mfbukowski wrote:Well I certainly do not hold myself out as an expert or even particularly "informed" about these issues since I regard most historical arguments about Mormonism irrelevant. But, that said, you caught me making a historical argument I suppose.
The Egyptian Revival was huge in early 19th century in America mostly because of Champollion and the discovery of the Rosetta stone. There were tons of buildings being built in that style, and Egyptian stuff was just plain "cool" like maybe Harry Potter or whatever is now.
In fact the whole reason Chandler was touring with the mummies was that he was capitalizing on this "Egyptian fever" with his side-show of mummies and papyri. I think it would be hard to be an American in this period who was NOT aware of things Egyptian at least in a vague way, and certainly for Joseph, who was clearly interested in such things, he would have been drawn like a magnet to anything of this nature.
Furthermore there is evidence that Anthon had a copy of Champollion's book and more interestingly, that Martin Harris apparently used Anthon's phrase "Egyptian shorthand" to WW Phelps, putting a possible direct link between the scholar Anthon and Joseph's inner circle- and notice this was much before the Book of Abraham. This quote is from footnotes found right at the end of this article:
http://www.shields-research.org/42_Questions/ques20.htm(Emphasis added)
3. Champollion’s decipherment of the Rosetta Stone was completed by 1824. He had been working on the problem since 1808, and on 17 September, 1822, read before the Academy of Inscriptions his "Lettre à M. Dacier." The culmination of his Rosetta Stone work was his Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Egyptiens (Paris, 1824, 2nd ed., 2 vols., 1828).
4. Anthon referred to Champollion’s work in his expansion of John Lempriere’s A Classical Dictionary. First published in 1788 by Lempriere, Anthon added 4000 new entries (including some Egyptian) to Lempriere’s work beginning in 1825. The Lempriere/Anthon work underwent an additional six editions by 1828. See Stanley B. Kimball, "The Anthon Transcript: People, Primary Sources, and Problems," BYU Studies 10, No. 3 (1970) pp. 325-352. Kimball found Anthon’s copy of Champollion's work at Cornell University. See also Reexploring, p. 73-74, where is given the information that early L.D.S. convert W. W. Phelps used the term "Egyptian Shorthand" in a letter. The article provides evidence that this term likely came to Phelps from Harris, who almost certainly got it from Anthon.
So in my view, Joseph would definitely be aware of Champollion, or at the very least the idea that Egyptian was being, or about to be, deciphered.
I think you have established that Joseph may have known, not that he did. Regardless, Joseph never seemed to shy away from taking chances right from his early days of treasure seeking. It is obvious Joseph had an interest in things Egyptian with the Book of Mormon itself, so having papyri in his midst would mean members having an expectation Joseph created earlier that he could translate it. Like everything else he did, he did not disappoint, and as usual it was something big instead of mundane.
So to me that indicates that he would have had to be a total fool to publish "translations" which he must have known would eventually be translated literally, especially now that there is evidence that he was aware of Anthon's knowledge of Egyptian.
You haven't established he must have known, nor did it stop him from making a go at the Greek document he got wrong.
I mean who would be so stupid as to be caught twice in the same lie?
What is the first lie you think Joseph made that he would not want to repeat?
Furthermore it seems clear to me that the "translation" of the facsimilies were never intended to be anything but symbolic. I don't feel like looking it up but I think of facs. 2 where it says in many cases things like "Priesthood keys to be had in the temple" etc- clearly that is NOT a "translation" by any means.
Then why do they say something different.
If you google "Champollion Joseph Smith" you find other evidence that critics think that "Joseph should have known better", in fact there are a few videos making that case, very poorly in my estimation.
You need to do a little better since you are the one making the assertion.
My point was that YES he should have "known better" if he was a fraud, but he was not a fraud.
Why is it that apologists want frauds to be the smartest people on earth and always should know better. That has not been my expereince with the many frauds religious or financial. Plus I don't necessarily think of Joseph as a fraud, but more likely a pious fraud. Religious frauds seem to usually have some or a lot of belief in what they are doing.
I think we can all agree that Joseph was anything but stupid.
Even smart people can be foolish.
But again, this is just a "hunch", and I am not a historian, nor frankly do I care much about this issue since I subscribe to a "catalyst" theory and don't much care about the history but much more about the spiritual value of the Book of Abraham. And I definitely don't want to discuss it further.
Why let history get in the way of what you want to believe. :)