Moving on a bit more quickly, now that a bit of a foundation has been laid . . .

The Anthon Transcript

Joseph Smith reported retrieving the Book of Mormon plates and other items on September 22, 1827 from the stone box in the hilltop near Manchester, New York. Due to his family’s humble circumstances and opposition, nothing substantial could be done with them until December, when an older, well-to-do farmer named Martin Harris assisted him financially and took an interest in the work.

Here is the "Anthon transcript," or what Martin Harris took to Anthon and Mitchell.

It's pretty interesting to compare these, the only known facsimiles of the Book of Mormon's reformed Egyptian characters, with meroitic Egyptian, a shorthand of demotic, which was a shorthand of hieratic, which was a shorthand of pictographic hieroglyphic.

Am I claiming that Book of Mormon characters are meroitic? Of course not. Moroni, Mormon's son and the last Book of Mormon prophet who sealed up the record in the stone box in New York, wrote shortly before doing so:

"Behold, I speak unto you as though I spake from the dead; for I know that ye shall have my words. Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him . . . 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 . . . 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." (Mormon 9:30-32, 34)

The Book of Mormon scribes took the concept of shorthand Egyptian from Lehi, the pioneering prophet who had knowledge of shorthand systems like demotic or meroitic through his trade with Egypt, and altered it so as to best fit their need to record by engraving on metal plates. 

Hot off the presses at Baptist Press; relevant to our discussion here:

www.bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.asp

Al Mohler is President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Some excerpts . . .

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"All this raises the whole issue of archaeology and the Christian faith. Christians are understandably interested in the archaeology of the lands of the Bible. After all, ours is a faith that makes historical claims about persons and events with specific places, timing, and details provided in the text of the Bible . . . Authentic biblical Christianity stands on these events as events in history, not as cherished myths.

For this reason, Christians are too often overly excited about the latest "discovery" that gains media attention -- either in elation or travail. Archaeology is an important scholarly discipline, but it is not immune from ideology and many of the conclusions and arguments announced to the public are actually not at all what they first appear to be. Furthermore, archaeology is largely a matter of historical reconstruction, often with little actual evidence. As a rule, the more distant the time, the more difficult the reconstruction. That makes sense, of course, as time destroys both evidence and the preservation of memory.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Christians were tempted to argue that the historical claims of the Bible (especially the Old Testament) had been "proved" by the intense proliferation of archaeological investigations that marked the period . . . Those Christians who were tempted to place too much confidence in archaeological discoveries (and too little in the Bible's own claims of inspiration and authority) were shaken by [these] "findings" and by similar accounts . . .

Archaeological findings are of great interest, of course. But the key issue is what kind of authority we invest in archaeology in terms of authenticating or disproving the text of the Bible. Christians err by accepting or investing too much evidentiary authority in archaeological "findings," whether considered to support or to question the biblical accounts.

Authentic Christianity is based upon the inscripturated revelation of God -- the Bible -- as our authority. In the end, archaeology cannot prove or disprove the biblical text. Nothing can be found, or not found, that should shake our faith in the total truthfulness and trustworthiness of the Word of God. Archaeology can expand our knowledge and understanding, but cannot establish the authority for our faith.

My god is just and and loving and a true inspiration in my life.  And if you don't believe in him, I will kill you.

The NHM altarsThe first book in the Book of Mormon records the call of Lehi, a wealthy merchant, as a prophet in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah. Lehi is commanded to prophesy the fall of Jerusalem at the hand of the Babylonians, and God commands him to take his family and another family and flee into the wilderness. During their eight year journey to the east coast of the Arabian peninsula, the party named many places along the way (the land Bountiful, the valley of Lemuel, the river of Laman, etc.). Conspicuously, though, the Book of Mormon records (using the passive voice) that "Ishmael died, and was buried in the place which was called Nahom." The current (1981) edition of the Book of Mormon notes in a footnote that the name Nahom comes from the Hebrew verb "naham," meaning "be sorry, console oneself."

In 1999, German archaeologists uncovered a temple and three altars in the precise location of "Nahom," according to directions given in the Book of Mormon. The site was entirely buried by sand. Inscriptions on the altars in Sabean clearly indicate that the place was called "NHM" (like early Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, vowels were absent), and the German archaeologists referred to the site as Nihm. The archaeologists date the site to the sixth century B.C., closely corresponding to the time of Lehi's party's travel.

A pretty remarkable direct hit from a young semi-literate farmer in upstate New York in the 1820's, isn't it?