Part One
The year is 1829. The place is upstate New York. Using his trusty magic rock, a 23-year old farm boy dictates a six hundred page book from the bottom of a hat. He says it is a history of some folks who left Jerusalem about 600 B.C. He says it is written in the language of the Egyptians but with the larning of the Jews.
The Larning of the Jews
Old Names in a New Book
This book contains a lot of people. Farm boy gives many of them names. A lot of those names can be found in the Bible. Names like Lehi and Laman and Lemuel. A lot of those names caint’ be found in the Bible. Queer names like Chemish, Hagoth, and Himni. More queer names like Jarom, Josh and Luram. Still more queer names like Mathoni, Mathonihah and Muloki. It’s not hard to come up with queer sounding names. Just string some consonants together, throw in a few vowels, and viola! Queerest of all is that all these queer sounding names turn out to be actual names from ancient Israel. Turns out those ancient folk used to seal their envelopes with wax before we got civilized and larnt to do it with spit. Then they’d stick their names in the wax to show who the letter was from. Some of those wax pieces got all petrified and gets discovered long after this book comes off the press. These Jewish names in the book get found on these hard wax pieces. Bully for them, I says.
Jershon is mentioned as a land. This land was given to a group of people who were thrown out of their home land. The book says it was given to them as a land of inheritance. Turns out Jershon means “land of inheritance” in Hebrew. What are the odds?
A really funny name is Alma. Now, that’s not so funny if it’s a girl being called Alma. But in this book, it’s a man. And not just one man, but two. A father and his son. I guess the first Alma hated his name so much he decided to saddle his son with it, just to get even. Life ain’t easy for a boy named Alma. At least, it ain’t easy until 1968 when an old land deed turns up in Israel showing another guy named Alma lived in Israel a long time ago, too. Third time pays for all, I suppose.
This book also contains a bunch of what turn out to be Egyptian names. I guess that makes sense because the book is supposed to be written in some kind of new fangled Egyptian. What don’t make sense is that Egyptian wasn’t really translatable yet. Ammon was a big name among the ancient Egyptians. Probably because Ammon was a god or something. Turns out the name Ammon gets a lot of play in this book, too. More people are named Ammon even than Alma. It even gets used in other names; names like Ammonihah, Amnihu and Helaman. Seems this book can’t get enough of the name Ammon. Just like the Egyptians couldn’t.
A fellow named Korihor shows up in the book. He is a bad egg. Only later do some egg heads discover that Kherihor is an old Egyptian name. A guy named Pahoran has a kid named Paanchi. Another egg head named William F. Albright says these are authentic Egyptian names, and he fancied himself some type of expert. He says this in 1966. Albright don’t believe this book is true, necessarily. But he does say that, given the fact Egyptian had just begun to be deciphered when this book was translated, “it is all the more surprising that there are two Egyptian names, Paanch and Pahor(an) which appear together.”
Another name in this book is Aha. That’s a funny name. Sounds like something I might say when stumbling acrost a licorice whip I’d given up for lost. This Aha isn’t an important person in the book. His name just gets mentioned the once. It’s come and gone before you knows it. But the really funny thing is it turns out to be a real name, and an Egyptian name, to boot. Guess it means “warrior” in old Egyptian. They gave this name to their first king. Funny that.
This book starts at the same time a guy named Zedekiah is king of Jerusalem. That’s not hard. Zedekiah is mentioned in the Bible as the king of Jerusalem. The Bible says that the Babylonians killed all of Zedekiah’s sons. The farm boy’s book says that’s not right; that one of Zedekiah’s sons escaped being kilt; that this son’s name was Mulek. Now, Mulek is not mentioned in the Bible. At least not so’s you can see right off. What is mentioned in the Bible is a guy named “Malchiah the son of Hammelech.” Jeremiah lived at the same time as Zedekiah, but who is this guy “Malchiah”? Turns out this isn’t translated too well in the King James; that it should be translated “MalkiYahu, son of the king.” Now, the king at the time of Jeremiah might have been Zedekiah, but who is this MalkiYahu fellow?
It gets stranger, because the Yahu at the end of his name is a shortened form of the name of the Jewish God they called Yahweh. Lots of folks had this at the end of their name. Heck, Jeremiah did, too. So did Zedekiah. It was all over the place. Although it wouldn’t have occurred to me, the same person’s name could be written with or without the Yahu ending. Jeremiah had a scribe named Baruch, but the long form of his name, BerekYahu, got found on a seal impression from old-time Israel. If Baruch and BerekYahu are different ways of writing the same name, I reckon MalkiYahu could also be written as Malki.
But what does Malki have to do with Mulek? Seems the ancient Hebrews weren’t too keen on vowels. They just didn’t like them. They didn’t use them in their writing; only the consonants. Sounds confusing to me. But when we write out those old Jewish names today, we put in vowels to make them easier to say. The consonants in Malki are kind of the same as the consonants in Mulek. No wait. They are exactly the same. Some smart feller at the Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University said that “Malkiyahu is a common name and was even borne by a contemporary son of king Zedekiah.” (This smart feller’s last name is Ahoroni. He is Jewish. I don’t even want to get started with that name and how it kind of sounds like somebody else’s name. But it sounds like he is purty close to agreeing with this farm boy’s book, as far as this goes.)
What we end up with is this 1829 book giving the name Mulek as the son of king Zedekiah. Zedekiah’s name is mentioned in the Bible. Mulek’s is not. Or is it? Looks like something very like it is actually encrypted into a bad translation from one verse of Jeremiah in the King James. I’m thinking the guy who dictated Mulek from the bottom of a hat in 1829 didn’t know this, though. It’s hard enough for me just to get my head around this MalkiYahu thing. I cain’t imagine coming up with it myself out of whole cloth.
According to the story in this book, Mulek is not just the only one of Zedekiah’s sons that lives, he also ends up becoming the king of another group that heads out of Jerusalem in the nick of time. Did I mention the word Mulek means “king” in Hebrew? But now that farm boy is just showing off.
Gold Bibles
Farm Boy’s Gold Book
This here farm boy describes the book he says he dictated off of as being writ on gold plates with holes punched on one side and metal loops stuck through to keep the pages from scattering. Now who ever heerd of such a thing as that? What an imagination on that boy! So much imagination, in fact, that it took into the next meelinioom for gold books to start turning up. The first one knowd to modern man shows up in Boolgaria back in 2003. Folks say it was writ in “Etruscan” or something. Dates clear back to 600 B.C., right when the farm boy says his book starts. It warn’t but another two years before another gold book gets found. This one in Iran. Eight gold sheets writ in coonayiform. So one gold book found in 2003. Another one found in 2005. Both writ on gold plates with holes punched on one side and metal loops stuck through to keep the pages from scattering. Some imagination on that farm boy, I say.
New Found Gold Book
Hebrews Writing in Gyptian?
This here book says it was writ in Hebrew language but didn’t use Hebrew writing. It used Gyptian writing instead. Now what sense does that make? I never heerd of old time Jews writing in no Gyptian alphabet. Some time after this book comes out, though, archeeologists done found a piece of what they call papeerus in an old jar. They called it Papeerus Amherst 63 for some reason. Well, even though they had pretty well figured out the Gyptian language by then, they still had a powerful hard time reading it.
It jest didn’t make no sense. Then, in 1944, some smart feller name of Raymond Bowman at the Uneeversity of Chicago lights on why it’s so been so hard to read. The writing is Gyptian, but the language is some sort of Hebrew offshoot they call Armayic. Part of what’s writ there is from the twentieth Psalm. So what they got there in this Papeerus Amherst 63 is a passage from the Bible, writ in the Arymayic language, but writ in Gyptian caractors. Now don’t that beat all?
Cement Buildings
You’d think cramming all those Hebrew and Gyptian names into the book would have plum wore out this farm boy. But he’s just getting warmed up. There were still lots of Injuns around in 1829. Even in New York. This book says it is the history of those Injuns and their ancestors long ago. Any fool, even a farm boy, would know that Injuns didn’t live in nothing but teepees and wigwams. But this farmboy plunks smack dab in the middle of his book that at one point way back, these Injuns made buildings out of cement. I knew you wouldn’t believe that whopper. Even the white men weren’t making buildings out of cement in 1829 New York. Then, a long time later, what do a bunch of archeologist fellers find down in the south of Mexico? Buildings made out of cement. I don’t know if I have a harder time believing this farm boy puts cement buildings in his book, or that the archeologists actually find cement buildings later on. And these cement buildings are around at the same time the book says they are, and in the same place, too. Leastwise if you think there are two Cumorahs stead of just the one. Some smart folks is saying the farm boy’s book has the wrong reason for the cement buildings being there, and maybe they’re right. But it seems to me they jest might be talking bout fleas on a elephant.
Big Old Cement Building
There’s lots more ground to cover, but I expect I better sign off for now. Next time I’ll tell you about things this farm boy knew he shouldn’t have known, and things he didn’t know that he shoulda.
Corbin Volluz
Corbin Volluz lives in the beautiful foothills of the Cascade Mountains in western Washington state. He has been practicing law for 25-years with a focus on criminal defense and personal injury. Corbin joined the LDS Church in June of 1978, shortly after the lifting of the priesthood ban, and has been studying Mormonism ever since. He has been published in several venues, including the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and BYU-Studies.
All posts by Corbin Volluz
I had a really hard time following along in this posting….it just didn’t coherently fit together for me
I would really love to see your sources for this.
Hi, Naomi!
Thanks for being interested enough to want to see sources. Here are a few links that may be of some help.
Here is a link dealing with the issue of concrete:
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=71&chapid=827
Here is an article dealing with some extra-biblical Book of Mormon names:
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=9&num=1&id=210
Here is an article dealing with assorted other matters some of which are referred to in the blog post (though this is just a transcript without footnotes):
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/transcripts/?id=1
It doesn’t cover everything, but least it is a start!
Can you give me an explanation as to why are Greek names used in 600 bc among the H
ebrews? example Jesus, Christ, Bible, Baptism
Hi, Carlos!
Probably for the same reason English words show up, as well.
This answer isn’t as flippant as it may sound at first.
The words you cite, though coined in Greek, were long ago adopted into the English language, the same as lots of words and names from other languages, such as Italian and German.
For example, we have “Christ” as an English transliteration of the Greek “Christos.”
In this way, “Christ” has become the English equivalent of the Greek “Christos,” and is therefore an English word, not a Greek word.
When I look at it this way, it is no more surprising to me that “Christ” should show up in the Book of Mormon than any other English word (and a certain infamous French word!)
Hope this helps.
Adieu!
It may have been adopted into the English as you claim, but how could it have been adopted into the Hebrew or “REFORM Egyptian” language before there was any Greek language.
Much of this article is predicated on a rather false assumption: that Joseph Smith was poorly educated. His father was at times a school teacher, as was his brother Hyrum. His cousin, Olivery Cowdery, was also a teacher. Most rural children of the time received an education through homeschooling, and Joseph appears to have had ample access to trained teachers. Additionally, his family lived a few miles from the Eerie Canal, which would have provided access to a plethora of books at the Palmyra station. Joseph may not have had much “formal” education. But there is ample evidence to suggest that he has highly educated.
http://www.mormonthink.com/josephweb.htm#education
Hi to you, too, Janet!
Thanks for posting your ideas about the article.
You and I have very different ideas about the level of Joseph Smith’s formal education as of the time he dictated the Book of Mormon (with his face in a hat, no less). I mean no offense by this, but your “evidence” of Joseph Smith’s formal education seems to be built solely on speculation. While it is always possible that Joseph was the exception to the normal upstate New York farm boy who had to spend the vast majority of his time scraping out a living from the unforgiving soil, I am aware of no evidence that this is the case.
But really, Joseph’s level of education is a non-issue from my perspective, because he would have had to have been the best educated person in the world to have learned a “passel” of things that hadn’t even been discovered yet.
It is these items in the Book of Mormon that were discovered only after its publication in 1830 that this article emphasizes.
While I readily admit there are numerous items in the Book of Mormon that seem to fit comfortably into Joseph Smith’s cultural milieu, there are in addition so many things that instead seem to link with the Old World that it gives me pause.
Thanks again for reading!
Reading back over this I feel like I’m left wanting more and more. There is little in here that would make me feel like I am getting substance or something other than a stretch of imagination. There is nothing to cite sources….nothing to verify the veracity of what you discuss. Also, your tone is very condescending….it basically comes off as “duh…look at all these ‘facts’…if you don’t believe in the Book of Mormon after this you must be silly”.
Hi, Garrett! First, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my blog. It is my first ever and I am very excited about it.
When I was asked to do a blog on “Book of Mormon Bull’s-Eyes,” I began to do it in the way it has always been done; which is to assume a scholarly tone and pack in lots of footnotes. But as I say, this is the way it has always been done. You can go to any of a number of sources to find these evidences set forward in a typically dry fashion. “What is the point in just doing the same old thing?” I thought.
So I began typing and things just started pouring out. What I ended up with was the view of an elderly farmer who is acquainted with the Smith family and lives only a few miles away. He doesn’t know Joseph Smith personally, but is aware of him as one of the “Smith kids,” or as he puts it, “the farm boy.”
But this character speaks with two voices: (1) The crusty voice of the 1830 upstate New York farmer neighbor; and, (2) The voice of the same person who is somehow acquainted not only with the Smiths, but also with the discoveries that have come about since the publication of the Book of Mormon.
With these two simultaneous views, this character can give an opinion of Joseph Smith that has never been heard before. And by speaking with the early nineteenth century voice, I think it highlights the remarkableness of what Joseph Smith achieved with his “gold Bible.”
This character is a bit rough around the edges, but good at heart. It may be that which makes him tend to sound a bit “condescending,” though that was not my (or his) intent.
Hope this helps answer some of your questions. Thanks again for taking the time to read and to post your thoughts!
I’m sorry, but I have friends who are serious and qualified researchers, and this “article” is an insult to anyone who is trying to look at the issues in a responsible manner. I would like to find sources which have been carefully researched and presented. This was a joke, and I’m not laughing.
I guess I better remove it from the Humor section, then.
An excellent response to this post is contained here http://packham.n4m.org/linguist.htm
Brother Packham seems like a very nice fellow from what little I know of him, but I respectfully disagree that the link you have provided constitutes a meaningful response to this post.
If you would like to pick something in particular to discuss, I would be happy to do so.
I’d reply by saying let the readers decide.
What do you decide, Brent?
And why?
I have read this all before, but this is an nice rhetorical style to give a fresh perspective on evidence that the critics probably actually already know but like to pretend doesn’t exist.
I think my favourite new response is the “New and Improved Joseph Smith – Now With More IQ,” with the endless free time to read and study hundreds of obscure books in dozens of libraries, all behind everyone’s back.
Thanks for your comments, Grantley.
I agree with you that, in order to explain the Book of Mormon as a product exclusively of Joseph Smith and his environment, it is necessary to postulate a Joseph Smith who is one part farm boy, one part modern scholar with a mastery of ancient literature, and two parts super hero.
Corbin, I appreciated the chance to read this blog post. Although I had already been acquainted with most of the points you brought up (the new ones were great, though), the tone made it fun to revisit. My only request would be to post your sources at the end of the blog so your readers, especially the skeptics, can review them at their leisure. I don’t think in-text references are necessary, given the voice, but it wouldn’t hurt the tone to have them pasted on at the end.
Thanks for your comments, Mike.
I think you have a good point about posting the sources at the end. I will see what I can do about that, though it may be a little late at this point.
I have been so immersed in this stuff for so many years that I probably took it for granted that most who read here would already be familiar with the subject. I may have made a mistake there, though judging from a lot of the comments, many are.
I also thought it would be fun to just throw it out there without footnotes or references and see how it would sound. My impression is that it sounds like a tale too tall to be believed.
Of course, the twist is that it is all true.
To my mind, the Book of Mormon has too many connections to the ancient world to dismiss it out of hand as purely a piece of early nineteenth century Americana.
I loved this post. I found it’s easy to consume style of writing refreshing and informative. Nice work.
Thanks, Wellington.
That was another part of my thinking process in presenting the information in this type of format (without footnotes). I was able to take what are (to me) some of the most significant connections with the Book of Mormon to the ancient world and put them out in a concentrated fashion, even though it took two posts to do it.
Presenting it in this way tends to emphasize the strength of the evidence, I think, without getting sidetracked into a bunch of footnotes and “scholar-ese.”
Though I came perilously close to that in talking about Ben-Hammelech and Malchi-Yahu. ;^)
Thanks again!
Since I don’t know much about Reformed Egyptian, I will comment on the Hebrew part of your question.
The Hebrew word “Messiah” is translated into the Greek “Christos” is translated into the English Christ.
I expect a similar pattern would follow for whatever the term might have been in Reformed Egyptian.
All ancient documents that have been translated from foreign languages into English had to have some English counterpart to the ancient foreign expression. Otherwise no translation could have occurred.
I am not seeing a big problem here.
I’m your biggest fan. I think this article is amazing. In speaking with the voice of a farmer from the same time period that Mark Twain wrote about in “Tom Sawyer” you bring light and dimension to a subject that has been hashed over and written about too many times to mention.
What a brilliant way to present this topic. And the former speculation that Joseph Smith was educated is against all historical written accounts of the Smith family.
Thank you for giving this dusty, musty topic dimension, and bringing into perspective, through voice, a well-fleshed out character that was poorly educated, and poor in worldly goods, but raised up to be a prophet of God.
Thank you so much, Dee, for your insightful and invariably flattering comments.
Love,
Corbin