Is this true, the name Nauvoo?

[_Fence Sitter]

I don't know when the translation was made, but (to judge from the speed of translation of the Book of Mormon) it could have been done in one day. The Book of Abraham is, after all, quite short. Adding facsimile commentary and woodcuts could come much later.

Is it possible the initial translation portion was longer?

According to Gee in Eyewitness, Hearsay, and Physical Evidence of the Joseph Smith Papyri

That the translation had progressed further than the present Book of Abraham is corroborated by the firsthand report of Anson Call that, in 1838, it took "altogether about two hours" to read the Book of Abraham aloud it takes about half an hour now. This indicates that by 1838, Joseph Smith had translated approximately four times as much as we currently have in the Book of Abraham, and, as we have no record of translation after 25 November 1835, it would seem that most if not all of it had been translated in 1835.

Since he also states that we have "no record of translation after Nov 25 1835", it would imply that they were still translating up to that date, so the question remains, why stop the Book of Abraham translation to create a GAEL, EA & EC if they were not being used to do the translation?

[_CaliforniaKid]

Still no cigar.
There were no scholars in Philadelphia or NY who could have provided Chandler with any substantive information on Egyptology (history, language, etc.) apart from what was already available in well known Classical Greek and Latin authors.

Actually, Charles Anthon owned a copy of Champollion's Precis, and we have one source that says Anthon was the scholar Chandler had visited. Now, the source in question is a late reminiscence, and I suspect the witness was accidentally conflating Chandler's scholar-visitations with Martin Harris's several years earlier. But in any case, New York and Philadelphia had some pretty good classicists, and Chandler's exhibition would likely have attracted the attention of pretty much any scholar who had an interest in ancient Egypt in the cities he visited. He could very well have talked to Charles Anthon or another scholar with some basic knowledge about ancient Egypt. And, as Fence Sitter pointed out, the sources do identify two specific pieces of information ("astronomical calculations" and "epitaphs") that apparently came to Joseph Smith through Chandler from Eastern scholars. Those sources render the qualifications of Chandler's scholars irrelevant.

[Guest]

* Cf. Christopher Smith, “The Inspired Fictionalization of the 1835 United Firm Revelations,” Claremont Journal of Mormon Studies, 1/1 (Apr 2011), 15-31

The fictionalization of the revelations was a kind of "encipherment," I suppose, but it made no use of the GAEL and is completely different from the kind of encipherment Will is claiming the GAEL was designed for. The fictionalization of the revelations concealed a few things, but left the revelations intelligible and usable for members of the Church. Revelations encrypted in the GAEL's pseudo-Egyptian, by contrast, would have been neither intelligible nor usable.

I suppose Joseph's demonstrated interest in encipherment makes Will's theory a little more plausible, but historical interpretation isn't the art of plausible speculation. It's the art of determining the most probable interpretation of all the available historical evidence. Unfortunately, Will, Gee, and other Mormon scholars writing about the Book of Abraham have tended to build their theories with little reference to the existing evidence about when and why the various manuscripts were produced and how they were actually used. When evidence becomes something to be explained away rather than something to build your theory on, you're doing it wrong.

[_SteelHead]

.
.
.
but historical interpretation isn't the art of plausible speculation. It's the art of determining the most probable interpretation of all the available historical evidence.
.
.
.
When evidence becomes something to be explained away rather than something to build your theory on, you're doing it wrong.

Qotd

[_Molok]

When evidence becomes something to be explained away rather than something to build your theory on, you're doing it wrong.

I've never used another member's quote as a sig line, but this made me think about it. Great post, CK.

[_Robert F Smith]

Still no cigar.
There were no scholars in Philadelphia or NY who could have provided Chandler with any substantive information on Egyptology (history, language, etc.) apart from what was already available in well known Classical Greek and Latin authors.

Actually, Charles Anthon owned a copy of Champollion's Precis, and we have one source that says Anthon was the scholar Chandler had visited. Now, the source in question is a late reminiscence, and I suspect the witness was accidentally conflating Chandler's scholar-visitations with Martin Harris's several years earlier. But in any case, New York and Philadelphia had some pretty good classicists, and Chandler's exhibition would likely have attracted the attention of pretty much any scholar who had an interest in ancient Egypt in the cities he visited. He could very well have talked to Charles Anthon or another scholar with some basic knowledge about ancient Egypt. And, as Fence Sitter pointed out, the sources do identify two specific pieces of information ("astronomical calculations" and "epitaphs") that apparently came to Joseph Smith through Chandler from Eastern scholars. Those sources render the qualifications of Chandler's scholars irrelevant.

Hi Chris,
I covered all that in early 1985 in “Martin Harris’ Visit With Charles Anthon: Collected Documents on Short-Hand Egyptian,” FARMS Preliminary Report STF-85a (Provo: FARMS, 1985); 73pp; revised by J. W. Welch, ed., STF-90 (Provo: FARMS, 1990). A summary is available in Robert F. Smith, Gordon C. Thomasson, and John W. Welch, “What Did Charles Anthon Really Say?” FARMS Update, May 1985, reprinted in John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon: The F.A.R.M.S. Updates (Provo: FARMS/SLC: Deseret Book, 1992), 73-76. Online at [url]maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publications/books/?bookid=71&chapid=785[/url] . We tried to take stock of what was in fact known about ancient Egyptian language at that time, whether Charles Anthon was a liar, etc. If the Precis (which I cited and quoted from in 1985) and other books are so valuable, I would certainly like to see what Chandler or anyone else could have culled from them that would have given Joseph a leg up in providing his correct identifications.
Bob

[_Robert F Smith]

* Cf. Christopher Smith, “The Inspired Fictionalization of the 1835 United Firm Revelations,” Claremont Journal of Mormon Studies, 1/1 (Apr 2011), 15-31

The fictionalization of the revelations was a kind of "encipherment," I suppose, but it made no use of the GAEL and is completely different from the kind of encipherment Will is claiming the GAEL was designed for. The fictionalization of the revelations concealed a few things, but left the revelations intelligible and usable for members of the Church. Revelations encrypted in the GAEL's pseudo-Egyptian, by contrast, would have been neither intelligible nor usable.

I suppose Joseph's demonstrated interest in encipherment makes Will's theory a little more plausible, but historical interpretation isn't the art of plausible speculation. It's the art of determining the most probable interpretation of all the available historical evidence. Unfortunately, Will, Gee, and other Mormon scholars writing about the Book of Abraham have tended to build their theories with little reference to the existing evidence about when and why the various manuscripts were produced and how they were actually used. When evidence becomes something to be explained away rather than something to build your theory on, you're doing it wrong.

It isn't so much Joseph's, but rather Walmart Phelps' demonstrated interest in ciphers which I would emphasize (preceding the arrival of the papyri in Kirtland), while at the same time noting that Phelps and the others were not trained cryptographers -- their relatively silly notion being that one might take one character and attach various levels and depths of meaning thereto. I see no reason to attribute consistency or success to the GAEL or related docs, nor should we expect such. These were not scholars.

The efforts of actual scholars (Young and Champollion) were of a very different order.

[_Tobin]

Still no cigar.
There were no scholars in Philadelphia or NY who could have provided Chandler with any substantive information on Egyptology (history, language, etc.) apart from what was already available in well known Classical Greek and Latin authors.

Actually, Charles Anthon owned a copy of Champollion's Precis, and we have one source that says Anthon was the scholar Chandler had visited. Now, the source in question is a late reminiscence, and I suspect the witness was accidentally conflating Chandler's scholar-visitations with Martin Harris's several years earlier. But in any case, New York and Philadelphia had some pretty good classicists, and Chandler's exhibition would likely have attracted the attention of pretty much any scholar who had an interest in ancient Egypt in the cities he visited. He could very well have talked to Charles Anthon or another scholar with some basic knowledge about ancient Egypt. And, as Fence Sitter pointed out, the sources do identify two specific pieces of information ("astronomical calculations" and "epitaphs") that apparently came to Joseph Smith through Chandler from Eastern scholars. Those sources render the qualifications of Chandler's scholars irrelevant.

Hi Chris,
I covered all that in early 1985 in “Martin Harris’ Visit With Charles Anthon: Collected Documents on Short-Hand Egyptian,” FARMS Preliminary Report STF-85a (Provo: FARMS, 1985); 73pp; revised by J. W. Welch, ed., STF-90 (Provo: FARMS, 1990). A summary is available in Robert F. Smith, Gordon C. Thomasson, and John W. Welch, “What Did Charles Anthon Really Say?” FARMS Update, May 1985, reprinted in John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon: The F.A.R.M.S. Updates (Provo: FARMS/Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 73-76. Online at [url]maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publications/books/?bookid=71&chapid=785[/url] . We tried to take stock of what was in fact known about ancient Egyptian language at that time, whether Charles Anthon was a liar, etc. If the Precis (which I cited and quoted from in 1985) and other books are so valuable, I would certainly like to see what Chandler or anyone else could have culled from them that would have given Joseph a leg up in providing his correct identifications.
Bob

Welcome back Robert. The thing I find most humorous about this assertion and supposed competent understanding of the Precis is this. If Charles Anthon really did possess it and understood it, why let others translate the Rosetta Stone into English? The Rosetta Stone was rendered into English due to work done in the early 1850s by two German Egyptologists, Heinrich Brugsch and Max Uhlemann, which produced revised Latin translations of the demotic and hieroglyphic texts. It was subsequently translated into English by three members of the Philomathean Society at the University of Pennsylvania in 1858.

Now isn't that odd? If Charles Anthon understood the the Precis, I have to ask why he let others translate the Rosetta Stone into English for him and let them have the credit instead decades later?

[_Fence Sitter]

So was Harris wrong when he claimed

Anthon “stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian” and that the characters “were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic, and he said that they were true characters and that the translation of such of them that had been translated was correct.” He even wrote a note “certifying to the people of Palmyra that they were true characters.”

[_Tobin]

So was Harris wrong when he claimed

Anthon “stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian” and that the characters “were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic, and he said that they were true characters and that the translation of such of them that had been translated was correct.” He even wrote a note “certifying to the people of Palmyra that they were true characters.”

Or more likely Anthon did state those things, but his own ability to decypher demotic and hieroglyphic was seriously lacking. Otherwise, it would seem that his inability to translate the Rosetta Stone into English is inexplicable.