In our last episode you were apparently tentatively conceding the following:
Sorry, I'm following you now. Too many distractions last night. Honestly, as I sit here, I'd need to go back and look into it. Based on what you've presented here, there appears to be a difference in the two accounts.
Since I don't want to attempt to recreate everything from the other thread, here is a link back to it:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13709&p=339214#p339214
Since you're being so candid and I'm apparently broadsiding you with this, let me acknowledge at this point that the typical way apologists have disposed of this issue is to focus on what also appears to be a contradiction in Anthon's accounts. I believe I have a rational response to that. But whether Anthon's accounts are contradictory or not should not effect whether Smith's accounts contradict one another.
Here is Joseph's 1832 account:
...the Lord had shown [Harris]
that he must go to new York City
with some of the characters so we
proceeded to coppy some
of them and he took his Journy to
the Eastern
Cittys and to the Learned saying read
this I pray thee
and the learned said I cannot but if
he wo-
=uld bring the blates they would
read it but
the Lord had forbid 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 specticke spectacles
for to read
the Book therefore I commenced
translating the char-
-acters and thus the Propicy of
Isiaah was fulfilled which
is writen in the 29 chapter concern-
ing the book...
And here is Joseph's 1838 account (allegedly) quoting Martin Harris firsthand:
64 I went to the city of New York, and presented the characters which had been translated, with the translation thereof, to Professor Charles Anthon, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anthon stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet translated, and he said that they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters. He gave me a certificate, certifying to the people of Palmyra that they were true characters, and that the translation of such of them as had been translated was also correct. I took the certificate and put it into my pocket, and was just leaving the house, when Mr. Anthon called me back, and asked me how the young man found out that there were gold plates in the place where he found them. I answered that an angel of God had revealed it unto him. 65 He then said to me, 'Let me see that certificate.' I accordingly took it out of my pocket and gave it to him, when he took it and tore it to pieces, saying that there was no such thing now as ministering of angels, and that if I would bring the plates to him he would translate them. I informed him that part of the plates were sealed, and that I was forbidden to bring them. He replied, 'I cannot read a sealed book.' I left him and went to Dr. Mitchell, who sanctioned what Professor Anthon had said respecting both the characters and the translation.(Joseph Smith History 1:64–65).
http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon ... transcript
The important elements of the conversation were:
1. In 1832 Smith says Harris took some copies of the characters "to the Learned saying read this I pray thee and the learned said I cannot but if he wo=uld bring the blates they would read it"
2. In 1838 Smith/Harris not only has Anthon reading the characters but pronouncing an alleged translation of them the best he'd ever seen from the Egyptian--which he very likely had never seen any translation from Egyptian in 1829 since Champollion had not yet published his ground breaking work in English. And he could not have seen a translation from "reformed Egyptian" since no modern human has ever seen even an example of reformed Egyptian other than Joseph Smith, Martin Harris and Charles Anthon. So what was there for Anthon to pronounce "correct"?
3. How is Isaiah 29 fulfilled?
All the best.