Nehor:
I'm not convinced he was sure it was a hoax.
I am. You speculate otherwise because it fits with what you've been taught about the fulfillment of Isaiah, not because of anything Anthon said.
If it was actually a language he hadn't seen (true if it's a form of Egyptian or complete gibberish) then I think he wanted to check up on it before coming to any conclusion. Then Martin brought up angels and he wanted nothing to do with it.
This runs couter to what Anthon himself says:
New York, Feb. 17, 1834
Dear Sir –
I received this morning your favor of the 9th instant, and lose no time in making a reply. The whole story about my having pronounced the Mormonite inscription to be "reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics" is perfectly false. Some years ago, a plain, and apparently simple-hearted farmer, called upon me with a note from Dr. Mitchell of our city, now deceased, requesting me to decypher, if possible, a paper, which the farmer would hand me, and which Dr. M. confessed he had been unable to understand. Upon examining the paper in question, I soon came to the conclusion that it was all a trick, perhaps a hoax. When I asked the person, who brought it, how he obtained the writing, he gave me, as far as I can now recollect, the following account: A "gold book," consisting of a number of plates of gold, fastened together in the shape of a book by wires of the same metal, had been dug up in the northern part of the state of New York, and along with the book an enormous pair of "gold spectacles"! These spectacles were so large, that, if a person attempted to look through them, his two eyes would have to be turned towards one of the glasses merely, the spectacles in question being altogether too large for the breadth of the human face. Whoever examined the plates through the spectacles, was enabled not only to read them, but fully to understand their meaning. All this knowledge, however, was confined at that time to a young man, who had the trunk containing the book and spectacles in his sole possession. This young man was placed behind a curtain, in the garret of a farm house, and, being thus concealed from view, put on the spectacles occasionally, or rather, looked through one of the glasses, decyphered the characters in the book, and, having committed some of them to paper, handed copies from behind the curtain, to those who stood on the outside. Not a word, however, was said about the plates having been decyphered "by the gift of God." Every thing, in this way, was effected by the large pair of spectacles. The farmer added, that he had been requested to contribute a sum of money towards the publication of the "golden book," the contents of which would, as he had been assured, produce an entire change in the world and save it from ruin. So urgent had been these solicitations, that he intended selling his farm and handing over the amount received to those who wished to publish the plates. As a last precautionary step, however, he had resolved to come to New York, and obtain the opinion of the learned about the meaning of the paper which he brought with him, and which had been given him as a part of the contents of the book, although no translation had been furnished at the time by the young man with the spectacles. On hearing this odd story, I changed my opinion about the paper, and, instead of viewing it any longer as a hoax upon the learned, I began to regard it as part of a scheme to cheat the farmer of his money, and I communicated my suspicions to him, warning him to beware of rogues. He requested an opinion from me in writing, which of course I declined giving, and he then took his leave carrying the paper with him. This paper was in fact a singular scrawl. It consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets. Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters inverted or placed sideways, were arranged in perpendicular columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Calender given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it was derived. I am thus particular as to the contents of the paper, inasmuch as I have frequently conversed with my friends on the subject, since the Mormonite excitement began, and well remember that the paper contained any thing else but "Egyptian Hieroglyphics." Some time after, the same farmer paid me a second visit. He brought with him the golden book in print, and offered it to me for sale. I declined purchasing. He then asked permission to leave the book with me for examination. I declined receiving it, although his manner was strangely urgent. I adverted once more to the roguery which had been in my opinion practised upon him, and asked him what had become of the gold plates. He informed me that they were in a trunk with the large pair of spectacles. I advised him to go to a magistrate and have the trunk examined. He said the "curse of God" would come upon him should he do this. On my pressing him, however, to pursue the course which I had recommended, he told me that he would open the trunk, if I would take the "curse of God" upon myself. I replied that I would do so with the greatest willingness, and would incur every risk of that nature, provided I could only extricate him from the grasp of rogues. He then left me.
I have thus given you a full statement of all that I know respecting the origin of Mormonism, and must beg you, as a personal favor, to publish this letter immediately, should you find my name mentioned again by these wretched fanatics.
Yours respectfully, CHAS. ANTHON.
So Anthon tells you it didn't take him long to understand that this was a hoax. The only thing he was uncertain about at first was who was the intended dupe.
You're probably right. Martin almost certainly had some kind of translation or he wouldn't have recorded it that way. I was working on an odd hypothesis but did some reading over the weekend and now wonder what I was thinking.
Actually what I am right about is that when Smith said "translation" he meant "translation." Martin almost certainly
did not have "some kind of translation." Why do I say that? Because
the earliest version of the story says virtually nothing about Martin bringing a translation with him and in fact witnesses claim that
the reason Harris went was to see if the learned could translate the characters. This was the whole point of Isaiah allegedly being fulfilled... the concept of a certain portion of the book being "sealed" was a later addition.
You'll note in Joseph's earliest rendition of the story, Isaiah is fulfilled because of the learned's
inability to translate the characters, not because a certain portion of the book was "sealed":
by the assistence of a man by the name of Martin Haris who became convinced of the visions and gave me fifty Dollars to bare my expences and because of his faith and this rightheous deed the Lord appeared unto him in a vision and shewed unto him his marvilous work which he was about to do and <he> imediately came to Su[s]quehanna and said the Lord had shown him that he must go to new York City
with some of the caracters so we proceeded
to coppy some of them and he took his Journy to the Eastern Cittys36 and to the Learned
<saying> read this I pray thee and
the learned said I cannot but if he would bring the plates37 they would read it but the Lord had fo<r>bid it and he returned to me and gave them to <me to> translate and I said I said
cannot for I am not learned but the Lord had prepared spectticke spectacles for to read the Book
therefore I commenced translating the characters and thus the Prop[h]icy of Is<ia>ah was fulfilled which is writen in the 29 chapter concerning the book
http://deseretbook.com/personalwritings/4
Smith had Isaiah 29 in mind before Harris left. He knew Anthon would not be able to translate the characters because he knew the characters were not characters from a language called reformed Egyptian. More likely they were exactly as Anthon described them:
This paper was in fact a singular scrawl. It consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets. Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters inverted or placed sideways, were arranged in perpendicular columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Calender given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it was derived.
So here it becomes clear that Anthon indeed recognized many of the characters as being corruptions of genuine characters from various alphabets and short-hand symbols. Anthon would have immediately recognized that someone had copied & corrupted various legitimate symbols in an attempt to pass them off as a true alphabet from an unknown language. This is
exactly what Anthon claims!
The confusing part to me is why Anthon talked about Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic.
He may not have. We only have Smith's retelling of Harris' account of what Anthon said. But Anthon does mention "Greek & Hebrew." On the other hand he flatly denies Egyptian hieroglyphics:
and well remember that the paper contained any thing else but "Egyptian Hieroglyphics."
Of course LDS scholars are then quick to point out that the Anthon transcript has some characters that indeed resemble Egyptian... but not hierogplyphs, rather, Egyptian
demotic. And for all we know the AT may not have been what Anthon was presented by Harris anyway.
If Joseph faked it, I doubt he would have used a mishmash of ancient languages (or even let Martin have it verified in any way).
He needed Harris' money to fund the printing. Harris was gullible, but this was asking for more than 50 bucks. Harris eventually had to mortgage his farm, and he was comparatively wealthy. Smith had to convince Harris that the plates were real--without ever showing Harris the plates! The point of the trip was to
verify the characters . So how is Smith going to pull this off? He has no plates, no such thing as "reformed Egyptian." What's he going to do? He's going to copy down some (corruptions of) legitimate characters but "in such a way as not to betray the source [from] whence [they] w[ere] derived."
A very interesting and relevant side-story is given here:
http://olivercowdery.com/smithhome/2000s/2001RBSt.htmIf it was authentic it wouldn't have most of those characters either.
If it was legitimate Anthon would not have recognized an obvious attempt at a hoax. If it was legitimate, Smith could have produced the plates.
I wonder if Professor Anthon tried to overawe Martin with his knowledge of languages and Martin assumed he was talking about the characters?
Anthon flatly told Harris "to beware of rogues" and then again stated:
I adverted once more to the roguery which had been in my opinion practised upon him,
Anthon attempts to warn Harris not to fall for the hoax. But Harris
wanted to believe the hoax was real and
did not want to believe Anthon's warning. But how to account for the "learned" 's lack of ability to translate the characters? Enter Isaiah 29. When Smith shows Harris that he's just "fulfilled" the Old Testament, the farm was as good as his.
"...a pious lie, you know, has a great deal more influence with an ignorant people than a profane one."
- Sidney Rigdon, as quoted in the Quincy Whig, June 8, 1839, vol 2 #6.