When he first recovered the gold plates in
September 1827,
Joseph Smith began puzzling over the characters he saw written on them.
He apparently couldn’t make sense of them himself.
His mother Lucy recalled that not long after receiving
the plates,
“Joseph began to make arrangements to accomplish the translation of the record.”
Accordingly, Joseph began copying characters from the plates shortly after retrieving them “to find
someone other than himself who was able and willing to translate [them].”
These efforts led to the now-famous incident between Martin Harris
and Charles Anthon as recounted in Joseph Smith’s history.
But there is more to the story
than what is recounted in Joseph Smith’s history canonized today in the Pearl of Great Price.
Historical sources identify Luther Bradish
as the first scholar contacted by Harris before
visiting Charles Anthon.
There is a very understandable reason why Harris
would have wanted to show Bradish some of the “reformed Egyptian” characters from the Book of Mormon plates.
Bradish had travelled extensively in Egypt
and the Middle East between the years 1819–1825.
During his travels, as one historian observed,
Bradish came to know
The details of Harris’s visit with Bradish are unfortunately not known.
After visiting with Bradish, Harris then met with the scholar Samuel L. Mitchill.
A well-respected scholar
of his day,
Mitchill had taken an interest in studying Native American tribes in New
York state.
It is likely that Harris consulted with Mitchill precisely because Joseph Smith
had been led to uncover an ancient record
According to one contemporary source,
during Harris’s consultation Mitchill “compared
[the characters]
with the hieroglyphics discovered by Champollion in Egypt
and set them down as the
Mitchill, in turn, recommended that Harris visit Charles Anthon,
a professor of classics
at Columbia College in New York City.
Exactly what Anthon said after his examination of
the characters brought to him by Harris is
difficult to know, since Harris and Anthon
left contradictory accounts of the incident.
Harris remembered Anthon pronouncing the characters
genuine but then quickly dismissing the affair
by protesting “I cannot read a sealed book”
when informed that the source of the characters
(the gold plates) were revealed by an angel
and therefore unavailable for scholarly examination.
Anthon, on the other hand, repeatedly denied
ever endorsing the authenticity of the characters
and claimed to have warned Harris that he
was being taken in by a con job. A plausible
scenario that could account for this conflicting
testimony is that Anthon initially believed
the characters could be authentic and expressed
interested in them but quickly backed away
after the Book of Mormon was printed and his
name became associated with a national religious
scandal.
Two things, however, are clear from Harris’s
visit with these scholars. First, he walked
away absolutely confident that Joseph Smith
was telling the truth that he had in his possession
an ancient record. Second, Anthon’s comment
that he could not read a sealed book was seen
as fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 29:11–14
by Martin Harris, Joseph Smith, and early
members of the restored Church of Jesus Christ.
Although the reactions of these learned men
varied, Martin Harris was satisfied enough
with their replies to further assist with
the translation and publication of the Book
of Mormon. He went on to serve as scribe,
financier, and witness of the Book of Mormon,
all at great personal sacrifice.
This is the second video in a series on reformed
Egyptian in the Book of Mormon. To learn more
about what reformed Egyptian is and the so-called
Anthon Transcript showing some of the Book
of Mormon characters, click on the videos
here and here.
