Urim." Roberts compares this to the Urim and Thummim which Joseph Smith said that he was given for the purpose of translating the golden plates. "Egyptian" hieroglyphicsView of the Hebrews describes hieroglyphic paintings found in the American southwest. Roberts wrote, "Was this sufficient to suggest the strange manner of writing the Book of Mormon … in an altered Egyptian?" (Joseph Smith said that the golden plates were written in "reformed Egyptian".) Barbarous versus civilized New World peopleView of the Hebrews argues that the Hebrews who arrived on the American continents divided into two classes, that "most of them fell into a wandering idle hunting life" but that "more sensible parts of this people associated together to improve their knowledge of the arts." The more civilized portion of this society separated from the more primitive group, who "lost the knowledge of their having descended from the same family." As a result of "tremendous wars," the civilized group "became extinct." In the Book of Mormon, the Nephites and Lamanites also split into two groups and have frequent wars, which ultimately result in the extinction of the more civilized Nephites. Government In both View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon, part of the ancient inhabitants of America changed from monarchical governments to republican governments, and the civil and ecclesiastical power was united in the same person. Prophecy about the scattering and gathering of Israel Roberts notes that in both View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon there are extensive quotations from the Book of Isaiah regarding the scattering and future gathering of Israel. Roberts asks, "Did the Author of the Book of Mormon follow too closely the course of Ethan Smith in this use of Isaiah would be a legitimate query." Mormon apologists reply that View of the Hebrews includes many other scriptural prophecies about the restoration of Israel, whereas the Book of Mormon quotes only from Isaiah chapter 11. White god in the New WorldView of the Hebrews discusses legends of what he called the "bearded white god" Quetzalcoatl and proposes that this "lawgiver" or "Mexican messiah" might have been Moses. Ethan Smith also suggests that this belief held by the people of Mexico at the time of Montezuma allowed the Spanish to easily conquer the country because "the Mexicans mistook the white bearded invaders from the east for the descendants of their long cherished culture-hero Quetzalcoatl." Roberts