Talk:Reformed Egyptian

message: : The following was previously found on Talk:Reformed Egyptian/Comments, but should have been here instead, so moving it here now. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 15:48, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: From Talk:Reformed Egyptian/Comments

message: "In any case, Harris's faith was confirmed by the experience to the degree that he was willing to mortgage his farm to publish the Book of Mormon."
Can it be shown that Harris sold the farm as a direct result of this particular experience? If not, this sentence is misleading. --Simon D M (talk) 13:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right.  I've tweaked that sentence.--John Foxe (talk) 14:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Harris's faith was confirmed?

message: Here's the paragraph that John Foxe proposed:
*Scholars have discovered examples of Egyptian script depicting Hebrew or other Semitic languages in hybrid scripts that might be similar to the Book of Mormon's reformed Egyptian.Examples include an Egyptian hieratic and demotic script W. V. Davies, Egyptian Hieroglyphics (London: Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Publications, 1987), 21—24: Byblos Syllabic texts (written on copper plates). For a basic summary and bibliography, see David Noel Freedman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 4:178—80. For a detailed linguistic study and translation, see George E. Mendenhall, The Syllabic Inscriptions from Byblos (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1985). (The original publication with full plates and transcriptions is M. Dunand, Byblia Grammata: Documents et recherches sur le développement de l'écriture en phénicie (Beirut: Ministère de l'éducation nationale et des beaux-arts, Direction des Antiquités, 1945); photographs and transcriptions of all the documents can be found on pp. 71—138. Mormon apologists also cite Cretan hieroglyphics, (Jan Best and Fred Woudhuizen, eds., Ancient Scripts from Crete and Cyprus [Leiden: Brill, 1988]), 4; and Meroitic: Jean Leclant, "The Present Position in the Deciphering of Meroitic Script," in The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of Meroitic Script (Paris: Unesco, 1978), 112. Non-Mormon scholars have also deciphered an Aramaic version of Psalm 20:2-6 written in demotic Egyptian characters. Mormons argue that the joining of an Egyptian script with Hebrew scripture in this manner is similar to the claim of reformed Egyptian in the Book of Mormon.See Charles F. Nirns and Richard C. Steiner, "A Paganized Version of Psalm 20:2-6 from "The Aramaic Text in Demotic Script," Journal of the American Oriental Society 103 (1983): 261-74; Richard C. Steiner, "The Aramaic Text in Demotic Script: The Liturgy of a New Year's Festival Imported from Bethel to Syene by Exiles from Rash," Journal of the American Oriental Society 111/2 (1991): 362-63; For a full bibliography, see Gee, "La Trahison des Clercs," 96-97, n. 147. 
*The angel Moroni implies the script was uncommon, and therefore it is not surprising that no example of the script has been discovered in North America. "And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech" (Mormon 9:32). The Book of Mormon does not depict the script as a common or national language.
I think it's unnecessary for two reasons:  1) It's about modifications to Egyptian in the Old World.  There's nothing controversial about that--the Phoenician alphabet contains letters that are modifications of Egyptian writing.  2) This article isn't about whether or not Egyptian could be modified or modifications made in the Old World, it's about the existence of a modified Egyptian orthography in the New World, for which there is no evidence.  So the point of the paragraph, that Egyptian could be and was modified is not controversial and is not relevant here.  (Taivo (talk) 21:37, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Excluding the paragraph doesn't bother me; but I think the reader might be interested in knowing how the Church attempts to finesse the difficulty.--John Foxe (talk) 14:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point.  Your first bullet is already covered in the section labelled "Mormon studies..." and I added your second bullet at the end of that section.  Should cover the issue.  (Taivo (talk) 16:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I just shortened and tweaked a bit and added a citation to FAIR.--John Foxe (talk) 13:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the "Native American connection" comment for two reasons.  1) This article is about the existence of a writing system in the New World and the FAIR comment isn't about writing at all.  2) The FAIR site deals only with Semitic and Uto-Aztecan, but Egyptian was not a Semitic language.  (Taivo (talk) 15:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly you're right there.--John Foxe (talk) 21:26, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: About Egyptian Modifications Elsewhere

message: In theMainstream scholarly view of reformed Egyptian section there is a reference to Klaus Baer, but the sources identified, Sunstone magazine May-June 1980 
[Sunstone article link] and ["Cumorah Revisited"] do not actually contain this quote by Klaus Baer. I've seen it quoted in other places on WP and elsewhere, but I cannot find the reference.  If no one can find the real source for this "doodlings" quote I plan to remove it.  The Book of Mormon Archaeology WP article has this same incorrect reference as wellJaredkunz30 (talk) 20:13, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't remove the quote.  I don't know why you're looking in Sunstone because the article clearly references one of the Tanners' books for the source of the quote.  The quote has a published source.  (Taivo (talk) 22:24, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Your response was a little late.  Ian.Thomson already corrected the bad reference so you are seeing the correct source now.  Check the history.  Earlier it was referencing Sunstone and another book.  Neither contained the quote.Jaredkunz30 (talk) 00:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously I wrote that after I looked at the article, but before I noticed the history.  (Taivo (talk) 03:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Recently Taivo determined that a post did not meet Wikipedia's source standards, where it referenced an Egyptologist whose sole reference was from a pro-Mormon book source (Thomas Ferguson, One Fold and One Shepherd) and involved an apparent conversation with the Egyptologist.  The Klaus Baer reference in The Changing World of Mormonism by Jerald and Sandra Tanner does not meet this standard either, even less so.  There is no indication of any source of the Klaus Baer statement in the book.  It is not footnoted in any manner, nor even any documentation where, when and to who the statement was made, and Klaus Baer is not included in the Bibliography of the book See https://www.scribd.com/document/403377812/Klaus-Baer-No-References?secret_password=kaX5oV6yY8yoPvvelATo  .  Please note that this link is a private link and can only be accessed from this page in order to be consistent with copyright laws.  Should there be any confusion, the Sunstone reference on that page in the Tanner book is only a reference to the Ashment article, there is no mention of Klaus Baer in the Sunstone article. https://www.scribd.com/document/403381755/Sunstone-May-June-1980-Pg-30?secret_password=QZ2RFE6CKaiXwS4Em2I4 As a result, I am deleting this as a reference from the Wikipedia article as it does not meet Wikipedia standards. Geneva11 (talk) 21:10, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect reference for Klaus Baer's 'doodlings' quote in the Mainstream scholarly view of reformed Egyptian 

message: Note 17: Blair Bryant's Caractor's Translation is a broken link.
Note 20: Meridian Magazine is a broken link.
Note 23: I don't think this particular page on ExMormon.org is a reliable source.
--CABEGOD  03:52, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Note 23 looked like it originally pointed somewhere else.  I removed it and replaced it with a citation tag.  --Taivo (talk) 08:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, much appreciated!  --CABEGOD  18:37, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem with Links 

message: Can someone find a source for this and include it in the article ?   Micmac Hieroglyphic was a 1700s Western missionary-created combination of Greek letters, Latin letters, Western symbols, and Micmac pictographs used to make mneumonic proto-writing to translate the Bible.  It resembles Smith's Reformed Egyptian to such an extent, that it's worth someone combing the literature for a reference.  The idea, of course, is that Smith imitated Micmac Hieroglyphs when he made up his this, ahem, ridiculous gibberish.  :)
Also, for the record, Egyptian scripts transcribed language, whereas Micmac is proto-writing, just giving a few symbols for key words and filling the space in between with (what amount to) scribbles, though they are actually non-random or less-random symbols intended to jog the memory, re-occuring in the corpus without any connection to semantic or phonemic or any other logical phenomena, except as arbitrary mnemonic symbols.  Micmac was from east Canada, near New York.
Dwarfkingdom (talk) 06:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have reliable sources that describe a possible connection, or is this your own theory (i.e. origional research)? -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 17:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This is another of Barry Fell's notions.  I don't see much similarity myself, and neither did Utah Lighthouse Ministries. See Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing.--John Foxe (talk) 22:27, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Include in article : Reformed Egyptian was based on Micmac Hieroglyphic from Canadian Missionary 

message: Can we block mormons from editing this article? No, really. If it can be done with scientology articles and scientologist, it can be done with these. --76.105.145.143 (talk) 02:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: What specific problem(s) are you referring to; or, in other words, what prompted this suggestion? Good Ol’factory (talk) 04:29, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: As a long-time non-Mormon editor on these pages, I can tell you that there is not a problem on the Book of Mormon pages.  Mormon and non-Mormon editors alike work together fairly well to hammer out the best NPOV text.  Sometimes we get a little blunt, but we always work out a good result that maintains WP:NPOV.  Actually, the last major problem editor was pushing an anti-Mormon agenda until he and all his socks were finally blocked indefinitely.  --Taivo (talk) 06:54, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I was a bit surprised by the suggestion. In my opinion, things seem to have been going generally well on articles for most Mormon-related topics. That's why I was curious what incident or incidents prompted the suggestion. Good Ol’factory (talk) 21:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Article lock!

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Reformed Egyptian. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120206010157/http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ancients/060228egyptians.html to http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ancients/060228egyptians.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 00:10, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Seeing the "LDS" acronym used in the body of this article, I placed the acronym in parenthesis after the article's first use of "Latter Day Saints" as per standard English usage. My edit was reverted, with this accompanying explanation:
(LDS tends to be an abbreviation used solely for the LDS Church, not the entire Latter Day Saint movement) 
My first thought, in response, was that "LDS" tends to be an abbreviation used by everyone who speaks English, whenever they want to use something short, in place of words which start with those letters. But then, I realized that this must be a point of debate, between factions of this religion. The substance (such as it is) of this matter strikes me as a subtle (and quizzical, and illogical, and borderline absurd) distinction with all the makings of an intradenominational squabble. The preservation of this linguistic distinction is behavior which espouses a non-neutral point-of-view, and its end result is a text which is non-encyclopedic in tone and form. Thus, my edit was reverted in contravention of two of the central tenets of this project. Yet, in deference to those who know more than myself, I appreciate the correction. Yet the acronym still appears throughout the article, without any signification of its meaning. Perhaps these graphemes are charactors of Reformed Egyptian script that only coincidentally resemble letters in the Latin alphabet. If so, then they are far beyond my ken, and my concern must be ignored. But if these markings are, indeed, the same letters which begin the words "Latter-day Saints" then their meaning (or lack thereof) needs to be clarified. The article should denote the contextual meaning of the "LDS" acronym, especially if the letters do not share their meaning with a nearby phrase which seems to have been their most-likely origin. My edits are not made in respect of niggling religious doctrinal conflicts, so I'll leave this defect for another to repair. But I will offer a parting prayer: Leave us not crucify Wikipedia upon the cross of Mormon ultra-orthodoxy. Catsmoke (talk) 06:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's any sort of intradenominational struggle; I doubt most Latter Day Saint groups would want to be called "LDS", though many would embrace "Latter Day Saint". Typically, within Wikipedia and without, "LDS" is an abbreviation to designate the LDS Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). In this article, it appears to be used in this context—the people described as LDS researchers, for example, are people who are members of the LDS Church. I agree that this should be clarified. Another option is to simply use "Mormon" instead of LDS, since Mormon is probably better understood and is also used to designate LDS Church members. Good Ol’factory (talk) 07:54, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that "Mormon" should replace "LDS" in the article where it occurs.  "LDS" almost always refers exclusively to the Utah church.  --Taivo (talk) 11:23, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "LDS" acronym 

message: I have tried to add a link displaying the 4 characters that were copied by both Oliver Cowdery and Fredirick G. Williams (scribes and secretaries to Joseph Smith) that are historically documented.  These are additional characters that are not found on the "Anthon Transcript". They should be included on Wikipedia to make the reference corpus of these characters complete as they are in fact 'reformed Egyptian' characters (whether ones subscribes to the existence or not of the actual language).  The proposed information (actual characters and bibliographic cite) to be added by link to the Reformed Egyptian Wikipage is provided at the link http://nebula.wsimg.com/99074fed98b595ae4471309e89be3eb5?AccessKeyId=A0EA741743254B9C037B&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 L  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Revorgjr (talk • contribs) 18:26, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: What exactly is that website? It is a blog, a personal website, a website of an organization—what? It's not clear that it constitutes a reliable source for Wikipedia. It might be better to simply use the references that are cited in the link rather than linking to that website directly. Good Ol’factory (talk) 21:47, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not entirely convinced that these are actually "Reformed Egyptian".  Their attestation as such seems murky at best from the captions on the pdf.  Otherwise I agree with Good Olfactory.  --Taivo (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  4 additional 'reformed Egyptian' characters that are not on the Anthon or Caractors transcript 

message: The edit I have made, providing the Linguist Jerry Glover's claimed translation of the Caractors document, is claimed to violate WP:RS (by FyzixFighter. While true that this citation is a self-published work, it has gained significance within Mormon circles. I myself (a non-mormon) have read the documentation and while it lacks peer-review (which I was going to provide note of with my eventual clean-up of the new section) it appears to make an excellent case for its study. I feel that despite the self-published nature, it is a fundamentally good treatise on a possible translation. For this reason, I believe the undoing edit should be reverted. --134.204.0.90 (talk) 15:06, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Grover (not Glover) has a BS in geological engineering. That does not make him a linguist. Evidently his method of decipherment involved " the characters to numerals from different writing systems, including Mayan, various Egyptian, and Semitic languages. He combines these "matches" with Ariel Crowley's earlier attempts to match characters to names in hieratic and demotic Egyptian to produce his translation." That's from a discussion in which he took part and he doesn't deny it. Doug Weller talk 15:56, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: This claim is not true. Your citation has reply by Mr. Grover where he states "[...]I didn't use much of Ariel Crowley's work, most of the research was original in the hieratic and demotic.  There wasn't much Semitic language there, mostly Egyptian with some Mesoamerican influence." On your point that he is not a linguist, this was a mistake made on my own personal study. I am not attempting to make a comment of accurate translation, I am only attempting to include it within the page due to the significance of a contemporary attempt at translation, and the significance of a claimed full translation of the text.--134.204.0.90 (talk) 16:26, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Doug Weller is right on target.  This guy is nothing more than an untrained amateur, without any actual linguistic methodology to fall back on, making guesses as to what the content of a random series of marks on paper might mean.  Here's the "methodology":  "I'll look at symbols in hieratic.  If nothing matches then I'll look at symbols in demotic.  If nothing matches then I'll look at symbols in some other ancient Semitic script.  If still nothing matches then I'll look at various scratches and marks in Mesoamerican scripts and pseudo-scripts.  If still nothing matches then...."  The statistical probability of finding random symbols from a dozen different scripts to come close to matching something in "Reformed Egyptian" is near 100%.  It is ridiculous and it doesn't matter whether or not uninformed Mormons buy it, that doesn't make it worthy of mention in a serious Wikipedia article.  We don't quote Breitbart and InfoWars conspiracy theories normally either.  --Taivo (talk) 20:47, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The significance of the attempt at translation has to be established by independent sources. WP:SPS applies in this situation, and I don't see a good reason to ignore that rule. The only way this attempt at translation could begin to be considered for inclusion is if it receives significant coverage in other sources (newspapers, Mormon studies jourals, etc) that would back up the claim about the significance within Mormon circles. --FyzixFighter (talk) 22:00, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, from my perspective as a non-Mormon, I agree with FyzixFighter. John Foxe (talk) 15:59, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Although in agreement that more coverage is needed prior to inclusion of this reference in Wikipedia, not everything said here is correct about the actual translation. Grover has also worked for 25 years as a translator in addition to a BS in Geological Engineering and a ME in Civil Engineering so saying he has NO linguistic experience is incorrect.  It is also worth noting that one of the principal constributors to the Maya decipherment was a chemical engineer, John Teeple, who deciphered the Dresden Codex Venus tables and the Lunar Series.  Ironically Grover's translation consists primarily of a calendrical series of dates. Linda Schele graduated in Art. For the record, looking at Grover's actual translation, there are 119 unique characters, the translation has 86 with Egyptian hieratic translations, 27 with Egyptian Demotic translations, and 6 with Mesoamerican translations/correlations so it pretty much is an Egyptian translation, with some Mesoamerican elements which is precisely what one would expect.
(talk) 7:59, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

text: The link says nothing whatsoever about "independent review" and I simply don't believe it.  I seriously doubt that the "Egyptologist" and "Mayanist" are truly independent except, perhaps, in the sense of "Mormon scholars not actually employed by BYU".  --Taivo (talk) 23:06, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding the reverting of the 2015 Jerry Grover "Caractors" Document translation 

message: On 19 March 2019, Geneva11 replaced a 1999 quotation from Michael Coe with this material from 1956. I see no reason why  following information trumps Coe. What would trump Coe is a statement that Reformed Egyptian doesn't resemble other complete scripts from Meso-America.
"In 1956 a request for review of the Caractors Document was made to three recognized Egyptologists, Sir Alan Gardiner, William C.. Hayes, and John A. Wilson. Gardiner replied that he saw no resemblance with "any form of Egyptian writing." Hayes stated that it might be an inaccurate copy of something in hieratic script and that "some groups look like hieratic numerals," adding that "I imagine, however, that the inscription bears a superficial resemblance to other scripts, both ancient and modern, of which I have no knowledge." Wilson gave the most detailed reply, saying that "This is not Egyptian writing, as known to the Egyptologist. It obviously is not hieroglyphic, nor the "cursive hieroglyphic" as used in the Book of the Dead. It is not Coptic, which took over Greek characters to write Egyptian. Nor does it belong to one of the cursive stages of ancient Egyptian writing: hieratic, abnormal hieratic, or demotic." Earlier in 1956 Hayes had provided his analysis of his assertion of hieratic numerals within the Caractors Document. Reformed Egyptian has not been identified as one of the many Mesoamerican scripts."  
John Foxe (talk) 22:52, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Geneva 11 agrees to retain the Coe quote regarding Mesoamerican languages until a more recent Coe citation or equivalent is found to make this quote consistent with the current state of knowledge which is the existence of multiple scripts found in Mesoamerica as found in the current Wikipedia Mesoamerican Writing topic  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Geneva11 (talk • contribs) 01:35, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I've moved the new material to the notes. I see no reason why, if the Coe quotation is out-of-date, we need to treat some 1956 material more seriously. (You can sign your posts by typing four tildes.) John Foxe (talk) 17:36, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: In the meantime I will try to find something more recent from Coe (he is getting pretty old) or other recognized Mesoamerican authority that mentions all of the now known scripts.Geneva11 (talk) 23:30, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Coe says "complete scripts." I'm not sure what a partial script might be, but the adjective "complete" may make a difference to experts in the area. John Foxe (talk) 01:30, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The third edition of "Breaking the Maya Code" came out in 2012 and I've ordered a copy for my library.  I'll check for Coe's most up-to-date text when it arrives in a few days.  --Taivo (talk) 02:01, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think the point relevant to this article is that reformed Egyptian has not been identified as a script in Mesoamerica, partial or otherwise.  Why is this statement limited to "complete scripts?" That's what I wrote in one of the changes that got reversed.  I have nothing against Coe's statement, it is just not up to date and also doesn't really address accurately address the point of the article. For example, the Epi-Olmec is a script that has been recognized as clearly a script language, although its decipherment is still tentative.  Same but less so with Zapotec.  Why not include mention of these scripts as well? (talk)Geneva11 (talk) 17:36, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem so long as you have a reliable, post-1999 source that says so. John Foxe (talk) 18:22, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: A very reliable source, co-equal in time with Coe's quote:  "A conservative estimate of the number of distinct writing systems identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica is fifteen--many known only from a single inscription." Martha J. Macri, "Maya and Other Mesoamerican Scripts," The World's Writing Systems, ed. Peter T. Daniels & William Bright (1996, Oxford, pp. 172-182.  The quote is on pg. 172.  Prof. Macri is the director of the Native American Language Center at UC, Davis.  She developed the Maya Hieroglyph Database Project as a graduate student at UC Berkley.  She is eminently qualified to make such a statement.  Of course the difference between this and Coe's equally authoritative statement is that Coe was referring to the only Mesoamerican system with enough textual evidence to permit decipherment.  --Taivo (talk) 22:20, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent!  I have put your citation in for now, as I noticed there is a 2010 version of this book with Macri still writing that section.  I will check it and make updates to the source and/or numbers of scripts based on a look at the newer version.Geneva11 (talk) 00:43, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  1956 quotation 

message: Doug Weller suggested this item go to the talk page for additional information about citations.  The scans and discussion of the two additional sets of Book of Mormon characters are found at the Joseph Smith Papers project site. The scans are on the project site are at https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-2-document-2b-writings-and-characters-copied-by-frederick-g-williams-circa-early-to-mid-1830s/2  and https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-2-document-2a-characters-copied-by-oliver-cowdery-circa-1835-1836/1.  The discussion on the project site of these additional character sets is found athttps://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-2-copies-of-book-of-mormon-characters-introduction/1.
The 4 characters in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting on a small piece of script and the same 4 characters from Frederick G. Williams and their provenance are also discussed in the article: The “Caractors” Document: New
Light on an Early Transcription of
the Book of Mormon Characters http://mormonhistoricsites.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/The-%E2%80%9CCaractors%E2%80%9D-Document.pdf
The larger set of characters copied by Frederick G. Williams that came down through the Frederick G. Williams family is also discussed extensively in the book The Life of Dr. Frederick G. Williams, Counselor to the Prophet Joseph Smith : The Life of Dr. Frederick G. Williams, Counselor to the Prophet Joseph Smith by Frederick G. Williams (2012).  Unfortunately there is no online version of this book, but I do have the hard copy. Geneva11 (talk) 20:18, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that the material was restored and the primary sources tag removed.  A primary source here is anything that's not independent from the LDS and affiliated sites (WP:PRIMARY).  But since we also work by WP:CONSENSUS, I'll let another editor determine if the material should be reverted instead of reverting it again myself.  —PaleoNeonate – 21:03, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reverted - I didn't think I had to object about something I'd reverted, I was waiting until there was further discussion. Hm, seems I failed to add this to my watchlist, sorry. See Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources. We can, with care, use"primary sources that have been reputably published". But we don't have those. We have papers on a website and a self-published book published by the church (and not by Brigham Young University Press. Doug Weller talk 16:32, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry Doug, I thought that you had reviewed the proposed citations listed here on the talk page. I'm not sure where the self-published book concept is coming from, perhaps someone is thinking that the Frederick G. Williams book is self-published?  The book is published by BYU Studies, and the author is a BYU professor who happens to be a descendant of the original Frederick G. Williams but has the same name.  http://humanitiescenter.byu.edu/frederick-g-williams-in-english-and-portuguese/.  This is clearly a secondary source.  The http://mormonhistoricsites.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/The-%E2%80%9CCaractors%E2%80%9D-Document.pdf is a secondary source and is an article from Mormon Historical Studies, a peer reviewed journal  http://mormonhistoricsites.org/publications/.  The sources from the Joseph Smith Papers Project contain both primary and secondary sources.  Quoting from the Joseph Smith Papers Project website:
"The Joseph Smith Papers do not present a unified narrative. Annotations supply background and context to help readers better understand and use the documents. The aim of the annotation is to serve scholars and students of early Latter-day Saint history and American religious history generally, whose familiarity with these fields may vary widely.
The Papers cite original sources where possible and practical. Secondary sources of sound scholarship are cited when they usefully distill several primary sources or provide useful general context. Quotations from primary sources preserve original spelling but silently emend cancellations and insertions (unless judged highly significant). Following standard documentary editing practice, footnotes identify where the featured texts quote, paraphrase, or otherwise refer to the Bible, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith revelations, and other written works. "
I think it is pretty clear that all of these sources meet the source requirements of Wikipedia in spades.  Geneva11 (talk) 18:43, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

text: Selfpublished may not be quite the right word, but it wasn't published by BYU's university press. And the physical book isn't published by a reliable source if Amazon is correct. Doug Weller talk 20:12, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: And "Mormon Historical Studies" doesn't appear to be reviewed by independent scholars of any brand, just Mormon ones.  The "peers" in "peer-reviewed" are Mormon peers, not historian peers by the looks of it.  That's not a reliable source in the wide world, although it might be considered reliable among the faithful.  --Taivo (talk) 22:28, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly, —PaleoNeonate – 01:36, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

text: I agree that these sorts of sources don't meet Wikipedia standards.John Foxe (talk) 19:50, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other Examples of Reformed Egyptian 

message: The article refers to "a broadside about the Book of Mormon called "The Stick of Joseph" that reprinted some "reformed Egyptian" characters". Can we please see a better photo of this, at a high resolution? Is there only one broadside, and only one photo? Misty MH (talk) 08:13, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: If you click on the image, you can see a higher resolution. Epachamo (talk) 14:50, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Stick of Joseph transcription and better photo request