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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Dr. John Riggs - The Joseph Smith Papyri and Charles Anthon

In Edward Tullidge's periodical, Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine, he provided a History of Provo (Volume 3, beginning on page 233) that included biographies of many prominent settlers and leaders. One of those prominent Provo residents in the medical profession was Dr. John Riggs. Dr. Riggs' father owned the only hotel in Kirtland, Ohio, when Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, Jr., and Ziba Peterson passed through while on their mission to proselytize the Lamanites.  According to Riggs, his father put up Michael Chandler at the hotel when he visited Kirtland with the mummies and papyrus in 1835. Interestingly, according to Dr. Riggs, Michael Chandler had with him a translation of some of the text on the papyri that he obtained from Dr. Charles Anthon (the well-known linguist that Martin Harris had visited with seven years previously in regards to the translation of the Book of Mormon). When the Prophet was invited to translate the papyri by Chandler, Dr. Riggs, who was present when the Prophet presented his translation, noted that the "translation of the Prophet and the professor [Anthon] agreed so far, but "there was one language Professor Anthon could not translate which the Prophet did."" This implies that multiple texts were on the papyri written in at least two different languages.

This account is documented in Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine 3/3 (July 1884): 283:



For convenience, the most relevant portion of the article is slightly enlarged for easier reading:
 

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