Sunday, August 20, 2017

Reformed Egyptian Example



1Nephi 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 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.

Stefan Wimmer's 2008 book Palastinisches Hieratisch (Palestinian Hieratic) has dozens of examples of a writing system used in Israel about the time of Lehi that renders Hebrew vocabulary and syntax in Egyptian Hieratic script.




It turns out that there are many examples of the Aramaic and even the Hebrew language written in various Egyptian scripts.  Hieratic was used as a shorthand for business transactions and was known to be very efficient and compact. The compactness of Egyptian heiratic was precisely the reason Mormon gave as the reason why the script was used for the Book of Mormon.

Mormon 9: 33 And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew;

Using this and other sources, Jerry Grover has been able to make a translation of the available Book of Mormon characters recorded by Joseph Smith, John Whitmer, and Matin Harris from the Gold Plates. 

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