple in my collection, and new it was in fact taught. I was also aware of the conflict between Orson Pratt and BY over the matter, Orson being the only one to stand firm with his BullChip flag waving.

When DW and I moved to Austin we went to a First Nations' Pow-wow, and one of the vendors was selling a painting that I fell in love with and bought. It depicted massive ghostly hands holding a chunk of Earth in space, and you can see representations of man, women, and animals, and there are two faces in the dirt between the hands representing justice and the choice. It was a representation of a famous native prophecy concerning the fate of mankind when they fail to learn to live together in harmony. The creator will take a handful and use it to create another world, thereby starting again.

Beyond that obvious symbolism, it reminded me of a couple of BY's sermons concerning how Adam and Eve were not created from the dust, but were brought here from another world, and it very much ties into the AGD as it was once was taught (and still is among the fundies). I saw it as yet another confirmation of JS's restoration (dual special meaning in that painting for me). But alas, we don't teach that anymore. When my faith collapsed three years ago, I went into a "the ivory tower mormons were just in a state of apostasy" and had fallen away from JS' restoration and I looked into many of the other groups. But once you really start looking, and you refuse to keep making excuses it all comes apart rather quickly.

The Mysteries of Godliness indeed.

I wish I could post a link to the thread but it's banned from this site. They have really scholarly detail.

Here, I copied & pasted the first post, but it got really detailed after that(I'm sure the images won't show up :(. ):


I was perusing Darth J's blog when I made the startling discovery:





From: http://olivercowdery.com/smithhome/2000s/2001RBSt.htm
Darth's blog: blog.php?u=7958&b=2798

Quote:
These Latin shorthand notes matched nearly sixty percent of the transcript's occasionally repeated "Caractors."


This only gives more credence to Darth J's earlier theory that the Nephites landed in ancient Rome.

This has, I think, pretty much killed, buried, and nailed the coffin shut on the idea the Nephites lived in the Americas, and then thrown the coffin into Mount Doom, before dropping Mt Doom under the continental plates.

But seriously, is there any sort of apologetic response to this? So far it seem that there isn't.

Additional explanation (wish the pictures would show):



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DrW
 Post subject: Re: Reformed Egyptian = Latin Short Hand? Celestial versionPosted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 6:58 am 
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As long as we are waiting, and so that folks can get the backstory from the earlier thread, here is my earlier (slightly edited) post from PostMormon.org on the subject:

DrW wrote:
The case has been made that "Reformed Egyptian", as copied into the Anthon "Caracters" transcript by Joseph Smith, were comprised largely of a Latin shorthand known as Tironian Notes (notae Tironianae).

According to Arc (a long since banned MADB poster), among the Tironian notes, Gaelic, and Ogham code, all of the letters, signs and symbols in the Anthon transcript can be identified. And they have nothing to do with Egyptian (or Hebrew for that matter).

This seemed to catch the apologists, including DCP, completely off guard.

The graphic below was shown. The column on the left in the illustration below shows characters from the Anthon "Caracters" transcript, created by Joseph Smith and carried by Martin Harris to Prof. Anthon and Dr. Mitchell for their review.

The column on the right below shows corresponding Tironian note characters.



DrW wrote:
Arc proposes that Stephen Mack, who was known to have interest in, and access to, a manuscript or its facsimiles that was, at the time (before 1827), believed to be of Middle Eastern origin shared this information with his nephew, Joseph Smith, Jr.

Arc continues: Mack died in 1827 and so Joseph Smith probably felt safe in using the characters as his "Reformed Egyptian". Since nobody then in the US could translate the Tironian notes, and they were thought to be of Phoenician origin, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

In fact, since Smith would have logically assumed that Mitchell or Anthon may have seen the MS in question but were unable to translate it, and further assumed that they also believed it to be of Phoenician origin, it probably looked like a sure bet.

The manuscript in question was later shown to be written by Irish Catholic(s) in the 17th century making frequent use of Tironian notes. Other characters in the Anthon Transcript appear to be in a later shorthand known as Irish Ogham. Between Tironian notes and Ogham shorthand, all (or essentially all) of the non-Gaelic characters in the Anthon transcript can be identified.

In the end, however, the characters had nothing to do with Egyptian, or "reformed Egyptian" or Hebrew, or any other Semitic language. They are what they are (a Latin shorthand first developed in about the 3rd Century AD and used until the 17th). The idea that they were "reformed Egyptian" came most likely from Joseph Smith's fertile imagination.

Turns out that one Richard B. Stout apparently did the original research on this and makes a pretty good case. R.B Stout's work on this can be found here.

What was entertaining to me was to see the responses of the folks on MADB who were willing to respond to Arc. Especially telling (and in line with the other apologetics thread) was the response (of lack thereof) from DCP. DCP was on the thread like a coat of paint initially, but did not (has not yet) come back to refute or do his magic apologetics dance for Arc after it became clear that there was some research behind the assertions.

When considered along with the Book of Abraham, the Kinderhook Plates, and the Greek Paslter incidents, this perfectly plausible explanation for the origin of "reformed Egyptian" makes an even stronger case against the veracity of Joseph Smith and his revelations, (if any stronger case were needed).


Last edited by DrW on Sun Sep 04, 2011 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

They could just say that Tiro learned it from the Egyptians just like Lehi did when he traded with Egypt.

Why there was Ollie, and Marty, and Sydney--all good credible witnesses and men of caractor.