Characters from the Gold Plates
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So, once again Mormon apologists rely on Mormons and Mormon organizations as source information about Mormon things. Wow. Stunning. I mean... That's something I never would have imagined.
*queue circus music*
*queue circus music*
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Scream the lie, whisper the retraction.- The Left
Scream the lie, whisper the retraction.- The Left
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Chap wrote:Canucklehead wrote:I see that on the fairwiki they're still referencing the article which claims that two cylinders with anthon-esque characters were found in mesoamerica.
Carl H. Jones, "The 'Anthon Transcript' and Two Mesoamerican Cylinder Seals," Newsletter and Proceedings of the Society for Early Historical Archaeology 122 (September 1970): 1–8.
I've googled the "Newsletter and Proceedings of the Society for Early Historical Archaeology" but it doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps I should send an email to someone at FAIR/FARMS to see if they can get me a copy of the article they refer to.
I have tried a few library catalogs on this one, including the Library of Congress. But that journal title (or reasonable variations thereof) does not seem to yield anything.
There is a Society for Historical Archaeology, with a long-lived journal called 'Historical Archaeology': see http://www.sha.org/publications/ha-sha/default.htm
But I can't find anything like the alleged Jones article in the volumes from 1967 to 1986. See the indices and contents lists at:
http://www.sha.org/publications/ha-sha/indices.htm
What did one expect? This is FARMS for goodness sake! The rules that the rest of us have to live by don't apply to them, as we have seen many times before. I doubt whether they have simply made up this paper altogether - but they probably don't consider it necessary to our salvation to make it possible for us to read it and come to an independent judgement of its value.
You probably already saw my post to this effect, but this is because the Society for EARLY Historical Archaeology is a formerly BYU-based organization akin to the Ancient America Foundation that is now disbanded. In other words, as anitshock pointed out, it's "in house" research.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
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antishock8 wrote:So, once again Mormon apologists rely on Mormons and Mormon organizations as source information about Mormon things. Wow. Stunning. I mean... That's something I never would have imagined.
*queue circus music*
I should have known it wasn't worth looking for anywhere that serious scholarship is referenced!
I love these bits:
To help the Department of Archaeology [later the Department of Anthropology] by doing some things which a regular academic department might have difficulty dealing with directly: promoting research on scriptural archaeology and giving publicity on a non-technical level to discoveries in this field.
...
In 1979 a new department chair for the BYU Department of Archaeology was hired, the Department of Archaeology was renamed the Department of Anthropology and the archaeology of the scriptures was de-emphasized.
Thanks for the laugh, Blixa!
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Blixa wrote:I love that Book of Mormon, Canucklehead. Finally, good Mormon design! (The status of the 'caracters' themselves, aside.)
On the same style tip, I found some 1942 Improvement Era articles about translating the caracters. You can find scanned .pdf's of the articles here: http://www.shields-research.org/Scriptu ... rowley.htm
Make what you will of the arguments themselves, I'm taken by the lovely Gill Sans-ish sans serif fonts of the titles (and their cursive counterparts) as well as the pleasingly florid style of the author, Mr. Ariel L. Crowley:Only a man of truth would dare to leave for future critical study the Book of Mormon, the revelations found in the Doctrine and Covenants, the revised version of the Bible, the Book of Abraham, and other similar works, with the claim that they were divinely revealed to him. Unafraid, Joseph Smith left for examination by posterity an unparalleled array of documents. In this he is distinguished and alone. History holds no precedent for his life.
ROFL!!
Only a man of truth would dare to leave for future critical study the Book of Mormon, the revised version of the Bible, the Book of Abraham, and other similar works, with the claim that they were divinely revealed to him.
Aaaaaaand....it doesn't matter one whit that no non-LDS scholar has EVER agreed with his translations AT ALL.
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I find this place to be hostile toward all brands of stupidity. That's why I like it. - Some Schmo
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So, now that I realise that this 1970 article was just the equivalent of a modern FARMS apologia, this still leaves the question:
What the heck are the "cylinders" that were supposedly found with Anthon-esque characters on them? Since FARMS is still writing articles (i.e. the 1999 one that truthdancer dug up) referring to these cylinders, I'd like to know where they are and the circumstances under which they were found.
What the heck are the "cylinders" that were supposedly found with Anthon-esque characters on them? Since FARMS is still writing articles (i.e. the 1999 one that truthdancer dug up) referring to these cylinders, I'd like to know where they are and the circumstances under which they were found.
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This may be of interest:
I believe this is the seal from Tlatilco (referenced by FARMS:
Here's the article from JoBoMS (which also has a picture of the seal): Here

I believe this is the seal from Tlatilco (referenced by FARMS:

Here's the article from JoBoMS (which also has a picture of the seal): Here
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
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Thanks for the pic of the broadside, Steuss! It's referenced in the otherwise lovely scans I linked to (otherwise, because the visual images don't show up well). I love that artifact and I'd love to see a colour reproduction: it must look quite nice in gold script. A really sharp digitized scan of something like that, available in an online archive, is the kind of thing I wish the LDS church would do. Perhaps they will too, eventually. Maybe they'll even offer the kind of service like the NYPL and other libraries do: you can order a copy of any image in the archive printed as an archival quality reproduction, or poster sized, or as a postcard set, or on a mousepad, mug or t shirt. I think that would be great.
(o/t but interesting: you can order copies of Edward S. Curtis photos from the Library of Congress---some struck from the original negatives and plates)
(o/t but interesting: you can order copies of Edward S. Curtis photos from the Library of Congress---some struck from the original negatives and plates)
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
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I collect Mormon books, so I frequent the DIs to look for treasures. About 3 years ago all of the DIs began pulling the gold covered BOMs. There are older editions that are more rare that show up all of the time, but you will not find the golden Book of Mormon at DI. The only possible explanation is that there has been an order to do so. Why would the Church order the DI to pull one if its own works? Very strange....
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The following was written by Fredrick G Williams who was Joseph's scribe from 1833 to 1837. The note was found on a paper that had been separated into four sections by a line drawing. The top section contained a copy of the revelation on the parchment of John now in D&C 7. The second section has "Questions in English and answers in Hebrew", and the third section had writings titled "Characters on the Book of Mormon" and "The interpretation of Languages." Two characters appear under each heading. The fourth section concerns Lehi's landing in Chile. (Selected collections 1:19, Revelations Collections, Box 1, Folder 5. Original: LDS Church Archives MS 4583. )
And apparently
translates to The Book of Mormon in Reformed Egyptian.
Then we have the 1844 broadside published by the LDS Church with the title "The Stick of Joseph" that contains "a correct copy of the characters taken from the plates of the Book of Mormon" You can read more about it in BYU Studies, vol.20, no.4, p.325.
*This is an enhanced image compared to what Steuss posted above
There is one more source for the original Book of Mormon characters. I can't recall it's location, and I don't have a image of it.
Phaedrus

And apparently

Then we have the 1844 broadside published by the LDS Church with the title "The Stick of Joseph" that contains "a correct copy of the characters taken from the plates of the Book of Mormon" You can read more about it in BYU Studies, vol.20, no.4, p.325.

*This is an enhanced image compared to what Steuss posted above
There is one more source for the original Book of Mormon characters. I can't recall it's location, and I don't have a image of it.
Phaedrus
Last edited by Anonymous on Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.