Adamic Language in the Egyptian Alphabet?

[Hagoth]

I'm curious to see what people make of the perplexing appearance of the Adamic alphabet in Joseph Smith's Egyptian alphabet.

In May of 1835 William W. Phelps sent his wife a letter which included characters that Joseph had revealed to him as being from the pure Adamic language. This was at least a month before Chandler showed up with his mummy vending cart. Here's an excerpt from the letter:

Adamic.JPG

Quite an astounding coincidence that these characters also reappeared in Joseph’s Egyptian Alphabet around November of that year, but now they are Egyptian characters. Some apologists try to write this off as Phelps’ clueless "the scribes did it" reverse engineering, but there's a big problem with that; this portion of the Egyptian alphabet is written in Joseph Smith’s own handwriting:

AdamicEgypto.JPG

So which is it, Adamic, Egyptian, both? The associated words and translations seem equally silly.

[Shulem]

Dan Vogel’s new book entitled Book of Abraham Apologetics A Review and Critique has an entire chapter that covers The Pure Language. I highly recommend that you purchase it without delay. I’ve not yet finished the book myself due to multitasking and taking it slowly. Yes, Smith was working on the so-called Pure Language prior to his introduction of the Egyptian papyrus. This work seems to mingle Anthon Transcript characters into the Pure Language wherein so-called reformed Egyptian from the gold plates found a place in Adam’s language. The whole thing is an absolute loony joke. Joseph Smith was into fantasy and making things up on a level that was taken to a ridiculous extreme.

Here are several key points in Vogel’s chapter “The Pure Language”:

• “On 26 May 1835, more than a month before Smith acquired the Egyptian papyri, Phelps, who was living with Smith and working as his scribe, wrote to his wife in Missouri and included ‘A specimen of some of the pure language.”

• “Before Smith obtained the papyri, he was occupied with the idea of a pure Adamic language. The Book of Mormon contains the story of a people called the Jaredites whose language was not confounded at the Tower of Babel and so remained ‘pure’. God allowed them to retain their pure language and sent them to the American continent.”

• “But why would Smith include his sample of the pure language in an Egyptian alphabet and grammar?”... PLEASE PURCHASE VOGEL’S BOOK!

• “If, as Smith believed, Egypt had been settled by the daughter of Ham, then the Egyptian language would not have been effected by the subsequent confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel, and therefore the Egyptian hieroglyphics would be closer to the pure Adamic language than even Hebrew.”

Perhaps unbeknown to Vogel and certainly to Joseph Smith, there are Egyptian hieroglyphs that are strictly native to the landscape of Egypt wherein Smith’s Garden of Eden and Adam’s land was in Missouri having its own plant fauna and wildlife. Noah boarded the ark and floated for 150 days and landed far away from the homeland. But the hieroglyphic language is native to ancient Egypt and their lands and had nothing to do with mythical Adam in Missouri. The whole thing is silly.

• “How these Adamic characters could appear in the middle of an ‘Egyptian Alphabet’ is not explained, but this creates a problem for those want to argue that the Alphabets and bound Grammar represent a reverse translation of Abraham.”

[Hagoth]

• “But why would Smith include his sample of the pure language in an Egyptian alphabet and grammar?”... PLEASE PURCHASE VOGEL’S BOOK!

I just got it, but haven't started reading yet. I'm glad to hear Vogel talks about this.

I remember reading other 19th century musings about the Pure Adamic language. Joseph Smith was not the only one thinking about it at the time. As I recall, some British scholars were claiming that English is actually the closest to Adamic, because everything good had to come from Britain.

I believe Adamic was also Brigham Young's language of choice when speaking in tongues. Does that mean a native Egyptian speaker would have been able to understand him? (Aside: how awesome would it be if Nelson or Oaks got caught up in the spirit and started rambling in Adamic/Egyptian/Angelic in the middle of a conference talk!)

[Moksha]

Putting on my apologist hat, what if a glitch in the seer stone was responsible for the alphabet mix-up? Perhaps Drs. Gee or Muhlestein could address this during their morning prune-intake devotional.

I believe Adamic was also Brigham Young's language of choice when speaking in tongues. Does that mean a native Egyptian speaker would have been able to understand him?

Yes.

(Aside: how awesome would it be if Nelson or Oaks got caught up in the spirit and started rambling in Adamic/Egyptian/Angelic in the middle of a conference talk!)

That would indeed be awesome. Even better if they offered a substitute for the name Mormon from this language.

[Hagoth]

Even better if they offered a substitute for the name Mormon from this language.

Joseph already told us that Mormon means "more good" in Nephite. In his Adamic alphabet, Man=man and Angls=angels, so I'm guessing if we had a more complete alphabet it would turn out that Mor=more and Mon=good, and we would be back to "Mormon" as the Adamic translation of Nephite "Mormon." The biggest surprise about the Adamic and Egyptian alphabets is that Joseph managed to produce them without inserting himself via special characters for his own name.

Of course, the real bullseye is the Hebrew letters LDS carved on a rock at Wendover, where you make the eastward turn before crossing the wilderness toward Bountiful.

[Hagoth]

I just read the Pure Language chapter of Vogel's book. Very interesting. The main thing I got from it is the sources that equate Egyptian writing with Pure Adamic going back at least as far as the 17th century. Among these, interestingly, is Emanuel Swedenborg, who we know inspired Joseph Smith, and about whom Joseph commented at least once (to criticize him for not figuring out how to profit from being a prophet).

[Father Francis]

I believe Adamic was also Brigham Young's language of choice when speaking in tongues. Does that mean a native Egyptian speaker would have been able to understand him? (Aside: how awesome would it be if Nelson or Oaks got caught up in the spirit and started rambling in Adamic/Egyptian/Angelic in the middle of a conference talk!)

Only is he were blessed (or cursed depending on your point of view) by the great god Enki.

[Philo Sofee]

I believe Adamic was also Brigham Young's language of choice when speaking in tongues. Does that mean a native Egyptian speaker would have been able to understand him? (Aside: how awesome would it be if Nelson or Oaks got caught up in the spirit and started rambling in Adamic/Egyptian/Angelic in the middle of a conference talk!)

Only is he were blessed (or cursed depending on your point of view) by the great god Enki.

The Great Mithras-Helios also should definitely be on the agenda. Without Mithras the entire celestial sphere doesn't rotate, and that would be simply a disaster of magnitudinal proportions. Not even the Melchizedek Priesthood could save us all then!

[High Spy]

... the alphabet mix-up? Perhaps Drs. Gee or Muhlestein could address this during their morning prune-intake devotional...

Perhaps partaking of a prune juice type sacrament followed by deep study of timing patterns at march8miracle.org would give old geezers, some git up and go.

Geezers, but not garden gnomes. dbnp