The Anthon Transcript IV

This series tells of Joseph Smith’s desire to have someone examine characters copied from the gold plates. It reprints a portion of Joseph Smith’s history dealing with the visit of Martin Harris to Charles Anthon, and also contains a letter sent to John A. Widtsoe by Frederick M. Smith of the Reorganized Church stating that the original copy of the Egyptian characters made by Joseph Smith is in the hands of the Reorganized Church. Furthermore, it tells of several different copies of the Egyptian characters in existence and gives examples of people verifying the genuineness of the characters as Egyptian. The fourth part presents a character-by-character analysis and interpretation of the Anthon transcript and concludes that a translation is still confronted with “formidable obstacles,” but that it is clearly Egyptian and “most closely akin to demotic.”