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The Book of Mormon, a work of scripture of the Latter Day Saint movement, describes itself as having originally been written in reformed Egyptian characters on plates of metal or "ore" by prophets living in the Western Hemisphere from perhaps as early as the 4th century BC until as late as the 5th century AD. Joseph Smith, the movement's founder, published the Book of Mormon in 1830 as a translation of these golden plates. Scholarly reference works on languages do not, however, acknowledge the existence of either a "reformed Egyptian" language or "reformed Egyptian" script as it has been described in Mormon belief. No archaeological, linguistic, or other evidence of the use of Egyptian writing in ancient America has been discovered.
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Reformed Egyptian and the Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon uses the term "reformed Egyptian" in only one verse, Mormon 9:32, which says that "the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, [were] handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech" and that "none other people knoweth our language." The book also says that its first author, Nephi, was taught both the "learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians" (1 Nephi 1:2), that the book was written in "reformed Egyptian" because that language took less space and was easier to engrave on gold plates than Hebrew, and that there was also an evolution of the Hebrew after the people left Jerusalem.
Mormon scholars note that other languages evolved from Egyptian through the centuries and have hypothesized that the term "reformed Egyptian" refers to a form of Egyptian writing similar to other modified Egyptian scripts such as hieratic, a priestly shorthand for hieroglyphics thousands of years old by the first millennium B.C., or early Demotic, a derivative of hieratic, perhaps used in northern Egypt fifty years before the time that the Book of Mormon prophet-patriarch Lehi is said to have left Jerusalem for the Americas.
Although accounts of the process differ, Smith is said to have translated the reformed Egyptian characters engraved on gold plates into English through various means, including the use of a seer stone or the Urim and Thummim, or both. Smith said when he had finished the translation, he returned the plates to the angel Moroni, and therefore they are unavailable for study.
The "Anthon Transcript"
The "Anthon Transcript" is a small piece of paper on which Joseph Smith is said to have transcribed reformed Egyptian characters from the golden plates—the ancient record from which Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Mormon. A manuscript known as the "Caractors" document has been widely identified as the same transcript. Handwriting analysis has suggested that this document was written by John Whitmer, one of the Eight Witnesses.
Smith said that when this sample was presented by Smith's colleague Martin Harris to Columbia College professor Charles Anthon, a noted classical scholar, that Anthon had attested to the characters' authenticity in writing but had then ripped up his certification after hearing that the plates had been revealed by an angel. Anthon wrote, to the contrary, that he had believed from the first that Harris was the victim of fraud.
In 1844, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints published a broadside about the Book of Mormon called "The Stick of Joseph", which reprinted some "reformed Egyptian" characters that resemble those on the Anthon transcript.
Mainstream scholarly view of reformed Egyptian
Standard language reference works contain no reference to "reformed Egyptian". No non-Mormon scholars acknowledge the existence of either a "reformed Egyptian" language or a "reformed Egyptian" script as it has been described in Mormon belief. For instance, in 1966, John A. Wilson, professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, wrote, "From time to time there are allegations that picture writing has been found in America .... In no case has a professional Egyptologist been able to recognize these characters as Egyptian hieroglyphs. From our standpoint there is no such language as 'reformed Egyptian'." Klaus Baer, another Egyptologist at the University of Chicago, called the characters of the "Caractors" document nothing but "doodlings". An early-20th-century scholar said that the "Caractors" document looked more like "deformed English." Anthropologist Michael D. Coe of Yale University, an expert in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican studies, has written, "Of all the peoples of the pre-Columbian New World, only the ancient Maya had a complete script."
Hofmann forgeries
During the early 1980s, forger Mark Hofmann sold alleged Mormon materials to Mormon investors and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), including a sample of reformed Egyptian characters probably copied from the "Caractors" transcript in a manner intended to make them more closely agree with the description given by Anthon.
Mormon studies of reformed Egyptian
Mormon studies of reformed Egyptian are necessarily limited to whatever linguistic evidence can be obtained from the text of the Book of Mormon plus the extant seven-line "Caractors" document that may be or may not be the symbols said to have been copied from the gold plates. Although some Mormons have attempted to decipher the "Caractors" document, according to Brigham Young University Egyptologist John Gee, "the corpus is not large enough to render decipherment feasible."
Terryl Givens has suggested that the characters are early examples of Egyptian symbols being used "to transliterate Hebrew words and vice versa," that Demotic is a "reformed Egyptian," and that the mixing of a Semitic language with modified Egyptian characters is demonstrated in inscriptions of ancient Syria and Palestine. Other Mormon apologists have suggested that the characters resemble those of shorthand for various languages including Hebrew, Demotic, Hieratic, Coptic, Mayan/Olmec, and Irish ogham ciphers. Hugh Nibley argued that a "revealed text in English" is preferable to trying to understand the original language.
Mormon scholar David Bokovoy asserts that because the word "reformed" in the Book of Mormon text is not capitalized, it should not be seen as part of the title of the language, but an adjective describing the type of Egyptian that Nephi used. "According to this definition" Bokovoy argues, "archaeologists have uncovered important examples of reformed Egyptian, including hieratic and Demotic. In addition, he references a verse in which Mormon states that the initial writing had been changed over the years:
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 .... 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.