The Caractors Transcript (CT) is a hand-written copy (using a quill pen on old paper) of about 217 characters. The strange characters were copied from the record of a people that were led from the Land of Jerusalem during the reign of King Zedekiah, around 600 BC. One scribe said that his people called the form of writing ‘reformed Egyptian.’
The CT message is a summary of the content of the Book of Mormon and was prepared by the last two prophets who completed the record–Mormon and his son, Moroni. The first four lines were written by Mormon in bold characters. The last three were written by Moroni and were in a cramped handwriting, for as Moroni said (Mormon 4:5-6, CofChrist; 8;5, LDS) :
“My father hath made this record, and he hath written the intent thereof. And behold, I would write it also, if I had room upon the plates, but I have not; and ore I have none, for I am alone; my father hath been slain in battle.”
So Mormon’s ‘intent’ is in the first four lines. Apparently, Moroni finally decided that he could fit his summary (or ‘intent’) in the small space left by Mormon if he made his writing small enough. Note the differences in handwriting in the sample of similar characters provided above.
Mormon’s portion was apparently located at the very end of the record (which is identified as being the ‘Small Plates of Nephi’ which was the spiritual record of Nephi–See Words of Mormon, 4-9 CofChrist; 3-6 LDS), but because the writing reads from right-to-left, the English reader who copied the characters (Joseph Smith, Jr.) was looking at the last page of the document (which he probably assumed was the beginning rather than the end) when he copied the characters that he had not yet translated. The characters were copied from left-to-right, quite opposite from the direction the characters were to be read. (Note how the left margin is relatively straight while the right margin more jagged.) Similarly, a modern-day Jew would read his Hebrew Torah starting at what most English readers would call, the ‘back’ of the book, because Hebrew also reads from right-to-left.
The CT includes only a very limited set of words for it deals with the two records of the lives of two peoples who were led by God; the general nature of the two messages on the records; the names of some of the people who wrote those records; the general content of the records, and the divinity of the Source that inspired the writing of these two records.
Where do you want to go from here?
A detailed translation of the CT.
A discussion of problems of translation of different languages.
How to use the Code Sheet to identify and analyze specific characters.
(10/11/2018)