Abstract: The official account of Martin Harris’s visit to Charles Anthon, canonized in the Pearl of Great Price, suggests that Anthon may have been shown more than one transcript by Harris. The differing responses of Anthon to each of these transcripts may shed light on the kinds of characters he was shown and provide additional perspectives that can help clarify a little more what is happening in the historical sources.

Some inconsistencies exist in the written historical sources concerning the number and nature of the transcripts Martin Harris presented to Professor Charles Anthon at Columbia College in 1828. Did Harris have with him only a single piece of paper, or did he have two or more? Was there only one copied set of characters? Was a translation included? What exactly was the nature of the characters and translations? Some sources seem to indicate that Harris showed Anthon one document on which was written only a single collection of characters; this has been the standard assumption among historians and lay-members alike.¹ However, the official account of Harris’s visit with Anthon, as recorded and published in the History of the Church² and in the Pearl of Great Price (Joseph Smith—History 1:63–65), [Page 354]and other sources suggest that Harris may have shown Anthon at least two transcripts, as B. H. Roberts had noted.³ While the number of actual documents presented is unclear in most sources, Martin Harris’s report does explicitly state that he presented Anthon two different sets of characters—one set that was translated and another set that was not yet translated. This report, which also includes two differing responses from Anthon regarding these two sets of characters, provides some additional possibilities to consider with respect to Anthon’s abilities and the kinds of characters that may have been on the document(s) copied from the plates.⁴

[Page 355]Some Background

Joseph Smith’s history projects do not explicitly mention the number of documents Harris carried with him. His 1832 History indicates only that “some of the characters” were copied from the plates for Martin Harris to take with him to the East. No reference to the number of documents created is present.⁵

Joseph Smith’s 1838 History states: “Immediately after my [Joseph Smith’s] arrival there [in Pennsylvania] I commenced copying the characters of all the plates. I copyed [sic] a considerable number of them and by means of the Urim and Thummin I translated some of them.”⁶ As in the 1832 account, nothing in this version indicates the number of documents made, only that a “considerable number” of characters were copied somewhere and that “some” of these characters were translated. That is as far as these sentences allow one to go when recreating history. It cannot even be determined where the translation itself was written. Was it right next to any of the characters? Was it on a separate document? It is not clearly stated. Note that this text originally stated Joseph Smith copied characters of “all” the plates, but then all is crossed out, presumably because it goes too far. However, the initial reading, even with its correction, certainly gives the impression that characters were copied from more than one plate.

The 1838 History goes on to say that “Mr Martin Harris came to our place, got the characters which I had drawn off of the plates and started with them to the City of New York.”⁷ Again, the text does not actually specify the number of documents. It only says he “got the characters” without any reference to their physical context. Orson Pratt’s 1840 history is likewise vague.⁸

[Page 356]Recent scholarship has demonstrated that Joseph Smith likely created more than one copy of characters from the plates while he possessed them—some having different formats or appearances than the others.⁹ Joseph Knight Sr. stated that Joseph and Emma Smith “Drew of the Caricters exactly like the ancient,” suggesting they took care to render facsimile copies of the characters just as they appeared on the plates.¹⁰

The 1838 History provides (Joseph Smith’s recollection of?) Martin Harris’s first-hand report wherein Harris explicitly states that he presented two sets of characters to Anthon and received two different responses:

I went to the City of New York and presented the Characters which had been translated [C1], with the translation thereof [T], to Professor <Charles> Anthony a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anthony stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian [R1]. I then shewed him those which were not yet translated [C2], and he said that they were Egyptian, Chaldeak, Assyriac, and Arabac, and he said that they were true characters [R2].¹¹

[Page 357]Based on these sources, it is possible that Harris could have presented Anthon with any of four options:

1. A singular document (D) with two sets of characters and a translation of one of the sets (D=C1+T+C2)
2. Two documents with a set of characters on each and a translation on one of them (D1=C1+T; D2=C2)
3. Two documents with one containing the two sets of characters and the other the translation (D1=C1+C2; D2=T)
4. Three documents with a set of characters on each of two documents and a translation on the third, (D1=C1; D2=T of C1; D3=C2)

Any of the documents could have writing on the front or back, or both. Harris’s report that he “presented” the first set of characters [C1] “with the translation thereof” [T] and received Anthon’s reaction to them [R1] but then later “showed” him a second set of characters [C2] and received a second reaction [R2] is more consistent with option 2 or 4, but 2 is the most likely since the first character set was presented “with the translation thereof.”

Anthon’s Responses to the Two Sets of Characters

When Anthon was presented with the first set of characters and their translation, he, according to Harris, simply identified the characters as “Egyptian.” Although Martin Harris or Anthon could have been using this term generically for any ancient script (like the phrase “it is all Greek to me”), the possibility that Anthon actually identified this transcript as having recognizably Egyptian characters should not be ruled out, since one of his main purposes for inspecting the characters was to identify their origin. In his academic position, Anthon had been exposed to various forms of Egyptian writing, notwithstanding his ability-level to translate such.

When Anthon was presented with the second set of characters (those that were not translated), Anthon seems less certain which language the characters represented, stating that some looked Egyptian while others looked “Chaldeak, Assyriac, and Arabac.” Even Anthon’s own accounts of Harris’s visit seem to verify the ancient authenticity of many of the characters because he speculated that they must have [Page 358]been copied from a book of “various alphabets,” albeit in a nonsensical manner.¹²

At face value, the above can be viewed as evidence that two different scripts were shown to Anthon—a script Anthon simply identified as Egyptian and another script containing characters of a less certain origin. Joseph Knight Sr.’s report seems to corroborate the idea of two different scripts for he stated that Harris “found men that could translate some of the Carictors . . . But there were some Carictors they could not well understand.”¹³

The possibility of an Egyptian script that Anthon could readily identify and another script that he could not readily identify would be in harmony with claims within the Book of Mormon itself. Mormon and Moroni, who lived c. 400 AD, created an abridgment of the main Nephite records using a language that had been “altered” over their thousand-year history which they called “reformed Egyptian.” It was reformed so much that “none other people knoweth our language” (Mormon 9:32, 34), suggesting that even an ancient Egyptian would not have understood their language in spite of the name given.¹⁴ Mormon, however, noted that as he was creating his abridgment of the main Nephite history, he “searched among the records” and “found” the set of plates that contained the “small account” written by Nephi, Jacob, and others down to King Benjamin. He felt they were important to include and indicates that he would simply “put them” with the remainder of his abridgment (Words of Mormon 1:3–6).¹⁵ Since [Page 359]Nephi and Jacob lived around a thousand years before Mormon and Moroni, the language and characters on this small record would not have been the altered “reformed Egyptian” that Mormon and Moroni used. Rather, Nephi tells his readers plainly that he wrote using “the language of the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 1:2), a language that his father Lehi knew how to read and had taught to his children (Mosiah 1:4). It is known from archaeology that there was a scribal tradition using Egyptian hieratic in Israel during Nephi’s day.¹⁶ This Palestinian Hieratic is currently the most plausible candidate for an Egyptian script Nephi would have used to make his own record.

So, if this additional “small account” that Mormon put with the remainder of his abridgment had been written in the Egyptian language of Lehi and Nephi’s day, and all the other writings were written in the “reformed Egyptian” of Mormon and Moroni’s day, then it would be reasonable to postulate that two different-looking scripts would have been found on the bundle of plates that Joseph Smith received. This could explain the different reactions of Charles Anthon to the two character sets presented to him by Martin Harris—the one when he declared the characters to be Egyptian, and the other that he could not definitively identify but said that they had some features of Egyptian and other ancient languages.¹⁷

[Page 360]Anthon himself would later claim the characters were “any thing else but ‘Egyptian Hieroglyphics.’”¹⁸ However, it has been noted that Anthon likely did tell Harris at some point that many of the characters looked like Egyptian characters, because after their meeting it began to be circulated among the Latter-day Saints that Anthon told Harris some of the characters appeared to be “short-hand Egyptian.”¹⁹ This distinctive term was something the scholars, including Champollion himself, were using in their publications to describe hieratic script and was unlikely a term that Harris would have known unless Anthon actually said it to him.²⁰ This detail is significant in light of the fact that hieratic was the known Egyptian script used in the Jerusalem of Nephi’s day as noted earlier.

The Translation

According to Harris’s report in the 1838 History, Anthon also indicated that the translation “from the Egyptian” characters in the first transcript [Page 361]was “correct.” Although translating any Egyptian characters was still in its infancy, Anthon was familiar with Champollion’s earliest work and mentioned it in his 1825 reworking of A Classical Dictionary. He also had a personal copy of Champollion’s 1824 Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens.²¹ In the least, Anthon likely understood from Champollion’s work that Egyptian was a phonemic language, having characters representing sounds, not just logograms or symbolic writing, but the means to translate full sentences was not yet published. Consequently, for Anthon to have made any substantive and affirming remarks concerning a “translation” could only have been for something simple, like alphabetic equivalences, rather than the translation of words or sentences. While it is uncertain how deep Anthon’s understanding of various Egyptian scripts and their values was, there is evidence in the sources that Joseph Smith may have attempted to create and send something like an alphabet with Harris.²³

[Page 362]Joseph Smith’s initial interaction with the Egyptian characters on the papyri brought to him by Michael Chandler from which the Book of Abraham was translated may have some bearing on this moment. Oliver Cowdery published a letter he had written concerning the initial meetings between the Prophet and Chandler saying:

While Mr. Chandler was in Philadelphia, he used every exertion to find some one who could give him the translation of his papyrus, but could not, satisfactorily, though from some few men of the first eminence, he obtained in a small degree, the translation of a few characters. Here he was referred to bro. Smith. . . .

Mr. Chandler was told that his writings could be deciphered, and very politely gave me [Cowdery] a privilege of copying some four or five different sentences or separate pieces, stating, at the same time, that unless he found some one who could give him a translation soon, he would carry them to London.

I am a little in advance of my narration; The morning Mr. Chandler first presented his papyrus to bro.—Smith, he was shown, by the latter, a number of characters like those upon the writings of Mr. C. which were previously copied from the plates, containing the history of the Nephites, or book of Mormon.

Being solicited by Mr. Chandler to give an opinion concerning his antiquities, or translation of some of the characters, bro. S. gave him the interpretation of some few for his satisfaction. For your gratification I will here annex a certificate which I hold, from under the hand of Mr. Chandler, unsolicited, however, by any person in this place, which will show how far he believed bro. Smith able to unfold from these long obscured rolls the wonders contained therein:

“Kirtland, July 6th, 1835.”

“This is to make known to all who may be desirous, concerning the knowledge of Mr. Joseph Smith, jr. in deciphering the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic characters, in my possession, which I have, in many eminent cities, shown to the most learned: And, from the information that I could even learn, or meet with, I find [Page 363]that of Mr. Joseph Smith, jr. to correspond in the most minute matters.”²⁴

An important thing to note in this source is that, according to Chandler, none of the eminent men in Philadelphia could translate the papyri’s words or sentences. He even speaks about going to London to find someone who could. These men could only provide rudimentary remarks concerning “a few characters.” Consequently, Chandler’s comparison of the eminent men’s most basic assessment with Joseph Smith’s interpretation of “some few,” suggests the Prophet must have only provided undeveloped ideas about a few characters as well but not words or sentences. Thus, the certificate can be accurate but not to the degree some may suppose.

In a similar manner, the Anthon episode does not appear to deal with any translation of words or sentences. As noted above, Anthon was not able to do so, but he likely had a simple understanding of a few Egyptian characters. Since the 1838 History reports that Joseph Smith only sent with Harris a translation of “some” characters, any assumption that he translated words or sentences at this point goes beyond the text. The Prophet’s elementary effort appears to have corresponded in some way with Anthon’s limited understanding, and so Anthon, like Chandler, gave a certificate affirming such.

Considering the above, it is reasonable to conclude that Joseph Smith only provided rudimentary interpretations of a few characters on both the Egyptian papyri and on the Gold Plates the first time he engaged with them. According to the reports, the Prophet’s basic efforts were somehow in accordance with the very limited understanding of Chandler’s eminent men in Philadelphia and Harris’s eminent man in New York, Charles Anthon. Neither the Prophet nor the eminent men appear to be translating or affirming the translation of words or sentences at this point. That effort would come later.

One other important detail from Chandler’s visit should be noted. Cowdery reports that Joseph Smith pulled out a transcript of “a number of characters” from the Book of Mormon plates to show Chandler. Apparently, the characters of the plates “were like those” upon the papyri that Chandler brought. This overlooked detail becomes important when it is understood that the papyri that Chandler brought were [Page 364]written in hieratic.²⁵ This provides additional evidence that the Book of Mormon plates may have contained hieratic characters—characters that Anthon identified as “short-hand Egyptian,” a term used for hieratic characters in the scholarly literature of the day. That Anthon affirmed the first transcript as Egyptian and its translation of a few characters correct but then struggled to identify, and thus translate, the characters on the second transcript again matches Joseph Knight Sr.’s report noted above that Harris “found men that could translate some of the Carictors . . . But there were some Carictors they could not well understand.”²⁶

If the 1838 History is accurate and two scripts were shown, then Anthon’s reports in his letters of a single transcript about which he could not make any sense may be conflating everything into a single collection of characters. In other words, Anthon’s inability to discern the origin of the “reformed Egyptian” characters he was shown, coupled with his declared bias against anything involving angelic visitations,²⁷ may have swayed him to later deny that any of the characters had authentic Egyptian connection. Since the characters he viewed in the second set were unrecognizable to him, being a reformed Egyptian “that none other people knoweth,” this would cast doubt on all the characters he saw, even if some did appear to be legitimately like “short-hand Egyptian” as he apparently said to Martin Harris. Many hieratic characters, especially if written in isolation, like in columns as Anthon claimed he saw, can appear to be simple squiggles and flourishes of the pen. It would not be difficult for Anthon to settle into that conclusion for everything he was presented by Harris.

[Page 365]Conclusions

Considering all the above, the most likely scenario in which the details given in the official 1838 History are plausible would be as follows:

1. Martin Harris obtained at least two documents from Joseph Smith, both containing copies of characters from the plates. Some kind of minimal effort of “translation,” like an alphabet, was added to the first set of characters.
2. The first set of characters were likely written in an Egyptian script from Nephi’s day that Anthon readily identified as “Egyptian” and related them to “short-hand Egyptian,” a term being used for hieratic Egyptian in scholarly publications of the day. Indeed, hieratic is attested in the archaeological record of Jerusalem and surrounding areas of Nephi’s day, and it is the script on the Chandler papyri that Cowdery said was like the ones on the Book of Mormon plates.
3. For Anthon’s comment on the correctness of the translation to have any integrity, it could only be addressing rudimentary ideas relative to individual characters, rather than the translation of specific words or sentences. Anthon appears to have had some exposure to Champollion’s early work on Egyptian characters, but it was too early for Anthon to have understood any translation in the fullest sense. It is not necessary to conclude that Anthon was full of hubris, pretending to know whether the translation was correct or not, nor is it necessary to conclude that Joseph did any translation of words or sentences—just as he did not appear to translate words or sentences in his initial interaction with the Egyptian papyri.
4. The second set of characters was a copy of “reformed Egyptian” characters from the hand of Mormon or Moroni that appeared on the greater percentage of the plates. Since “reformed Egyptian” is an altered script and language, Anthon could not readily identify its origins and speculates on several possibilities.
5. When Anthon learned that the characters are from someone claiming miraculous religious experience (and since he could not discern the origin of several of the characters), he concluded that some of the characters must [Page 366]have been copied from available books on alphabets in nonsensical ways. Any resemblances to Egyptian scripts that he may have noticed before were reduced to random “flourishes” of the pen. He, thus, concluded that none of it was Egyptian.

As scholars have pointed out, Harris’s experience with Anthon and others satisfied him enough as to the authenticity of the characters on the plates that he answered the call in Doctrine and Covenants 19:26–27 to freely give a significant portion of his substance to pay for the publication of the Book of Mormon.

In consequence of the above, the Caractors document that has circulated in historical sources cannot be ruled out as a document shown to Anthon solely on the basis that Anthon’s own description of what he saw does not appear to match it. If there were more than one document as Harris seems to claim, then Anthon’s recollection may be referring to one of the other documents. Having said this, since the Caractors document is not hieratic and Anthon’s description seems to rest on characters he could not identify on a document that does not match the formatting of the Caractors document, it is still more likely this document was a copy of characters created for some other purpose other than Harris’s visit.