1 Nephi 3:19-20; “And behold, it is wisdom in God that we should obtain these records, that we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers; 20 And also that we may preserve unto them the words which have been spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets, which have been delivered unto them by the Spirit and power of God, since the world began, even down unto this present time.”
Nehemiah 13:24-26; “And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. 25 And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. 26 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.”
How does writing in Reformed Egyptian assist in the preservation of the Jewish language? Hebrew had already been around for 400 years by then so it’s not like it was in danger of going anywhere.
If Lehi and family lived in Jerusalem where did they learn how to speak Reformed Egyptian? Jerusalem is/was 90 miles from the northeastern border of Egypt so it’s too far away for any type of dialect of any language to filter over from one village to another.
There is no historical evidence showing that anyone spoke such a language and the people who lived in and around Jerusalem spoke Hebrew.
The Jews referred to Hebrew as Leshon HaKodesh – “The Holy Language” – in ancient Israel and even today it’s still referred to as such. The Hebrew language was used as the standard tongue from the tenth century BC up until the late first or early second century AD. From that time until the nineteenth century it sat almost non-existent except for those in various ministries both Jewish and Christian. A revival in the mid nineteen century brought it back to life.
There is no indication in any historical documentation that a Jew would speak Egyptian. While Nehemiah lived long after the alleged story of Lehi and sons, the passage listed above shows us what God thought of the Israelites speaking in foreign tongues.
When Solomon who lived circa 970-931 BC brought in his many wives that worshipped their foreign gods it caused great contention in his household and because he served as a leader for Israel, the trickledown effect didn’t work out so well for them either. Over and over again God told the Israelites to worship Him only and obey His Law.
Introducing foreign influences and practices of these countries brought with it the worship of foreign gods and as we’ve seen in previous lessons, nothing in Egypt pointed to the God of the Bible.
In my series on Mormonism, I found this issue to be the major stumbling block for a Mormon missionary who wanted to debate me. He (or she) very quickly ran into a brick wall over the issue of Reformed Egyptian, and that Jews would not abandon Hebrew for Egyptian.
No matter what other issues I raised in my articles, we kept returning to the Hebrew issues, which the missionary kept telling me I was wrong about – despite the fact I’m Jewish!
I really recommend you begin pursuing this line, because if the “reformed Egyptian” theory crashes and burns, the entire foundation for Mormonism – the Golden Plates – also falls.