Order out of Chaos
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
TRUST IN THE SLOW WORK OF GOD i Gift’ in ORDER FROM CHAOS A Translator’s Guide to Skeptical Critique of the Translation of the Caractors Transcript An invitation to the Skeptic who believes the Caractors Transcript is a hoax. Blair B. Bryant, EdD December 25, 2017 Merry Christmas! Copyright © Blair B Bryant, 2017 [email protected] Portions of this work may be copied for religious education and research purposes without copyright request. Modifying this copyrighted content without written permission from me or my Trustee is prohibited. For those who are interested in manually doing the FIVE STEP AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION PROCESS which is detailed in Chapter Six: EVERYTHING cannot be shown in this small book, but if you are interested in the minute details, including all graphics, and wish to manually make all 70 word- processing FIND/REPLACE exchanges, I will SEND you (via US mail) a digital copy of the Master program. It will be in a WORD document on a flash drive. It will provide ALL the graphics and Chapter Six detail from beginning to end—send me a letter with a $20 check (US$ only) or money order. Blair B Bryant 9501 Purple Cloud Row Laurel MD 20723 ii ORDER FROM CHAOS The Caractors Transcript How do I know that circled portion is ‘Laman and Nephi’???? Read on. The Caractors Transcript (CT) is a hand-written copy (using a quill pen on old paper) of about 217 characters. The strange characters were copied from the record of a people that were led from the Land of Jerusalem during the reign of King Zedekiah, around 600 BC. About 15 years later, the city of Jerusalem was captured by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and most of the surviving Jews became slaves in Babylon. The Book of Mormon is the record of the Nephites, the people that God led from Jerusalem. The CT message is a summary of the content of the Book of Mormon and was prepared by the last two prophets who completed the record–Mormon and his son, Moroni. The first four lines were written by Mormon in bold characters. The last three were written by Moroni and were in a cramped handwriting, for as Moroni wrote, (Mormon 4:5-6, CofChrist; 8;5, LDS): “My father hath made this record, and he hath written the intent thereof. And behold, I would write it also, if I had room upon the plates, but I have not; and ore I have none, for I am alone; my father hath been slain in battle.” So, Mormon’s ‘intent’ is in the first four lines of the CT. Apparently, Moroni finally decided that he could fit his summary (or ‘intent’) in the small space left by Mormon, if he made his writing small enough. The CT tells us what Mormon and Moroni thought should be in the Book of Mormon and why it should be included. TRUST IN THE SLOW WORK OF GOD iii Note that the characters written by Mormon are different from those written by Moroni. Not only are Moroni’s characters smaller, they are also distinctively different from Mormon’s handwriting. See page 18 for the Code Sheet that identifies each character. iv ORDER FROM CHAOS TRUST IN THE SLOW WORK OF GOD1 by Pierre Chardin Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest. This poem speaks to the sometimes-excruciating experience of waiting on God. Do you find yourself often impatient, struggling to trust that God's ways are higher than your wishes? Take a few minutes to reflect upon the wisdom Chardin shares here. Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. Yet it is the law of all progress that is made by passing through some stages of instability and that may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow. Let them shape themselves without undue haste. Do not try to force them on as though you could be today what time -- that is to say, grace -- and circumstances -- acting on your own good will -- will make you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser. Amen. 1 http://www.deeper-devotion.net/slow-work-of-god.html FOREWORD v TABLE OF CONTENTS TRUST IN THE SLOW WORK OF GOD ............................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................... v FOREWORD ........................................................................................................................................ vii CHAPTER ONE: THE TRANSLATION AND BACKGROUND .......................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO: READING THE CHARACTERS ......................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER THREE: FIRST EXAMPLE OF FIVE STEP AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION PROCESS .......................... 39 CHAPTER FOUR: A SECOND EXAMPLE OF THE FIVE STEP AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION PROCESS .............. 49 CHAPTER FIVE: CHIASMS IN THE CARACTORS TRANSCRIPT .................................................................... 54 CHAPTER SIX: THE AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION PROCESS ........................................................................ 68 CHAPTER SEVEN: A FINAL WORD TO THE SKEPTIC ................................................................................. 77 APPENDIX A: SAMPLES OF CHIASMS ...................................................................................................... 90 APPENDIX B: THE 1998 AND 2017 TENTATIVE TRANSLATIONS ............................................................. 102 APPENDIX C: FINDING THE KEY TO THE TRANSLATION ......................................................................... 111 APPENDIX D: THE EGYPTIAN CONNECTION .......................................................................................... 121 vi ORDER FROM CHAOS FOREWORD vii FOREWORD by David E. Spencer, PhD I am a Latter-Day Saint Christian, and have known Blair Bryant now for at least six years. I am also a PhD in political science and do a lot of work on military related studies. I first heard of Blair Bryant’s work on the “caractors” from a family that I home taught. They recommended this fictional book to me called The Moroni Code by Jack Lyon, so I bought it and read it. In the book a detective foils a plot to undermine the LDS Church and in part cracks the code of the so-called Anthon Transcript to help solve his mystery. The book was not the best I’ve ever read, shamelessly exploited the popularity of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, but was entertaining. However, more interesting was that the code cracking was based on Blair Bryant’s work as explained in an extensive footnote with a link to a website. I subsequently went to the website and found it a bit confusing to follow, so to be able to study it in a more systematic manner, I copied and pasted the entire website into a document, and reorganized the contents into what to me, was a more logical order, then took it with me on a trip. During my free moments, I pored over it with great interest and tried to understand Blair’s work. I found it intriguing. I went back to the website and found a place where Blair requested that anyone that had any insights to please contact him and share them with him. Well, I’m no professional linguist, but I knew a couple of things from my study of foreign languages (I am fluent in Spanish and my job involves teaching adults in that language. I have also studied German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Japanese at various times in my life) and have experience from living overseas for much of my life. So, I emailed him my insights. He soon emailed me back and through a series of exchanges I discovered that he lived within 30 minutes of my house. I was a bit surprised--as from my preconceptions of where Community of Christ populations were located-- would have never dreamed that he was living so close. We soon decided to meet. We have continued to meet on occasion since that time. The fact that he is Community of Christ, what LDS people often still refer to as RLDS2, and I am LDS has never caused an awkward moment in our friendship. We share faith in Jesus Christ, a belief in the Book of Mormon and an interest in the so called “Anthon Transcript” or what Blair calls the “Caractors Transcript” or CT. He’s never doubted me for being LDS, and I’ve never doubted the validity of his work because he’s Community of Christ. We have differences of beliefs, but respect our respective differences. I consider him a brother in Christ, and he’s told me as much. What I can absolutely vouch for is Blair’s sincerity and humility, and to his tireless effort to discover the true message of the Anthon Transcript. He’s a very intelligent man but doesn’t regard himself as above anyone else or the possessor of THE ANSWER, or any of the things that characterize the many charlatans out there. What I do sense in him is a deep frustration that so few seem interested in his work. Having authored several works of my own that have single or at most double-digit 2 After the death of Joseph Smith, some people refused to accept the leadership of Brigham Young and many of the later teachings of Smith such as polygamy and ritualistic temple worship. They did not migrate to Utah. This included David Whitmer and Joseph Smith’s widow, Emma. In 1860, they founded the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or RLDS with Joseph Smith’s son, Joseph Smith III as prophet. In 2001 the Church changed their official name to Community of Christ. The LDS Church and the Community of Christ are the largest organizations stemming from Joseph Smith’s original organization.