Click for a larger image

This page deals with the “authenticity” of what most people call the Anthon Transcript, but which the translator calls the Caractors Transcript (CT) because of the peculiar spelling at the top.

The original document does not photograph well and does not produce a good image when copied directly.  The above rendition has been cleaned up by a professional artist so it prints with a crisp image.

The original document is in the Temple at the World Headquarters of the Community of Christ church in Independence, MO.  It may be inspected at the Temple Archives and the translator has carefully reviewed it as he compared it with the artist’s version shown above.

The translator has developed a Caractors Code Sheet to identify specific composite characters.  The serious reader should go to this Code Sheet link and print a hard copy for reference as he/she moves through the content of this website.

Authenticity:

One of the strongest evidences of authenticity is the fact that there is a message in those strange characters at all.  That message is coherent and is consistent with the Book of Mormon story.  The translator has demonstrated that the meanings of most of the characters within the message may be connected with the shapes and meanings of actual Egyptian hieroglyphics: hieroglyphics whose meanings were totally unknown to any human when they were copied in 1827.  Because of this, it is impossible that Joseph Smith, Jr. or ANY other human could have made such connections prior to 1834 when Champollion’s historic discoveries of the meanings of Egyptian hieroglyphics were first published.

The relative evenness of the left margin and raggedness of the right margin tells us that the characters were copied from left-to-right, while we now understand that the reading of the text is from right-to-left.  Consider that if the characters had not been faithfully copied, character-for-character and line-for-line, this would have scrambled the meaning of the text and the translator has demonstrated that this did not happen.  The message starts at the top right and ends at the bottom left.

As an example of this “scrambling” effect, reread the last sentence of the above paragraph word-for-word but in reverse order: from right-to-left, so it reads,   ‘left bottom the at ends and right top the at starts message the’.

The resulting reading is garbled and conveys ALL of the words but very little of the intended meaning of this sentence.

• Click here to explore identified “Transcription Errors” and “Caractor Alignment” problems

A second indication of the authenticity of the CT is the demonstrated similarities between the shapes and meanings of the Caractors and the shapes and meanings of corresponding Egyptian hieroglyphics.  This similarity of shape and meaning will be key to the understanding of how to read the characters and will be stressed throughout this website.

A third factor indicating authenticity is readily demonstrated: that of two different handwritings:  There are four lines of text written in large characters (A, B, C, and D: see the Code Sheet for codes).  Then there are three lines (E, F, and G) written in a cramped handwriting.  Many characters are repeated, written in both the larger and smaller scripts.  Note that the characters of A26, B7, and B17 in the larger script, are noticeably the same as those of G13 and G18, BUT they are in a different handwriting style.  This is also apparent in two other sets of similar characters: A5, B1, B11, as compared with E3, F18, and G47; and A25, B2, B16, as compared with E9, E21, and F32.  This is seen as indicating that there were TWO different, original authors, each writing in his own handwriting style.  This conclusion supports the translator’s understanding that the first four lines were written by Mormon and the last three, by Mormon’s son, Moroni.
[Future link to details about “different handwritings”]

Another factor indicating that the CT is an authentic copy, is the Book of Mormon lament by Moroni that he had no more plates to record his ‘intent’ for his portion of the Book of Mormon.

Behold, 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.  (Mormon 4:5-6, CofChrist; 8:5, LDS)

The translator believes that when Moroni found a small space at the end of Mormon’s intent (the first four lines), that he decided to squeeze his own intent beneath that of his father’s.  Moroni had little space and had to squeeze his intent into that tiny remaining space.

But, to me, the most important thing that indicates that the CT is the REAL THING, is the totally independent and powerful testimony that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God and that it is a gift to us from God Himself!  That testimony will come from the message itself and not from anything that I have manufactured!

Follow this website for further evidence that last statement is true, and I will eventually show you how YOU TOO, can interpret that message for yourself.

I plan to include the following items to back up that assertion.

• A bibliography–Evidence from authentic academic texts by recognized Egyptologists, verifying that (at least MOST of) the 20 Nephite ROOTS are indeed, derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics.

They will not verify that the Nephites actually DID use those hieroglyphics as sources, but WILL verify that the meanings ascribed to the hieroglyphics by recognized experts, are indeed those which are strongly related to the Roots used in the CT.

• Provide the Rules necessary to read the characters.
• Give YOU a digital copy of a ‘Read Only’ word processing document to which you can apply those Rules to do the translation down to the level of including virtually ALL of the words need for interpretation.  (You must be very careful to follow all rules precisely or the results may be flawed in some areas.  But you WILL BE ABLE to do it.  PS:  Because I am not a techy,  I am not sure I can get such a digital copy into this blog, but if not, I will send it via email to those who formally request it.)
• Provide a video demonstration of how a computer can be programmed to apply those Rules and Automatically Translate to give precisely the SAME words that you can get when you follow the rules exactly.

You will find that the message is NOT in the language structure of the English language for, it was not written in English.  But all of the English words WILL BE THERE and when you put them together in conventional English grammatical structure, you will be able to interpret the message.

STAY TUNED FOR ALL OF THIS and MUCH, MUCH MORE!  Just give us time to get all of this done!