Reformed Egyptian and the Book of Mormon

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Criticism

Critics claim that

• Jews or Israelites (like the Nephites) would not have used the language of their slave period—Egyptian—to write sacred records.
• there is no evidence in Egyptology of something called "Reformed Egyptian," and that the Book of Mormon's claim to have been written in this language is therefore suspect.

Source(s) of the Criticism

• John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Mormonism (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1992), 294-5.
• Marvin W. Cowan, Mormon Claims Answered, (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1997), chapter 4.
• Latayne Colvett Scott, The Mormon Mirage : a former Mormon tells why she left the church (Grand Rapids : Zondervan Pub. House, 1979),63-4.
• Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), 141-5.
• Kurt Van Gorden, Mormonism, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 8, footnote 7.

Response

Would an Israelite use Egyptian?

The claim that Israelites would not use Egyptian is clearly false. By the ninth to sixth centuries before Christ, Israelites used Egyptian numerals mingled with Hebrew text. The Papyrus Amherst 63 contains a text of Psalms 20:2-6 written in Aramaic (the language of Jesus) using Egyptian characters in the second century B.C.

More significant, however, was an ostracon uncovered at Arad in 1967.18 Dating "toward the end of the seventh century B.C.," it reflects usage from shortly before 600 B.C., the time of Lehi. The text on the ostracon is written in a combination of Egyptian hieratic and Hebrew characters, but can be read entirely as Egyptian. Of the seventeen words in the text, ten are written in hieratic and seven in Hebrew. However, all the words written in Hebrew can be read as Egyptian words, while one of them, which occurs twice, has the same meaning in both Egyptian and Hebrew.19 Of the ten words written in hieratic script, four are numerals (one occurring in each line).20 One symbol, denoting a measure of capacity, occurs four times (once in each of the four lines), and the remaining Egyptian word occurs twice. Thus, while seventeen words appear on the ostracon, if one discounts the recurrence of words, only six words are written in hieratic (of which four are numerals), and six in Hebrew.[Tvedtnes and Ricks, 156.][5]

What is "Reformed Egyptian"?

Moroni makes it clear that "reformed Egyptian" is the name which the Nephites have given to a scrip based upon Egyptian characters, and modified over the course of a thousand years (See Mormon 9:32). So, it is no surprise that Egyptians or Jews have no scrip called "reformed Egyptian," as this was a Nephite term.

There are, however, several varient Egyptian scrips which are "reformed" or altered from their earlier form. Hugh Nibley and others have pointed out that the change from Egyptian hieroglphics, to hieratic, to demotic is a good description of Egyptian being "reformed." By 600 BC, hieratic was used primarily for religious texts, while demotic was used for daily use.[6]

Hieroglyphics: Hieroglyphs from the Black Schist sarcophagus of Ankhnesneferibre. Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, about 530 BC, Thebes.[1]

Hieratic: A section of the Prisse papyrus from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, containing the Precepts of Kakemna and the Precepts of Ptahhotep in hieratic. Source: Plate IV. The S.S. Teacher's Edition: The Holy Bible, (New York: Henry Frowde, Publisher to the University of Oxford, 1896)[2]

Demotic: Inscription from the Rosetta Stone in demotic.[3]

One can see how hieroglphics developed into the more stylized hieratic, and this process continued with the demotic:

Error creating thumbnail: /bin/bash: line 1: /usr/bin/convert: No such file or directory Error code: 127

Development of hieratic script from hieroglyphs; after Jean-François Champollion.[4]

Conclusion

People of Lehi's time and place did use both Hebrew and Egyptian, just as Nephi claimed (See 1 Nephi 1:2).

Further reading

FAIR wiki articles

Reformed Egyptian and the Book of Mormon

FAIR web site

• FAIR Topical Guide: Reformed Egyptian

External links

• Ariel Crowley, "The Anthon Transcript," Improvement Era, 45:1 (January 1842) and 45:2 (February 1942), 45:3 (March 1942). [7]
• John L. Sorenson, "Digging into the Book of Mormon: Our Changing Understanding of Ancient America and Its Scripture, Part 2," Ensign (October 1984): 17.[8]
• John A. Tvedtnes and Stephen D. Ricks, "Jewish and Other Semitic Texts Written in Egyptian Characters," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 5:2 (1996): 156–163.[9]

Printed material

• William J. Hamblin, "Reformed Egyptian" (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1995).
• Carl H. Jones, "The 'Anthon Transcript' and Two Mesoamerican Cylinder Seals," Newsletter and Proceedings of the Society for Early Historical Archaeology, no. 122, September 1970, 1–8.
• Hugh W. Nibley, Since Cumorah, 2d edition, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1988), 149–150.