“Looking Again at the Anthon Transcript(s)”

Last updated on: January 3, 2025 at 2:34 pm by Dan Peterson

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“Looking Again at the Anthon Transcript(s)” 2025-01-03T14:34:10-07:00 Dan Peterson

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A photograph of Dr. Charles Anthon, taken between 1855 and 1865 by the famous Civil War photographer Mathew Brady (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

A new article has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. It is “Looking Again at the Anthon Transcript(s),” and it was written by John S. Thompson, who currently serves as a researcher for the Interpreter Foundation’s sister organization, Scripture Central.

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.

Dr. Thompson’s article is accompanied, online, by “Interpreting Interpreter: A Second Transcript,” which was written by Kyler Rasmussen:

This post is a summary of the article “Looking Again at the Anthon Transcript(s)” by John S. Thompson in Volume 63 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https://youtube.com/shorts/eK8uOmnOhek.

The Takeaway: Thompson highlights Martin Harris’s claim that there were two transcripts delivered to Anthon instead of one—the first with primarily Egyptian hieratic characters (possibly from Nephi’s small plates), which Anthon could recognize and partially translate, and a second with Reformed Egyptian (from the text compiled by Mormon) that he couldn’t decipher. This would help explain Anthon’s differing reactions to the provided characters.

I BELIEVE that this image, which perfectly represents the output of the Interpreter Foundation, is in the public domain.

The image above will also serve to introduce the miscellaneous elements of the remainder of this blog entry:

I doubt that very many foresaw this Jewish Journal article a few years back: “BYU Quarterback Jake Retzlaff Partners with Manischewitz: Retzlaff is the first Jewish quarterback in the history of BYU and one of only three Jewish students on BYU’s Mormon campus.”

Someone wrote to me two or three or more weeks ago, asking whether there were any materials that I could recommend to supplement his study of the Come, Follow Me curriculum this year, which focuses on the Doctrine and Covenants and the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The inquiry arrived pretty much at a moment when I was headed out the door for several days. I intended to respond, but I didn’t. And now I can’t remember who posed the question. There are a number of good resources, though. Here are two that I haven’t yet so much as seen, but that interest me and that I hope to take a look at within the next few days. The first comes from Casey Griffiths and our friends at Scripture Central. The second has been produced under the auspices of the Maxwell Institute:

The Scripture Central Commentary on the Doctrine & Covenants

“Book series “Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants” is now available to order”

There’s still a fair amount of water left on the planet (as here, in the Amazon River), so abstaining from alcohol or perhaps even Coke products won’t be inevitably fatal and need not leave one completely thirsty. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

A major new multi-author study entitled “Review of Evidence on Alcohol and Health” has been greeted with enthusiasm by at least a few online critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for quite obvious reasons:

A large new analysis finds that people who drink moderate levels of alcohol have a lower risk of dying from any cause than those who never drink. The new study findings contradict recent research that concluded that drinking has no health benefits at all and is linked to a higher risk for heart disease, cancer and other chronic conditions.

The analysis, the first of two major reports on alcohol consumption, will be used to help formulate the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, according to STAT.

The new report released this week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) refutes recent studies that say no amount of alcohol is safe. For example, experts told Medical News Today that moderate alcohol consumption does not significantly extend lifespan and may pose health risks, including increased cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative risks.

It directly contradicts certain other recent research reports, notably another large study that I’ve already mentioned once or twice here on this blog: “No amount of alcohol is good for your overall health, global study says” And this still more recent story should probably be, as it were, added to the mix: “1 in 20 deaths globally are a result of alcohol use” And then there are results such as these: “2016 Alcohol-Impaired Driving Fatalities per 100,000 Population by State.” And now, very recently, there’s this: “U.S. Surgeon General wants cancer warnings on alcohol: Dr. Vivek Murthy’s advisory calls alcohol the third-leading preventable cause of cancer”

I suspect that the science is going to go back and forth for quite a bit longer on this issue, if not altogether indefinitely. It seems to me, though, that faithful Latter-day Saints won’t go too far wrong, and their lives won’t be seriously impoverished, by simply following the Word of Wisdom. I’m not even altogether sure — in fact, I doubt it rather strongly — that the sole purpose of Doctrine and Covenants 89 is enhanced health, although I’m confident that that is an important element in the results.

Coincidentally, I enjoyed a breakfast this morning of Bob’s Red Mill Old Country Style Muesli. I’ve liked müesli since the early days of my mission in Switzerland and, in one form or another, it and its close derivative, granola, are favorite choices of mine for breakfast. (I’m confident that tens of thousands of folks out there have been dying for years to know my breakfast preferences! Now, they can go in peace.) Anyway, I was amused this morning to read the following on the Bob’s Red Mill package:

A quick bit of history: muesli was invented over a century ago by a Swiss doctor who was way ahead of his time when it came to understanding the health benefits of whole grains. He made all of his patients eat muesli every day, and they loved it!

Dr. Maximilian Bircher-Benner introduced what is often still known there in Switzerland as Birchermüesli around 1900. (And, for what it’s worth, the Bircher-Benner Clinic was located in Zürich, not too far distant from what was then the headquarters of the Switzerland Zürich Mission.) Still, although he may have been “way ahead of his time when it came to understanding the health benefits of whole grains,” he wasn’t the first to do so. The following was given through the Prophet Joseph Smith at Kirtland, Ohio, on 27 February 1833:

All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life, not only for man but for the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and all wild animals that run or creep on the earth. (Doctrine and Covenants 89:14)

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