“Because of the Glory of the World and to Get Gain”
This phrase identifies Professor Anthon’s motivation. Further, it seems apparent that Anthon, though certainly a noted scholar in his day, was stretching the truth to suggest that he could translate the golden plates. According to Martin Harris’s account, the learned professor indicated that the translation of what Moroni called reformed Egyptian was the most correct translation he had seen. Yet the work of Champollion, the French genius who broke the Egyptian language code through the Rosetta Stone, had not yet made its way to the United States. Anthon could not have known how to translate Egyptian antiquities.
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