Brant Gardner Interview On Mormon Stories

[Guest]

All,

Brant Gardner did a 5 part interview on Mormon Stories. Link:

http://mormonstories.org/?p=2306

I haven't listened to any of them yet (I'm off to Taco Bell and will start listening there). I will give my thoughts (if anyone gives a damn) after I have listened to them. Please add any commentary about these podcasts as well.

UPDATE: For my final recommendation see below.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Taco Bell

Bro.

[_Molok]

Eat a beefy crunch burrito for me AS!

[_consiglieri]

Thanks for pointing this out to me, Aristotle.

I think Brant is an interesting character and I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_Buffalo]

Let me know if it's any good. I have less time for MS these days and their 27-part epic interviews.

[_Aristotle Smith]

OK, I just finished the first part. Part #1 is mainly about explaining and understanding Joseph Smith's involvement in peep stones and treasure digging. I found Brant's explanations reasonable and I think he did a great job in this part.

The part I think he did the best job on was getting Joseph Smith off on the charges of being a con man. He also did a good job of putting the peep stones and treasure digging in context.

[_Aristotle Smith]

Question: In part 2, Brant says that the brass plates were written in Egyptian or at least with Egyptian characters. I have always assumed they were written in Hebrew. Is there a reference which Brant is going from here?

[_consiglieri]

Question: In part 2, Brant says that the brass plates were written in Egyptian or at least with Egyptian characters. I have always assumed they were written in Hebrew. Is there a reference which Brant is going from here?

I think this is a minor dispute amongs Mormonologists.

I am not certain of the references, and they can apparently be read either way, but I think the majority consensus is that the language was Hebrew written with modified Egyptian characters.

No, wait, I am thinking of the gold plates. D'oh.

Maybe Brant misspoke here?

Sort of like I did.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_Aristotle Smith]

OK, found it, Mosiah 1:4.

Still, I find it odd that Hebrews would be writing their scripture in Egyptian.

[_consiglieri]

OK, found it, Mosiah 1:4.

Still, I find it odd that Hebrews would be writing their scripture in Egyptian.

It is odd.

But not without precedent, it seems:

Prof. Steiner, a past fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University and a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, has deciphered a number of Semitic texts in various Egyptian scripts over the past 25 years. In his lecture he interpreted Semitic passages in Egyptian texts that were discovered more than a century ago, inscribed on the subterranean walls of the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara in Egypt. The pyramid dates from the 24th century B.C.E., but Egyptologists agree that the texts are older. The dates proposed for them range from the 25th to the 30th centuries B.C.E. No continuous Semitic texts from this period have ever been deciphered before.

The passages, serpent spells written in hieroglyphic characters, had puzzled scholars who tried to read them as if they were ordinary Egyptian texts. In August, 2002, Prof. Steiner received an email message from Robert Ritner, professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, asking whether any of them could be Semitic. "I immediately recognized the Semitic words for `mother snake,'" said Steiner. "Later it became clear that the surrounding spells, composed in Egyptian rather than Semitic, also speak of the mother snake, and that the Egyptian and Semitic texts elucidate each other."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 012907.php

All the Best!

--Consiglieri