Responding to a reader who
commented about our un-informed response to his comment and reference to a book
written by Jerry D. Grover, Jr.
Response: The reference given involves more than one subject—in fact four or five. I was referring to
only one of them in my earlier comment you mentioned, and that was “Geology of the Book of Mormon” (the geologic work the book's author did only in Mesoamerica), with some nice art work and geologic
studies, but once again, in a part of the world that has nothing to do with the
Land of Promise of the scriptural record. I gave my response on that.
As for a second work on the
reference, “Translation of the
‘Caractors’ Document,” which has to do with the so-called Anthon script,
which he claims to have translated the Reformed Egyptian language, again has to
do with Mesoamerica, in which the author writes on page 2: “After 1000 years of assimilation in
Mesoamerica, the Nephites were no doubt speaking some Mesoamerican language that
may have contained some elements of Hebrew and/or Egyptian. I am currently
working on the presence of Semitic languages and Egyptian in the Uto-Aztecan
language, which indicates there was perhaps a language creole that occurred…we
do have some information from the Book of Mormon itself. Again, the derivation
(although 1000 years removed) from Egyptian and Hebrew gives us some platform
to operate off of, with the understanding that Mesoamerican elements should
also be present.”
Regarding this, first of all we
might define “creole” which means a
person of mixed European and black descent, or a mother tongue formed from the
contact of two languages through an earlier pidgin stage—either way, I am
flabbergasted that someone would suggest this of an area no one knows anything
about, there are no authentic records of the period, and certainly no one could
tell about their languages (if they existed at all) 1000 years before the
earliest of man’s claim to know anything about the area (Popol Vuh, Codex Borbonicusam,
Dresden codex, etc.)
Regarding someone today claiming
to interpret what was written by the ancient prophets in Reformed Egyptian, I am reminded of Moroni’s words: “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” (Mormon 9:34). Consequently, while it might
be possible for the Lord to have prepared Jerry D. Grover, Jr., to be the
translator, it does not seem likely according to the events of history already
known through Joseph Smith’s work on this subject.
And since the languages of
Mesoamerica, whatever and whenever they were, has nothing to do with Nephite
language and usage, it hardly seems of any value to try and figure something
out that is involved in languages not present or involved in the Hebrew or
Egyptian the Nephites would have known and used.
As for the third article, on “Ziff, Magic Goggles, and Golden Plates,”
involving the etymology of zyf and a
Metallurgical Analysis of the Book of Mormon Plates, we can say first that the
word is Ziff, not zyf, until some transition from one to the other is made.
First, Grover uses Royal Skousen’s
argument to suggest mistakes in the usage of the word in the translation of the
Book of Mormon—something we have dealt with in this blog extensively and
recently. He also quotes Skousen “observation
of errors in spellings of proper personal and place names,” also the idea
that Ziff is a transliterated word, he claims means “a word from a different
language written in English solely based on pronunciation in the original
language”—however his explanation is inaccurate, since “Transliteration is not concerned with representing the sounds of the
original, only the characters, ideally accurately and unambiguously.”
The word “transcription” is what he meant, since it denotes the sounds but
not necessarily the spelling (N. S. Khaarusi & A. Salman, The English Transliteration
of Place Names in Oman. Journal of Academic and Applied Studies Vol. 1(3)
September 2011, pp. 1–27).
However, the point is that
Grover, like Skousen, keeps pressing the fact that the difficulty between the
interpreter (Joseph Smith) and the scribe (Oliver Cowdery, et al.) led to mistakes in
spelling, etc., which is a comment
Sorenson and Grover, as well as
Royal Skousen, are convinced that mistakes were made in the translation of the
Book of Mormon between Joseph Smith, the translator, and Oliver Cowdery, the
scribe. We reject such type errors as we have described countless times in this blog when dealing
with the Spirit involved in the process. This was not an academic assignment
where mistakes are often made, but one controlled by God through the Spirit,
using prophets especially called and scribes especially arranged by the Lord.
As such, unlike Skousen and Grover, we do not look for errors in what they
transcribed and wrote (other than the variance in grammar and spelling as
existing between then and now).
Building
with its distinctive Bismuth crystal-like blocks as designed by Frank Lloyd
Wright
It is also interesting of the 37
choices Grover lists that are possible metals of Ziff, plus the 3 alloys, and the 20
additional metals, for a total 60 in all, bismuth is not listed; however, as
we’ve pointed out before, bismuth was a metal, and the only one outside the
previous metals we know, used for decoration in pre-Inca and during Inca times
in Andean South America; and in addition, Peru is one of the world’s leading
producers of bismuth, silver, zinc, lead, and copper—ranking first in the production of bismuth and should have claimed
a place on his list for anciently bismuth was an important metal in antiquity
and before discovered to have such pharmaceutical value, was used primarily in
Peru as building decoration, just as is mentioned (Mosiah 11:3,8) with king Noah—but
when you are centered in Mesoamerica,
such an important issue is lost.
Bizmuth has also been used in decoration
in the making of "precious things," to enhance appearance in the
Pre-Inca Peruvian world with such decorative items as seen here
Along this line, it is also
interesting that while bismuth was unknown in Europe until the 15th
century, with its eventual discovery leading to its use as a silvery ink or
pigment which gave rise to a craze called Wismuth
Malerel, i.e., Bismuth Painting, its chemistry was not explored until the 19th
century. Yet, the Pre-Inca Peruvians knew of it and used it long before the
Inca, and not only for decorations but also to make knives, such as the
llama-headed handle on one found at Machu Picchu that was 18% Bismuth. Its many
properties were used in decoration and considered quite valuable.
Bizmuth painting (left) on a cabinet; (Right) a casket. It was one of the highest regarded styes of painting in antiquity
As an example, besides painting,
bismuth was attached with wax or glue,
creating a metallic surface about one millimeter thick, overlaid with gold or
amber lacquer for decoration. In the latter part of the eighteenth century,
bismuth painting was superseded by a cheaper process in which perfected lacquers
were applied directly to the wood.
In addition, natural bismuth was added to tin to make it hard and brilliant, as
well as whiter and more sonorous, and its many colorful properties exploited,
as mentioned in the original article on Ziff.
(See the next post, “Another
look at Ziff – Part II,” for a continuation regarding the naming of the metal
Ziff)
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ReplyDeleteSome one brought my attention to this post. First not sure if it was intentional or not, but this post does not accurately quote from page 2 of the Translation of the Caractors Document book, in fact the quotation mistake is so egregious that it looks to be a purposeful misrepresentation. I never indicated that I was working on Uto-Aztecan, it indicated I was working with Brian Stubbs to publish his work. Here is a direct link to that book https://www.academia.edu/19655755/Translation_of_the_Caractors_Document. If you would like to review Brian Stubb's book on the topic, it is found for free download at www.bmslr.org.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to bismuth, this blog is again wrong and misquoting the original work. Bismuth is specifically listed as one of the 37 possibilities considered on page 5 of the Ziff book. http://bmslr.org/books/Ziff,%20Magic%20Goggles,%20and%20Golden%20Plates.pdf. Another strange argument here is with regards to transliteration. Unless the author of this blog believes that the Nephites used written English, one possibility to be considered is that the word is transliterated with the English spelling dictated by Joseph Smith, because, as indicated in the Book of Mormon, on the plates it was written in reformed Egyptian script. I actually looked at the possibility of both transliteration and the concept of transcription (which would indicate that the scribe just guessed at the spelling of the word Joseph Smith dictated). Jerry Grover