Sunday, July 10, 2016

While I am waiting for the Arabic Book of Mormon, compare alphabets

While I am waiting for my copy of the Book of Mormon in Arabic to arrive in the mail, here is a little bit of information to get started on.   

In 1828 AD When Joseph Smith was translating (by divine assistance) the golden plates (which became the Book of Mormon), he wrote down a sample of the characters and gave the paper to his friend and helper, Martin Harris, who then took the paper to Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia College.  Professor Anthon said that the characters (called Reformed Eqyptian, a mixture of the Hebrew language and Egyptian) looked legitimate, and he signed a certificate.  Then when Professor Anthon asked afterwards about the origin, Martin Harris said that it was copied from a book delivered by an angel to Joseph Smith.  Professor asked for the certificate back, and in anger tore up the certificate, because he did not believe in angels and such.

Please see this link for a longer explanation:  https://eom.byu.edu/index.php?title=Anthon_Transcript






From the Book of Mormon:

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.

Mormon 9: 32-34
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.
 33 And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.
 34 But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof.    
How is it that Lehi (the first father in the Book of Mormon) and his sons could've known Egyptian and writing on metal?   Various engraved writings on metal plates, such as gold or copper, have been found, so it's not like the Book of Mormon is the only volume of writings to be on metal, anciently.   Some scholars see that Lehi might've been involved with metals coming from Timna and Faynan.  
For more information:
Here's a comparison of alphabets for viewing, to compare with the Reformed Egyptian above:
Egyptian hieroglyphs, PICTOGRAPH




Other Egyptian alphabet

Paleo (old) Hebrew



Modern Hebrew block style
  
Modern Hebrew cursive

Arabic alphabet

So what do you think?  Without comparison for more than just a few minutes, I see the most similarity between the Reformed Egyptian (copied by Joseph Smith) and the non-pictograph Egyptian, and the cursive scripts of Hebrew and Arabic.

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