Papyrus London 904 and the Historicity of the Census in Luke 2

And it came to pass in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, hat all the world should be taxed . . . And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. (Luke 2:1, 3)

When discussing the historicity of the census in Luke 2, F.F. Bruce offered the following piece of evidence:

There is explicit evidence that the practice of requiring each householder to return to his original home for census purposes was enforced in Egypt. A papyrus document of A.D. 104 has preserved a decree of the prefect of Egypt embodying just such a direction for householders in his province. Once again, the evidence comes from Egypt because such evidence is most easily preserved in Egypt, but the practice need not have been confined to Egypt. (F.F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1984], 194)

The papyrus Bruce references in a footnote is that of Papyrus London 904. The following is an image of the text:

One online source summarises the document thusly:

Papyrus Census Order

From Egypt, 104 CE, Ht. 22.2 cm. BL Papyrus 904.

A papyrus document containing a command in Greek from the Prefect Gaius Vibius Maximus for all those in his area of authority to return to their own homes for the purposes of a census (apogaphēs). This illustrates a situation in the time of Trajan analogous to that described by Luke at the time of the birth of Christ (Luke 2-1-4), when Augustus decreed that a census should be taken of the Roman world.

 At least one criticism levelled against the historicity of Luke's account, the purported claim that a census requiring people to go back home to their original house is nonsense is soundly refuted by the evidence.

Joseph Smith's Description of the Apostle Paul and the Acts of Paul and Thecla

William Clayton, on 5 January 1841, recorded the following comments from Joseph Smith who described the apostle Paul thusly:

Description of Paul—He is about 5 foot high; very dark hair; dark complection; dark skin; large Roman nose; sharp face; small black eyes, penetrating as eternity; round shoulders; a whining voice, except when elevated and then it almost resembles the roaring of a Lion. (The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith [comp. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook; Orem, Utah: Grandin Book Company, 1991], 59)

Some may wonder how Joseph Smith got this information, whether supernaturally (from a revelation or vision) or another source. On this issue, the source was from his reading of a book he had in his possession, William Hone’s Apocryphal New Testament. In some of the works contained therein, most notably the Acts of Paul and Thecla (AKA Acts of Paul) dating to about AD 160, the description the prophet gave of the apostle Paul matches perfectly with this work, showing that Joseph was dependent upon this source for his description of Paul.

In Paul and Thecla, we read the following description of the Apostle:

At length they saw a man coming (namely Paul), of a low stature, bald (or shaved) on the head, crooked thighs, handsome legs, hollow-eyed; had a crooked nose; full of grace; for sometimes he appeared as a man, sometimes he had the countenance of an angel. And Paul saw Onesiphorus, and was glad. (1:7)

Was Jesus a "Rabbi"? And if so, does that mean he was (1) married and (2) a polygamist?

Recently, on a facebook page dedicated to answering questions LDS missionaries who are currently serving have about the Gospel, one Latter-day Saint argued that Jesus was a “rabbi” and, as a result, was not only married, but a polygamist (according to this person, he had three wives).

An appeal to Jesus being married due to his being called a “rabbi,” while rare, is not unheard of among some Latter-day Saints, such as Michael Griffith in his Was Jesus Married? article (where he relies on, sadly, the hack “scholarship” of Michael Baigent et al.) and Ogden Kraut forwarded, not just this, but the thesis Jesus was a polygamist in his book Jesus was Married.

My friend, Allen Hansen, wrote the following in response, which he kindly gave me permission to quote on my blog:

Not to pile on, but I would like to add a few things. so that you can avoid spreading the folklore to members and investigators. We have far too much of that thing going on. I think it also helps in better understanding the New Testament.

Ben is right, I'll round out his observations. I was born and raised in Israel, have known a great deal of rabbis, but I'm also very keen on Jewish history and religious texts.

Myth #1: Jesus was a rabbi.

He wasn't. Not only did the office as such not exist in his day,it took centuries to become the central institution of Judaism. There is no evidence that Jesus received ordination, and in his day the religious authorities among the Pharisees and the groups loosely connected with them were more usually termed sages. Their function was to issue rulings on matters of ritual purity. Now, you might counter that Jesus was called rabboni, but that was a honorific title (literally, master) that was not applied to a particular role. Just as someone calling you sir out of respect is not claiming that you are a lord or knight. The early rabbis had no authority in the community beyond what people chose to give them. That is, unless you were popular, or were considered impeccably knowledgeable in matters of purity, no one had to listen. Synagogues were run by the community for the community, and many rabbis chose not to pray or set foot in them. We also know from archaeological findings that even when the rabbis prescribed rules for synagogues they were ignored. Before the temple was destroyed, the main religious authorities were priests.

Myth #2: A rabbi must be married.

That was true neither in the first centuries CE, nor is it true today. There are passages in the Babylonian Talmud (a central text of Judaism compiled several centuries after Christ) and other texts that present the ideal stages of progression in a man's life including marriage at a certain age, but that was never reality. They prescribe the reality that many rabbis wished to see, but not actually how things were. In Jesus' day, for example, men tended to marry in their late twenties to early thirties, something common to the rest of the Greco-Roman world. Josephus himself was not married until later in life, when he surrendered to the Romans and the empire decided to marry him to a Jewish captive. Josephus was a priest, the son of the priest, and lacked for no opportunity to marry. Two of the most popular and beloved early rabbis or sages were Ben Zomah and Ben Azzai. The only thing preventing their ordination was their untimely deaths. Even when other sages criticized Ben Azzai for preaching the necessity of marriage and childbearing while himself refusing to take a wife he responded that he loved studying Torah too much. Despite the vast corpus of authoritative Jewish texts, no one has yet been able to find an authoritative source laying down the rule that a rabbi must be married.

Now that we have established that rabbi did not run synagogues and did not need to be married either, you can guess how credible the claim is that a rabbi had to be married polygamously to three women. There are almost no references to rabbis being married to more than one woman, but when they do occur, such as with the celebrated rabbi Akiva (born long after Christ's death) it is not clear if he was married to more than one woman at the same time, or whether he was widowed or divorced. Polygamy continued to be permitted in Judaism until the 1950s, but it was rare in the Greco-Roman world, even rare among scholars, and died out in Europe hundreds of years ago. It really only persisted in the Muslim world, where it was a cultural norm among Muslim.

Now, was Jesus married, and was he a polygamous? I'm not going to say that he wasn't, but you have to argue that he was based solely on certain interpretations of church doctrine and teaching. Nothing necessitates it, and Jewish teachings and history provide almost no support for that notion at all.

Some have also appealed to John 2 and the wedding at Cana being the wedding of Jesus, including Orson Hyde. However, this is simply wrong. For more, see The Wedding at Cana was NOT Jesus’ Marriage.

For an interesting text on the debate about Jesus and whether he was married, see Anthony Le Donne, The Wife of Jesus: Ancient Texts and Modern Scandals

Ezekiel 18:22 vs. Forensic Justification and Imputation

The Lord, through the prophet Ezekiel, speaking of the sinner who repents and does righteousness, said:

All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. (Ezek 18:22)

What is interesting is that this is a solid disproof of imputed righteousness. How so? According to this passage, one shall "live" (in the context of the pericope, it is speaking of eschatological or eternal life, not mere moral life) due to their righteousness (‎צְדָקָה/δικαιοσυνη) they have done (‎עשׂה/ποιεω); in other words, their justification is not "grounded" on imputed righteousness, contra Reformed theology.

That one's works and righteousness plays a role, not in sanctification only, but justification is further strengthened by the parallel text, speaking of a once-faithful person who then turned to sin:

But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.

 The basis of one's (eschatological) life and (eschatological) death are both due to actions, not an imputed righteousness or lack thereof.

Indeed, Ezek 18 is a difficult passage for Reformed theology, as it also disproves eternal security/perseverance of the saints. Jonathan Edwards, a leading Reformed theologian, even went so far as to claim that God engaged in divine deception during Old Testament times in order to defend Calvinism! Commenting on v. 24, Edwards wrote:

With respect to those texts in Ezekiel—that speak of a righteous man’s falling away from his righteousness-the doctrine of perseverance was not so fully revealed to make them wary . . . (Of the Perseverance of Saints, chapter VII § 20 in The Works of Jonathan Edwards [2 vols.; Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974], 2:601, emphasis added)

Such should be shocking to those who take exegesis, theology, and truth seriously, and only shows that Reformed theology is anti-biblical. For more, see:

An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology

David L. Paulsen and Cory G. Walker on "After all we can do"

In their review of Douglas Davies' book, The Mormon Culture of Salvation: Force, Grace, and Glory (Ashgate, 2000), Work, Worship, and Grace, David L. Paulsen and Cory G. Walker offered the following about "all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23):

The idea of God asking that we do something before the fullness of his blessings is conferred is quite common in Christendom, even if it is believed that all he asks is that we accept Christ as our personal Savior. In this case it is usually understood that it is not the confessing itself that saves, but the grace that is given due to the confessing. This is similar to the church’s teaching that we are saved by grace “after all we can do.” Note that it is grace that saves, even if God mandates the mode of our acceptance of the grace. The teaching of a doctrine of grace, like the one Davies found out of place from Millet, is traceable through the history of the church. Elder W. Rolfe Kerr put the concept well when he writes, with reference to his childhood days of living on a farm:

After we plowed, planted, irrigated, and cultivated the fields, we cast our fate in His hands. We worked hard but knew that without the sunshine and rain, the grace and mercy of God, and the benevolence of loving parents, we could accomplish nothing.

Is not this faith in and dependence upon God what King Benjamin taught when he said: “If you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, . . . if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants. . . . And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth” (Mosiah 2:20–21, 25).

We are indebted to God for our very lives. When we keep His commandments, which is our duty to do, He immediately blesses us. We are therefore continually indebted and unprofitable to Him. Without grace, our valiance alone cannot save us. (W. Rolfe Kerr, “Parables of Jesus: The Unprofitable Servant,” Ensign, October 2003, 47)

There is no conflict or inconsistency with this teaching from the Book of Mormon, the church’s views throughout its history, and current church explanations regarding the interplay of grace, works, and salvation.

Some quick thoughts on D&C 130:7 and the Question of "Divine Timelessness"

In D&C 130:7, a common "proof-text" by many Latter-day Saints in favour of divine timelessness as well as exhaustive foreknowledge, we read that "[angels] reside in the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire, where all things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord."

I recently re-read this text as part of my daily scripture reading, and I noticed that (1) we are not told about the nature of the future that is "before the Lord"--that is, we are not told if this future is "exhaustive" (in the traditional sense) or contingent (the Open Theistic perspective) and (2) a problem with "absolutising" this passage to support divine timelessness and/or exhaustive foreknowledge is that it would mean that God Himself does not have, in and of himself, divine foreknowledge (not just of the future, but the past and then-present), but receives it passively from an outside source. Such would be problematic, to say the least, of God's power and abilities.

Some Latter-day Saints have argued that Joseph Smith elsewhere taught the traditional view that God exists in an "eternal now" based on the following comment in the Times and Seasons, vol. 3 no 12, p. 760:

The great Jehovah contemplated the whole of the events connected with the earth, pertaining to the plan of salvation, before it rolled into existence, or over the "morning stars sung together for joy," the past, the present and the future, were, and are with him one eternal now; he knew of the fall of Adam, the iniquities of the antedeluvians, of the depth of iniquity that would be connected with the human family; their weakness and strength, their power and glory, apostasies, their crimes, and their righteousness, and iniquity; he comprehended the fall of man, and their redemption; he knew the plan of salvation, and pointed it out; he was acquainted with the situation of all nations; and with their destiny; he ordered all things according to the council of his own will, he knows the situation of both the living, and the dead, and has made ample provision for their redemption, according to their several circumstance and the laws of the kingdom of God, whether in this world, or in the world to come.

Blake Ostler in his 2001 book, The Attributes of God (Greg Kofford Books), pp. 152-53 commented on this passage, showing that Joseph Smith did not teach an eternal now, as well as some of the logical absurdities of God being “timeless”:

At first blush this statement appears to say precisely that all things past, present and future as with God one eternal now. Such a reading supports a conclusion that God is timeless in precisely the way intended by Boethius. However, a closer reading shows that this cannot be the case. Reading this to say that God is timeless so that temporal designations of "before and after" do not apply to God is inconsistent with the statements that Jehovah contemplated these events "before" the morning stars (i.e., the sons of God in the heavenly council) sang for joy. Thus, we must look for another interpretation to make sense of the context of the statement. The entire context is describing the plan of salvation and how God preplanned and made provision for salvation of the dead by providing the doctrine of baptism for the dead. A more consistent reading of this statement is that in the deliberations leading to the plan of salvation, God considered all of the possibilities that were likely to occur. In his contemplation, God considered all things past, present and future and he made provisions for all possibilities that could befall the human family in adopting his plan. For example, he contemplated the fall of Adam and knew that it could occur. If it did occur, then God planned to provide a Savior to redeem mortals from the fall.

If read to indicate that God is timeless, it is hard to make sense of the notion that God was once a man as the Book of Mormon unambiguously asserts (1 Ne. 19:7-10; Mos. 13:34; 15:1-2) or that God progresses in any manner as Joseph Smith asserted in the King Follett discourse delivered in Nauvoo in 1844. For if God is timeless, then there was no real time prior to which God became man nor could there be an interval during which he experienced mortality and again became divine. Indeed, the view that the past and the future are just as real as the present leads to a clear absurdity: in the same moment of reality in the eternal now (EN) Washington is both crossing the Delaware and already dead! If God sees simultaneously with his gaze that the Apollo 11 astronauts are walking on the moon, then it follows that Washington's crossing of the Delaware is simultaneous in time with the Apollo 11 astronauts walking on the moon--for if a is simultaneous with b, and b, is simultaneous with c, then the law of transitivity requires that a is simultaneous with c (a=b, b=c, therefore a=c).

Robert F. Smith on Egyptian, not Hebrew, being the Underlying Language of the Book of Mormon

In my post, Non-KJV Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon, I reproduce excerpts from John A. Tvedtnes and Matt Roper’s review of The New Mormon Challenge, One Small Step wherein Hebraisms, not found in the KJV, are attested to in the Book of Mormon.

I recently found out that this blog post was discussed as part of a larger discussion on a thread on the Mormon Dialogue Forum:

Evidence Case Study

Robert F. Smith, a very knowledgeable member of the Church and one who is well-informed about Semitic and Egyptian texts and languages, offered some discussion, showing that Egyptian, not just Hebrew, explains such non-KJV Hebraisms and, following Nibley but contra Tvedtnes (with whom he had a long-standing friendship) and most modern LDS scholars, that the language, not just the script, of the Book of Mormon, was Egyptian (Tvedtnes et al., argue for Nephi et al., using Egyptian characters but the underlying language was Hebrew). He is also joined by other Latter-day Saints who I consider very bright, including D. Charles Pyle.

Responding to “RevTestament,” Robert F. Smith wrote (I have edited the presentation to make it more readable, but made no other changes):

In Alma 49:4, we read that the Lamanites attempted to “cast their stones and their arrows” at the Nephites atop the wall of the city Ammonihah. Alma 49:22 speaks of “the stones and arrows which were thrown.” While in English, we would appropriately use the verb “throw” for stones, this is not so for arrows, where we would expect “shoot.” But the Hebrew verb yrh, meaning “to throw” or “to cast” (e.g., Exodus 15:4, 25; Joshua 18:6; Job 30:19), also has the meaning of “shoot” for arrows (e.g., Exodus 19:13; 1 Samuel 20:11, 20, 36-37; 2 Kings 13:17; 19:32). Indeed, in 2 Chronicles 26:15, the Hebrew verb (with a variant spelling) is used in the passage rendered “to shoot arrows and great stones” in the King James Version of the Bible.

Since the Book of Mormon was written in ancient Egyptian, it is worth pointing out that Egyptian wdi, ndi "throw; shoot (arrow); throw down," is equally valid, for the same reasons.

In 1 Nephi 1:6, we read that as Lehi “prayed unto the Lord, there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock before him.” The English term “dwelt” normally connotes setting up house or at least staying for a long time, and we would expect to read that the pillar of fire “sat” or “rested” on the rock. Significantly, the Hebrew verb ysb means both “dwell” and “sit.” For example, Jacob’s sons “sat down to eat” (Genesis 37:25), but “Israel dwelt in that land” (Genesis 35:22). The same verb is used in both passages.

Egyptian ḥmsi "sit down; dwell," fits equally well.

in Helaman 9:6, we read that the Nephite judge had been “stabbed by his brother by a garb of secrecy.” Critics have contended that this makes no sense in English, since “garb” has the same meaning as “garment” or “clothing.” This idiom is the same as the English “under cloak of secrecy.”60 But the Hebrew word beged means both “garment” or “garb” (e.g., Genesis 39:12-13) and “treachery.”

This would seem to be a wordplay in the Hebrew original of the Book of Mormon. As for the preposition “by,” in Hebrew its range of meaning includes “in,” “with,” and “by means of.” The notion of cloak, garb, garment, and treachery in one concept is well paralleled by Egyptian sdb "a garment; fringe of cloth," and sdb, sdb "opposition (verbal); ill will; evil; impediment, obstacle." Or, alternatively, the Egyptian-Hebrew cognate ḥăbîšā, ḥābaš = Egyptian ḥbs(wt),  as in the expression ḥbs rmn "clothe of arm (with arms hidden in clothing); hide, cover up." The Hebrew is not nearly as effectively as the Egyptian.

Jacob wrote that Nephi instructed him regarding Nephite sacred preaching, revelations, and prophecies that “I should engraven the heads of them upon these plates” (Jacob 1:4). We really expect something more like “most important” to be used here. Indeed, the Hebrew word for the head of the body is sometimes used to describe things as “chief” (Deuteronomy 33:15; Psalm 137:6; Proverbs 1:21; Amos 6:1) or “precious” (Song of Solomon 4:14; Ezekiel 27:22), which seems to be the sense in which Jacob used the word.

Egyptian tp "head; chief; best of," is eminently well-suited here. Certainly works every bit as well, if not better, than the well-known Classical Hebrew word for “head.”

The land of Jershon has a valid Hebrew etymology, Yershon, meaning “place of inheritance.” Significantly, it appears in passages that employ the words “inherit” (Alma 27:24) and “inheritance” (Alma 27:22; 35:14). The wordplay makes sense only in Hebrew.

This is a good Hebraism, and Hirsch Miller’s 1922 Hebrew translation of the Book of Mormon properly renders it as yēršôn, and applies the obvious wordplay in verse 24.

Elsewhere, Smith offers his reasoning for his theory, following Nibley and others, that the Nephites used, not just an Egyptian script, but language, too:

There are Mormon scholars who share your view that the BofM was written in Hebrew using Egyptian script, but that seems somewhat absurd:  Why not simply write in alphabetic Hebrew, as suggested by Mormon 9:33?  Use of Egyptian ideograms made possible the saving of precious space on the plates (Mormon 9:32-33).  Aside from which the BofM is quite explicit that the records (Bronze Plates) were written in actual Egyptian (Mosiah 1:2-4).  As Hugh Nibley has said, "The language of Lehi's forefathers was a foreign language; and when the Book of Mormon tells us it was the language of the Egyptians, it means what it says."  Nibley, "Lehi in the Desert," part II, Improvement Era, 53/2 (Feb 1950):155 = Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, V:24.  He also said: "people who were not crowded for space would not have continued to write Hebrew in the difficult Egyptian characters for hundreds of years, when all the time they might just as well have been writing in the twenty-two simple and practical characters of the Hebrew alphabet.  Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, 2^nd ed., Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, V:16. Cf. Brant A. Gardner, “Nephi as Scribe,” FARMS Review, 23/1 (2011):45–55, online at  https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1462&index=4 .

We also know that, when the Hebrew Bible has been translated into another language, it has been done wholesale into the other language, as with the Septuagint, the Aramaic Targums, and the Coptic Christian Bible. 

However, it isn't only those claims in the BofM which are relevant, but also the existence of many Egyptianisms which could not exist in Hebrew.  In the case of those Hebraisms listed by you from the work of the late John Tvedtnes, my listing of good Egyptian equivalents only moots the point you made.  Egyptianisms which could not be Hebraisms provide us with a much more powerful diagnostic tool:

1. There is no ancient Hebrew word or phrase appropriate to the expression "make (write) an abridgment" (I Nephi 1:17, Words of Mormon 1:3, Mormon 5:9, Moroni 1:1), although the Egyptian phrase sḥwy p3w n šfdw pn "abridgment of this book" seems suitable, and "to make an abridgment" would simply be irt sḥwy.   The late Hugh Nibley found it a particularly Egyptian concept.   Nibley, BYU Studies, 11/2 (Winter 1971):164.

2. “Ites” in IV Nephi 17 “nor any manner of -ites,” has no known parallel in Hebrew as a single word, but could be represented by the Egyptian determinative sign for “people,” which is not vocalized, but is frequently accompanied by a plural termination -w, as in šЗsw “bedouin” (accompanied by a man & woman over plural signs as the determinative).  It could also serve an ideographic function in this generic case on the Book of Mormon plates.  Here, for example, is the ethnicon "Israelites" from the Merneptah Stele:

3.  Only two words in the entire Book of Mormon contain the double-ff, and both are Zeniffite words:  The personal name Zeniff, and the common noun ziff (Mosiah 7:9, 11:3,8, 25:5).  The single f is the voiceless labiodental fricative sound for non-plosive (no dagesh) Hebrew p.  However, we only see the double-ff in ancient Egyptian, as in Egyptian ˁff, ˁffj “fly (insect).”  A. Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian, 31; R. Faulkner, Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, 42.

4.  Pedro Olavarria and Matthew Bowen have suggested that an excellent Egyptianism can be found in I Nephi 11:25, 15:23-25, where “the rod of iron” is equated with “the word of God” (I Samuel 9:27 Hebrew děbar ʼĕlōhîm)  Just so, Egyptian mdw ntr (Demotic mtw ntr) “word of god, scripture,” uses the word mdw which can mean both “word” and “rod, staff.”  Interestingly, the Hebrew phrase “rod of God” maṭṭē hāʼĕlōhîm occurs at Exodus 4:20 and 17:9 (cf. maṭṭē ʼahărōn Numbers 17:21, 23 = KJV Numbers 17:6, 8; Genesis 38:18, 25), and the Hebrew word for “rod” there, maṭṭē, is cognate with Egyptian mdw“rod, staff.”  However, this pun only works in Egyptian, not Hebrew.  Olavarria on MDDB at http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/52705-zarahemla-revisiting-the-seed-of-compassion ; Bowen at http://publications.mi.byu.edu/publications/ insights/25/2/S00004-quotWhat_Meaneth_the_Rod_of_Ironquot.html .  Faulkner, Concise Dictonary of Middle Egyptian, 122.

The upshot is that, when Nephi exhorts his brethren to “give heed to the word of God [mdw ntr] and remember to keep his commandments” (I Nephi 15:25), he is not only suggesting that one must give heed to the commandments given in Holy Scripture (mdw ntr) – and making a not very subtle reference to the Brass Plates which contained those very commandments – but also saying that those plates were specifically incised or engraved in Egyptian script (mdw ntr).

5.  Brian Stubbs recently called our attention to a common Middle and Late Egyptian idiom or way of saying “to leave a place or return from”  (r)di sЗ n/r “set my back to”; the pronominal suffix following “back” tells whose back or who is leaving/returning; and n/r “toward/ against.”  In Alma 8:24, Alma writes, “I was about to set my back towards this land forever” (italics added for emphasis), that is, “leave it forever.”  Stubbs, Changes in Languages: From Nephi to Now (Blanding, UT: Four Corners, 2016), 25; Faulkner, CDME, 156,205, citing A. Gardiner, Notes on the Story of Sinuhe, 34-35.

6.  John Gee suggests an instance of haplography in the Book of Mormon attributable specifically to use of the Egyptian preposition n "of, for," at Alma 24:19,

they buried their weapons of peace,

or they buried the weapons of war, for peace.

As Gee points out, the Book of Mormon scribe apparently looked away from the master text for a moment while engraving, then returned and continued copying at the second n, then noted his mistake and immediately corrected it by adding "or they buried the weapons of war for peace."  Gee adds that this would only work in Egyptian where the preposition n can be used as an indirect genitive, and then also meaning "for." (Gee, personal communication, 2010).  This could not happen in Hebrew.

There are many more examples along these and other lines, but you get the picture.

I am partial towards the position of Tvedtnes et al., but Robert F. Smith, D. Charles Pyle, and others have raised very good arguments with respect to features in the text that make better sense in Egyptian than Hebrew (though, as Smith himself acknowledges with Jershon, Hebraisms and other Hebraic features can and do appear in the text). I would be curious as to what other Latter-day Saints think about this, so feel free to drop me an email at irishLDS87ATgmailDOTcom. I am even considering picking up some Egyptian now, if anything, to check out these claims in further detail, so if you have any recommended resources, let me know!