I’ve just added a new page on the Anthon Transcript, a much-contested document that sits right at the heart of the Mormon Church’s founding story.
What I find interesting is that even though this is a topic that has been raked over meticulously for nearly two centuries, it is even today hard to be sure what was going on back then. All the same, even though we don’t know for sure what Martin Harris actually showed to Professor Anthon in 1828, it now – thanks to the chance 2012 discovery by Grindael of an 1884 photograph – seems highly unlikely that this was the ‘Caractors’ fragment that David Whitmer later claimed it was.
As always with historical ciphers, better evidence would surely improve the quality of the debate, as the discovery of the 2012 photograph clearly demonstrates: but what kind of better evidence could any kind of systematic search reveal here? What do we know we don’t know?
The 1884 photograph and the earlier newspaper “broadside” actually do give us some new info in the form of three additional character sets that appear to have been washed out or flaked off of one edge of the current document that we have. Two of the three character sets appear to be similar to extant characters but one would be considered new. I spent a chapter in my recent book looking at that issue (which is available for free on my website if anyone is interested)
Hello jerry J I have been looking through my decodes of the Beale treasure codes and came across the name of JAYS ZEBIDAYZE TRUST,.AND HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR A GRAVE NAME TO FIND WHERE BEALES TREASURE IS BURIED, NOW IT APPEARS ITS SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE MORMONS can you tell me what the jays trust is Stan clayton
stanleyclayton@talktalk,net
A new 2019 proposed translation of the Anthon Transcript can be found at http://bmslr.org/translation-of-the-caractors-document/