Martin Harris did indeed as Mormons claim take a copy of some of the characters Joseph Smith said he copied from the golden plates to Dr. Charles Anthon at Columbia University in New York City. But there truth and LDS fiction part paths. Harris claimed that Professor Anthon said that the characters Harris brought were authentic ancient Egyptian, and were translated correctly. The other untranslated characters, said Harris, were declared by Anthon to be “Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic.”
However, in two separate letters he wrote later, Professor Anthon substantiated Harris”‘ claim that he had brought the characters to Anthon, but the professor vehemently denied that he had ever given the impression that the squiggles on Harris”‘ paper were ancient Egyptian””or ancient anything, for that matter. Anthon regarded the whole thing as “a trick.” As well he should ““ no one, including Anthon, could do an on-the-spot translation of Egyptian at that time since the language was as-yet undecipherable by anyone in 1828.
For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.
