Las Lunas Decalogue

(c) 2007, David Grant Stewart, Sr.

Photos courtesy of Ancient American magazine (Samuel Oshmier, “Pilgrimage to New Mexico’s Mystery Mountain,” Ancient American 66:2-4). Used with permission from AA staff.  See also: Lydia Rome, “New Mexico’s Mystery Rock,” Ancient American 65:34-37. 

This rock is on a hill near Las Lunas, New Mexico, and is claimed to be a Hebrew version of the Ten Commandments.  Las Lunas is also known as Los Lunas (disagreement of genders).

It has been known since before New Mexico became a territory in 1850, so it can hardly be a hoax.  It is inscribed on Basalt – a very hard material – with a depth of 0.25 inches.

A transcription attributed to Barry Fell is given here.  Some of the words are separated incorrectly in the transcription where they are correct in the rock engraving, but the transcription is better than nothing.

Here is the translation provided at the site referenced above:

I am Yahweh your God that brought you out of the lands of Egypt.
1. You shall not have any other gods besides me.
2. You shall not make for yourself any graven image.
3. You shall not take the name of Yahweh in vain.
4. Remember the day of the Sabbath, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be
long on the land which Yahweh your God is giving to you.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not testify against your neighbor as a false witness.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor anything of your
neighbor's.

This is not a real translation.  It inserts words that are not on the stone (like “Egypt”), and does not contain text that the stone includes (like “spared you from the path of the sea”).  It appears that the author of this rendition has looked for recognizable characters in the inscription that match the English translation of the Ten Commandments, while ignoring words, phrases, and characters not familiar to him.  This rendition fails to capture any of the content of the original inscription that is not contained in or the Bible version.  It therefore cannot be termed a translation, but only an attempt to match the inscription to an existing known text based on textual homologies.

While the Ten Commandment explanation is the most dominant, several unrelated translations have been proposed by other authors.  The Decalogue is perfectly apparent to any Hebraist. The nit-picky objections to characters being rotated are based upon ignorance. Characters were always changed in orientation according to the direction of the writing.

Here is my translation of the inscription.  I believe that it is the best translation of the inscription to date:

I am the Lord thy God who took pity and spared you from the path

There shall not be other gods before Me.

of the sea, from the house of bondage [and] from ...

Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.

Notice that the third line is a continuation of the first line. The scribe originally intended to write everything double spaced and then came back and inserted the second line! This is why the first three lines are single spaced and all the rest of the inscription is double spaced. Apparently he was under duress.

This is written in a reformed Hebrew. Both the characters and words and syntax are slightly altered from traditional Hebrew.

Contrary to Internet claims, there is no Greek nor any other foreign influence whatsoever. The delta occurring in the engraving predates the Greek writing system altogether.

There is no definite article anywhere in the text, something discarded as superfluous since the grammatical particle ET implies that anyway.

Contextual analysis: This writing is on a stone on a hill which was fortified for military defense.

Language analysis: This is a modified form of Hebrew used about 600 B.C.

This record was written by the Nephites [white Israelites who migrated from Jerusalem to the Isthmus of Darien in the year 591 B.C. and settled in South America for 550 years before sending settlements to North America about 50 B.C.] during the military administration of General Mormon, between 375 and 384 A.D. How do I know?

There was no permanent Nephite presence in North America before about 50 B.C.

This is a fortified site. There were no wars between the Nephites in North America and the Lamanites before the year 320 A.D., hence no need for Nephite fortifications in North America before that date [4 Nephi 1:48, Mormon 1:8].

In the year 350 A.D. North America was inhabited only by Nephites [Mormon 2:28-29].

The first major Nephite fortifications in North America were built in the year 350 A.D. [Mormon 3:1]. The major fortification effort was spent in the area of Panama City [Mormon 3:4-6].

The Lamanites did not make a permanent breach in Nephite defenses at the city Desolation [Panama City] until the year 375 A.D. [Mormon 4:16-23].

The Nephites wrote in a modified form of Hebrew [Mormon 9:33].

I am not interested in debating those who believe that the entire Book of Mormon civilization was born, lived, and died in a tiny area of Central America.  Let them believe as they wish: considerable and diverse data stands to the contrary. Geographic data will be discussed in a separate article.

The fortified site of this engraving was certainly built between 375-384 A.D. Before that time, there would be no point in building a fortified settlement on the top of a rather inaccessible hill and fortifying it, by the people in question [Nephites]. After that time, there were no people who would have built such an installation with this language, nor the use it was put to.

There is too much knowledge built into this engraving for it to be any kind of hoax, and the eyewitness records all serve to authenticate it.

Now let’s examine the characters we find in this engraving, and trace their origin or descendents:

Nephite characters compared with related scripts

Common origin is indicated by blue coloring.

Here we see that the affinity with other writing systems is directly correlated to the age of the writing system. If we didn’t already know this was reformed 600 B.C. Hebrew, this chart would strongly suggest it. Etruscan writing is older than Roman. Moabite writing is older than Etruscan. Phoenician writing is older than Moabite.

Whoever wrote this had a profound knowledge of Hebrew.  This is the purest form of Hebrew and of early Hebrew script I have seen.  Internet writers have speculated a Greek influence. There is none whatsoever.

There are only two Hebrew characters that do not exist in this engraving. The probability is that they do exist in other Nephite writings, because the letter C [called Q by modern scholars] such as we have in words like Cumorah [which would be called Qumorah by scholars] does exist in Nephite records.  The shift in transliteration from C to Q is recent; as the time the Book of Mormon was translated, C was the accepted transliteration.

Other changes we see in Nephite writings are the introduction of an F as in “ziff” and “Zeniff.” The letter F does not exist in Old World Hebrew. And the softening of the Old World Hebrew G: Old World Gershon, New World Jershon.

We have enough characters now to identify positively any Nephite writings. No other language in the world uses this and only this set of characters.

It is almost certain that this engraving was ordered to be made by General Mormon himself. He was the commander in chief at this time. I can’t imagine anyone else ordering that it be made who was alive at that time and place, having either the authority or the inclination.

The abridgement of the Ten Commandments is very intelligent and to the point. What we have here is a version adapted to military use as a list of concise standing orders. It is a brilliant piece of work, with all the essentials and nothing superfluous.  This ought to be in every seminary manual on the Book of Mormon.

This stone document suggests that we can translate any other Nephite records we may find in the future, provided they are not written in the reformed hieratic script, which has yet to be deciphered. I have not made any attempt in that direction as yet. That writing system was known to very few Nephites and reserved for records on metal plates; this one was known to all. The above table will assist any Hebraist in crossing the gap between Masoretic Hebrew and Nephite Reformed Hebrew with a good dictionary by Gesenius.