I would love to see some specific, thoughtful criticism. So far, the only negative responses people have raised to me about this project have been with a broad brush and seem to be based on assumptions they make due to the lack of trappings they would expect to see in a formal analysis. However, the evidence I'm gathering is informal and preliminary to any advanced academic undertaking which may or may not ultimately result, so the objections people have raised are not really apt.
For instance, multiple people have said they dismiss my work because my transliterations aren't correct. However, these people fail to realize that Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet misspells numerous words in English, so if we are to evaluate any potential Greek transliterating he may have been doing, we can't hold it to a higher standard than his English. That's why the results I return are from a wide net, although many people jump to the conclusion that a wide net equals cherry picking, which is just not the reality.
People also assume that potential Joseph Smith Greek transliterations should be expected to perfectly match, rather than merely be associated with, the descriptions provided in the Egyptian Alphabet. However, that's their arbitrary preference and should not be projected onto Joseph Smith. For instance, if different descriptions were "mowing lawns," "looking at the sky" and "walking in winter," and the respective transliteration results came back as "green," "blue," and "white," common sense would tell us there's a likely association between the descriptions and the transliterations, but people who aren't able or willing to see beyond the surface will, with a broad brush, dismiss any association as imagined.
Even without knowing exactly how Google Translate is glossing out its results, the results are still very useful. But people have to actually think. If the description is "Brigham Young," and there's a Google Translate result of "wagon," is that closer than a random word like "dog?" Yes of course. And that's the point of the evidence. If we consistently return results which are more closely related than random expectations, we can become quite confident that the results are not random.
One of Joseph Smith's descriptions is about something "seen" underwater, and the Google Translate result came back as "see." Obviously that's positive evidence, even without knowing how Google Translate glossed it out.
So it's a matter of evaluating each of the examples against a null hypothesis of random or, most often, no result at all. I have yet to see any serious engagement with the evidence, which will hopefully change.
Moreover, the threshold that needs to be met is just plausibility. The whole controversy around Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet has been about the assumption that it represents Joseph Smith's ability to translate regular Egyptian. But there's no proof that that's what Joseph Smith was even trying to do, and if it appears that other languages are involved (Reformed Egyptian, Greek, Hebrew, etc.) then the assumption grows weaker and the case against Joseph Smith becomes baseless.
If you've read my initial post and the follow-up, you probably have some pretty good context for understanding the following data, including the limitations of this experiment until we can trace down exactly what glosses Google Translate is basing its results on. Although, if the results are ultimately confirmed, that could greatly change the lens through which we evaluate Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet.
This post will walk you through the results I have so far. I want to emphasize that we should not expect the names of every entry in the Egyptian Alphabet to yield a result here, because other languages than Greek and English might also be involved, and we are not testing for those. We don't know how many entries are intended to relate to Greek. It's a question of how much cumulative evidence points to some sort of Greek connection. There's a pattern of meaningful results, and each result strengthens that pattern.
Also, it's possible that some of the Egyptian Alphabet entries are contractions which don't play out in the real world of linguistics but which involve real words and which play out for the Egyptian Alphabet's internal purposes, similar to how Joseph Smith combined the real word "more" with the real word "mon," even though one was modern English and one was Ancient Egyptian. In other words, the fact that he took liberties does not negate the fact that his claim about the ancient language is defensible, as I explained in a previous post.
Now, a word is in order about my transliteration methodology.
The testing process itself is not concerned with how Joseph Smith would have access to Greek. And it is not our job to correct Joseph Smith's methodology. The purpose of my methodology is not to fully identify and understand Joseph Smith's own methodology, but to cast a net large enough to capture any potential Greek transliterating Joseph Smith may have been doing, even if we don't understand all the nuances of his methods.
For instance, we see the letter B at the start of the word Beth in the Egyptian Alphabet. It might be tempting to think, "well, in Greek B is represented with the digraph μπ, so that's how Joseph Smith would have transliterated it into Greek." However, that's only one possibility.
Another possibility is that Joseph Smith intended the word Beth to refer to a single Greek letter, e.g. Beta. It's true that Beta has a V-sound in modern pronunciation, but we can't assume that Joseph intended it to sound like an English, rather than Greek, B. Similarly, when we see the letter P, such as in the second entry of the Egyptian Alphabet, "pha-e," we can't just assume it's supposed to sound like the English letter P, but it may be a trilled R like the Greek letter rho.
Yet another possibility is that each letter in Beth corresponds with a single Greek letter, meaning that Beth would transliterate into four different Greek letters.
Or, he could be going strictly by sound and it would be our job to piece together the small variety of ways the word "Beth" as it sounds in English could be transliterated into Greek, regardless of how many or how few letters are involved.
And at least one other possibility exists, which is that Joseph Smith was using a combination of methods, and changing them as he felt like doing so, without instructing us. In the case of Beth for instance, Joseph Smith may have intended the letter B to directly represent the Greek letter Beta, while the E is supposed to be sounded out as the long-e of Upsilon (not Epsilon) and the last two letters of Beth, th, sound out together as Theta. And indeed this gives us the Beta-Upsilon-Theta transliteration which yields a very relevant English result in Google Translate.
As one last note on my methodology for now, I want to stress that I'm not cherry-picking. The key here is that as I keep casting out the net, I'm not retrieving lots of other results and arbitrarily discarding them. Some, yes, but not many. Usually no English result materializes with any particular transliteration, and if a result in English does materialize, what pops up is something either relevant or inconsequential like the word "the."
Alright, what follows are the results (see appendix, below, for Google Translate screenshots).
ah the first being who exercises Supreme power
The name here is ah. Ah is the sound of Alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet. The description, "the first being who exercises Supreme power," seems like a reference to Deity. Alpha is part of the title for God, "Alpha and Omega." Alpha also represents the first of anything, therefore matching the words of the description, "the first being." So, right off the bat we have reason to believe that Greek is involved, here.
Ah-bra-oam. The father of many nations, a prince of peace, one who keeps the commandments of God, a patriarch, a rightful heir, a high priest
The name here is Ah-bra-oam. The whole description is about works, so it's fascinating that when I rendered it into Greek and entered it into Google Translate it gave the word "Works."
Ahnaios God without begining or end
The name here is Ahnaios. This might be confusing, because the Joseph Smith Papers website transcript has this as "Ahmeos," but they apparently made an error in this case. Looking at the word as written by Joseph Smith, it is clearly "Ahnaios," not "Ahmeos." The JSPP website also shows a word crossed out in the transcript here, where the actual document does not show a word crossed out.
As we parse this out, it seems likely to be a contraction, because Joseph Smith has already associated "ah" with the description, "the first being who exercises Supreme power," indicating God, and this seems confirmed by the fact that Ahnaios starts with "ah," and the corresponding description associated with Ahnaios starts with "God."
So if we break down "ah" and "naios" as two separate parts, what is the meaning for the naios part? I transliterated it and searched in Google Translate and the result came back, "Temple." There's plenty of room for a match here, considering the temple's extensive symbolism, and it's remarkable that such a relevant result would come back at all.
While keeping the result of "temple" in mind, consider how it relates to the next entry we will cover.
Ebethcha the greatest place of hapiness where God resides the Celesstial Kingdom
The name here is Ebethcha. Here, it's talking about the absolute greatest place of happiness, and the Google Translate result is "Get in," which of course means to "enter." This is actually very significant because from a temple perspective the idea of the Celestial Kingdom, "where God resides," is symbolically depicted in a Celestial Room, and has very significant connotations with the invitation to "enter" (or "get in"). This match is actually very remarkable and substantive in meaning, despite the informal verbiage of the Google Translate result.
Kah tou man the name of a royal family in female line
The name here is Kah tou man. I discuss this at length in a previous post, but the Google Translate result is "Mrs. Min." Like the Egyptian Alphabet entry, then, the Google Translate result is making a very specific female reference. Every woman referred to in that "female line" would be a "Mrs." The significance of this in the big picture is not stated, but the odds of Google Translate randomly returning such a specific result seem very low.
Iota the eye or to see or sight sometimes me myself
Iota tou-es Zip-Zip the land of Egypt first seen under <water>
Sue Eh ni what other person is that or who
These three consecutive entries in the Egyptian Alphabet go together, as pretty powerful evidence, as I explained and unpacked in a previous post. Even the simple fact that Iota is a Greek letter and Tau is a Greek letter is enough to lend plausibility to a Greek connection, but I would encourage you to read the analysis in the other post.
ho-ee-oop young unmarried man a pri[n]ce
The name here is ho-ee-oop. The description gives us the distinction of "a prince," and the Google Translate result gives us "Your Honor." Now, I realize that one might be more inclined to think of a judge than a prince when hearing "your honor," however the exact conventions are not the primary issue here, since we don't know how Google Translate is glossing this out. The fact Google Translate returned a reference to honor/authority being held by an individual and that the description also references honor/authority being held by an individual seems quite significant.
ho-ee oop hah Crown of a prince or King
The name here is ho-ee oop hah. This is similar to ho-ee-oop. But the Google Translate result is "The Hour." This is very interesting actually, as it brings to mind Christ repeatedly saying that his hour had not yet come, then at the Last Supper we are told "his hour had come" (John 13:1) and then Jesus prays, saying "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you" (John 17:1). Glorify = crown, as Hebrews 2:9 tells us Jesus was "crowned with glory and honour" in the context of his death, i.e. Christ's death being the very symbolism of the Last Supper, in which Christ also declares the hour has come. So this is a context in which "Honor" (see my analysis of "ho-ee-oop," above), and "The Hour" and "Crown of a prince or King" all come together and make sense.
<Zi> Virgen unmaried or the pri[n]ciple of vi[r]tue
The name here is Zi. My rendering allows the Z to stand for the Greek letter zeta, and the i to stand for the Greek letter eta, in which case Google Translate gives the result, "she lives." That's very interesting when talking about a vigin and virtue, etc. Google Translate wasn't forced to return any result at all, but it returned something quite relevant. I discuss this entry at greater length in a previous post.
Zie oop hah An unmaried woman and a vi[r]gin pri[n]cess
The name here is Zie oop hah. The Joseph Smith Papers Project suggests the "Zie" may be "Zii," which I tried and got the Google Translate result "living well." This of course could describe a chaste and/or royal life, from the Egyptian Alphabet description, but I also suspect some wordplay here, based on John, chapter 4. The first little convergence I find interesting is the woman at Jacob's Well who declared to Jesus she had no husband (4:17), because the Egyptian Alphabet description says "an unmaried woman." Of course, she's not the virgin princess, but I'll get to that part in a moment. Jesus was talking with her at a well, discussing living waters, and Jesus promised the ability to give "a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (4:14, NIV), i.e. describing a "living well." The well where Jesus spoke to the woman was Jacob's Well, which converges with the "virgin princess" part, as Jacob's mother Rebecca is introduced to us in the Bible as a virgin at a well (i.e. "...when a virgin cometh forth to draw water..." Gen. 24:43) and Midrash identifies Rebecca's father, Bethuel, as a king (Numbers Rabbah 14:11), which would make her a princess, thus a virgin princess at the time of her introduction at the well, thus tying together the Egyptian Alphabet description of Zi (virgin, principle of virtue, etc.) with the Google Translate result for Zi (She lives) and the description of Zie oop hah (unmaried woman, virgin princess) and the Google Translate result for Zie oop hah (living well).
Aleph in the begining with God the Son or <first born>
The name here is Aleph. Although Aleph is not a Greek letter, it is related to the Greek letter Alpha. Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and has strong allusions to God in Judaism.
In Chabad, the shape of the Aleph is symbolic of God and man's unity with God. The character associated with Aleph in the Egyptian Alphabet has the characteristics representing God and man's unity with God, matching the description given by Joseph Smith of being "with" God. See the slide, below. The original shape is thought to be derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph depicting an ox head. If Joseph Smith is showing a Nephite "Reformed Egyptian" version, they may have left off the bottom YUD. For more on the Reformed Egyptian connection to the Egyptian Alphabet, see Dr. Michael Hubbard Mackay's comparison between Reformed Egyptian characters and characters in the Egyptian Alphabet. For clarification and expansion of this argument, see the following slide:
I have only analyzed about half of the Egyptian Alphabet entries, most of which have yielded results. The last thing I want to do for now is just touch on some of the Beth entries.
The Beth entries
Beth mans first residence frui[t]ful garden A great valy a place of hapiness 1 times
This sounds like the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden had set boundaries and rules, it was a district. What if I told you that Google Translate returned the word "district" when I rendered Beth to Greek and entered it?
Webster's 1828 dictionary says this about the word "district": "Properly, a limited extent of country; a circuit within which power, right or authority may be exercised, and to which it is restrained; a word applicable to any portion of land or country, or to any part of a city or town, which is defined by law or agreement."
Consider those words: "a limited extent of country ... within which power, right or authority may be exercised, and to which it is restrained..." The word "district" directly describes the Garden of Eden.
The Egyptian Alphabet has a theme of being underwater ("beneath or under water," "the land of Egypt first seen under <water>") and some of the Beth translation results are very in line with that theme.
There is "abyss," "deep," dive," "dry," and even "submarine" which literally means underwater. The fact that these are established themes within BOTH the document and the translation results indicates a level of convergence that really defies coincidence. Although this is pending verification of the Google Translate glosses, the fact that Google Translate would return these results at all is remarkable.
Conclusion
The results here are not what anyone would have likely expected. These results reinforce my hypothesis, although I'm hoping for well thought out critical feedback from readers.
I'm very interested in hearing substantive appraisals of the evidence, including evidence-based alternate explanations anyone might have.
Results, etc. (Appendix)
