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Translation of the “Caractors” Document TRANSLATION OF THE “CARACTORS” DOCUMENT Mormon’s Chronological Summary of the Period from the 19th Regnal Year of the Reign of MosiahI to the Coming of the Limhites and Mormon’s Synopsis of the Book of Mormon Prophetic Calendar Translation and Commentary by Jerry D. Grover, Jr. PE, PG 1 Introduction When I completed publication of my last book, Geology of the Book of Mormon, I started on another research project to identify what exactly was meant by the word “ziff”, one of those undefined, untranslated words that are found in the Book of Mormon. Because of the context where ziff is found in the Book of Mormon, it is suspected to be some sort of metal. As part of my inquiry, I also looked at the metallurgy of the golden plates, as some have suggested that perhaps they consisted of ziff. While I was looking at various characteristics of the plates, and specifically at the nature of the engravings, I ran across the “Caractors” document, which in my youth many called the “Anthon transcript”. I recalled seeing the document, in my younger days, but had not really given it much thought. As I was evaluating the document to determine the character density (number of characters per square inch), I noticed something that I had really not noticed before—the bar-and-dot Mesoamerican number 9. As an engineer, I have always liked to fiddle around with numbers, so I thought to myself that it might be interesting to see if there were any other numbers there, and that perhaps by so doing I could identify a date, which would be helpful to perhaps place the document in some sort of chronological context. What I found was more numbers than I thought I would find and, proceeding methodically step by step, I have been able to translate the entire document. I need to make it clear that I am not an Egyptologist or a Mayanist, although I have been very interested in ancient Mesoamerica for some time. I do speak a few languages (Chinese and Italian) and have worked with my wife on and off as a translator and interpreter for the last 25 years, mostly in Italian, but have delved into a few other languages as needed. As a scientist, by nature I am adverse to speculations, and unfortunately, the Book of Mormon studies field is full of persons who aren’t so scrupulous. I have taken care to document the source of my translations and any interpretations. This exercise is not designed to prove the Book of Mormon true; it is not a theological or doctrinal exercise. I leave it up to the reader (and other experts) to evaluate and process the impact of what I have found. I can tell you I have no motivation to sell books. I publish only for the “thrill” of research, not to become a Mormon-themed retailer. My approach has been to do research and publish a small run of books to cover the cost of donating some to libraries and other centers of research, and then to provide the research free in e-book fashion to anyone who might be interested (not a huge following). I have no interest in fame or firesides; at one point in my life I had the misfortune (as did the electorate) of being elected to public office, so have already seen that side of the briar patch. Finally, as I have already been hassled by my friends with regards to this particular research, I need to answer a few questions in advance: “No, I was not helped by a sandy haired angel.” “No, I did not have to give my research and notes back to said sandy haired angel.” 2 “And no, I don’t have any interest in starting my own church.” I have also been asked whether the book has been peer reviewed. As a person who started out their career as a respected engineer and geologist, who is now an ex-politician, used car salesman (I restore vintage Fiats), working for a real estate developer, my journey towards the dark side is now complete. No, I have few peers, and the world is a better place for it. That being said, I did provide a draft of the book to persons who are experts in Egyptian and Maya, providing them a small honorarium for their drudgery. Some were intrigued, some did not comment at all. Comments were incorporated, but I did not ask for their endorsement, realizing that even the act of muttering the words “Lamanite” or “Shiz” under their breath would be an act of hara-kiri in their secular academic worlds, let alone endorsing a book such as this. This book will not involve an introduction of the genesis of the Book of Mormon and the golden plates; it is supposed that the reader will already be familiar with the foundations of Mormonism. With that groundwork laid, I invite you to enjoy the book. I’m sure you will find it original and interesting. 3 CHAPTER 1 DESCRIPTION OF THE CARACTORS After obtaining the golden plates, Joseph Smith stated that once he moved to Harmony, Pennsylvania in the winter of 1827, he “commenced copying the characters of[f] the plates.” He stated: I copyed a considerable number of them and by the means of the Urim and Thummin I translated some of them. (J. Smith 2004, 1:62) Smith described a document or documents that included “a considerable number” of characters, which were likely more than just the seven lines dealt with in this book. He also stated that he included “some” translated characters. One example that we have of the characters from the plates are those copied by John Whitmer (as evidenced by handwriting analysis) on what is known as the “Caractors” document (see figure 1). It is fairly certain that this document was copied from a portion of the characters that Joseph Smith had transcribed from the plates (MacKay et al. 2013). Figure 1. Book of Mormon “Caractors” copied by John Whitmer (www.forum.newordermormon.org 2015) The Caractors document is currently in the possession of the Community of Christ, which was known from 1872 to 2001 as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS). 4 Techniques to decipher an ancient unknown text According to Michael Coe in his book about the process of the lengthy decryption of the Maya text, the five fundamental pillars on which all successful decipherments of unknown texts have rested are: (1) The database must be large enough, with many texts of adequate length. (2) The language must be known, or at least reconstructed, at a minimum. The linguistic family to which the language of the script belongs should be known. (3) There should be a bilingual inscription of some sort, one member of which is in a known writing system. (4) The cultural context of the script should be known; above all there should be traditions and histories giving place-names, royal names and titles, and so forth. (5) For logographic scripts, there should be pictorial references, either pictures to accompany the text or pictorially derived logographic signs. (Coe 1999, 43-44) In the case of the Caractors document, there are only a handful of other characters, and there are no known pictorial references for the logographic text. We have information from the Book of Mormon that some portion of the text originated from Egyptian (Mormon 9:32-34): 32 And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. 33 And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record. 34 But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof. So at least we do have somewhere to start, namely the Egyptian that would have been existent at the time of Lehi’s departure. Since we know that there were other records (plates of brass, perhaps others) that Lehi took with him, there might be older forms of Egyptian that the Lehites may have had access to. However, as Mormon notes, whatever language they were using had been significantly changed (“reformed”). The use of the word reformed clearly implies a logographic or glyphic modification in the language, not just some pronunciation difference. The “manner of speech” change could be interpreted different ways, but the most likely change was in the syntax or sentence structure. Mormon also indicates in 3 Nephi 5:8 that “there are many things which, according to our language, we are not able to write.” This is a clear indicator that the written language of the plates had some deficiencies of expression. It is not apparent that Egyptian was actually spoken regularly by the Nephites as any form of lingua franca; it was probably a language that only the elite or highly educated class had knowledge of. It does seem that Mormon himself was at least capable of reading the earlier Egyptian, as that is presumably what the ‘small plates’ portion of the Book of Mormon was written in (1 Nephi 1:2): Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.
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