The Anthon Transcript [was: A similar problem perhaps]

[Woody Brison <wwbrison@xxxxxxx>]

Hmmm, why is this so difficult?  Maybe if I learn to check 
the outgoing address on my posts... here's another repeat 
this time to the list

=============

This is great, to actually get some feedback...

I have 'debated' Mormonism with a lot of hostile people, so 
over the years I've developed a mindset about it that allows 
me to evaluate their criticisms objectively without being 
offended by their personal stances.  Your comments are very 
interesting and welcome.

And you are right, we don't know if the Anthon Transcript 
was made by Joseph Smith from the plates, or by some clever 
forger trying to discredit him, or some lunatic, or what, 
so even if I was defensive about the religion that wouldn't 
be legit here -- we don't know whether this is connected to 
the religion or not (and we may never know!)  Scientific 
detachment is called for.  You have no idea the fun we have
as Mormons trying to investigate our 'roots'; all sorts of 
nuts inject all sorts of pressures into any attempt to 
discuss anything on publicly accessible forums. 

Thanks for the pointer about Sequoia, I had forgotten that;
very appropo.  I will check.  My research needs a lot more 
familiarity with old alphabets.

Your comments on the fact that the characters get smaller 
as the lines go along are well appreciated.  I had noticed 
that but don't know what to think of it.  It's telling us 
something, but what?  That doesn't occur in the VMS, right?
I had a math professor in college that wrote on the 
blackboard like that. He would start big at the left and get 
smaller and smaller, but at the right he would run out of room 
in spite of his best efforts, and then he would turn the line 
of writing downward at the end, toward the lower right corner. 
I don't know too much about psychology, but he seemed a little
self-conscious in front of his classroom full of students; I 
thought that had something to do with it.  He was also very 
excited about his topic, almost oblivious to his class, the 
size of the blackboard, and everything else -- the spacing 
was just a very subordinate, half-noticed detail.

What about a model that supposes there were lines of text 
on the plates of a certain length, and Joseph Smith was 
trying to copy them onto the paper without breaking the 
line?  He was not highly educated, he was a farm boy, it 
would be a problem to him like hoeing a row of corn or 
something like that.  He'd start with a letter size about 
'yea big' and see how it went, as he got a ways down the row 
he'd see he wasn't going to make it and start reducing the 
letter size.

To check this idea we ought to measure the letter sizes 
and their spacing along the lines.  I will do that.  Good 
idea, thanks!  We should see the size getting smaller as 
we go downward, too, ie. the starting characters at the 
left of each line should decrease in size as we go down -- 
the writer should be getting smarter with each line.

Looking at the picture more closely, 
(http://web.lds.net/pages/wwbrison/freq_ct.htm)  I think 
this whole idea isn't right.  The first four lines don't 
show much variation in size of characters.  The first line 
does show some initial 'oversize' characters but 'corrects' 
this after 5 or 6 symbols; the rest of lines 1 thru 4 are 
of uniform size.  The last three lines look like a separate 
sitting, like someone wrote the first four, then after a 
day or week came back and decided to add three more lines. 
They are uniform size, all smaller.  Only a little variance 
here and there, most noticeable at the beginning of line 
6.  I will have to do the measurements.  I wonder if there 
were two different copyists? 

Gee, this is great!  I didn't expect to get this much help 
on the first try.

Joseph Smith was not crazy, but he did some crazy-looking 
things.  Travelled around quite a bit at great discomfort 
to promulgate his new religion, came into opposition with 
neighbors to the extent of having to move away several times,
built two large buildings at great expense at a time when 
his followers were penniless, settled them in a malaria 
swamp and by dint of mind-boggling effort turned it into 
a healthy place and a good sized city (Nauvoo), and so on.
Endured being arrested and sued something like 40 times,
never convicted.  If we assume he was crazy we could find 
many points of correspondence with that model.  But if we 
assume that he really had contact with God, then it all 
makes good sense according to that model too; better, I 
think...

I will try not to tangent like that too much here, this list 
is for discussing the VMS...  I wonder if there is anything 
from the Mormon mindset that could help decypher it?  A fair 
number of professors at BYU have been puzzling over a couple 
of ancient documents that Joseph Smith translated, and Mormons 
typically are very good with languages.  Mormon boys go on 
proselyting missions at age 19 for 2 years, and about half go 
to foreign missions and learn some new language if not several. 
Walk around Salt Lake City and take a straw poll, ask people 
what languages they know, and you'd be astonished at the 
results, if you didn't know about the missions thing but were 
familiar with Americans generally... 

OK, that's enough out of me.  I will try to relate this to the 
VMS in future, to try to sort of 'pay' for the help I'm getting 
with my project.

Woody


Brian Eric Farnell wrote:
> 
> Hey, those little characters that look like a computer mouse
> remind me of something I learned in Cub Scouts, maybe a Native
> American sign or something.  You might want to check the symbols
> against Native American alphabets, some had no written language
...