The Translation Process of the Book of Mormon-Orally Dictated

Nature of the Dictation Process of the Book of Mormon

One of the most interesting developments in Book of Mormon studies recently is the fact that Royal Skousen’s work on the manuscript history of the Book of Mormon has begun to appear, and so now the manuscripts of the Book of Mormon itself can be entered as evidence in an analysis of the book. Royal has devoted a decade and a half to intensive study of the text of the Book of Mormon, and most especially to the original and printer’s manuscripts of the book. It’s his strongly considered opinion that the manuscript evidence supports the traditional account of the origin of the Book of Mormon, and that it doesn’t support the notion that Joseph Smith composed the text himself or took it from any other existing manuscript. Yet all of the witnesses to the process thought that Joseph Smith somehow saw words and read them off to his scribes. Let’s look at some of the relevant data: (And this is as I say is a kind of brief summary take)

First of all, the evidence strongly supports the traditional account in saying that the original manuscript was orally dictated. The kinds of errors that occur in the manuscript are clearly those that occur from a scribe mishearing, rather than from visually misreading while copying from another manuscript. (I can give you lots of examples of those but it would take time. I will in a written version of this eventually. The printer’s manuscript, by contrast, shows precisely the types of anomalies and problems that one would expect from a copyist’s errors. He’s visually copying from the original manuscript into the printer’s manuscript.) Professor Skousen’s meticulous analysis even suggests that Joseph was working with twenty to thirty words at a time in this process.

Now it’s apparent that Joseph could see the spelling of the names on whatever it was that he was reading from. When the scribe had written the text, he or she would inevitably read it back to Joseph for correction. So he probably had something with him from which he evidently was dictating, and against which he could check what his scribes had written. But what was it? The witnesses unanimously agree that he did not have any books or papers with him during the translation process, which involved lengthy periods of dictation.6 In an interview with her son not long before she died, Emma Smith insisted that Joseph had no text with him during the work of translation:

Q: Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?

A. He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.

Q. Could he not have had, and you not know it?

A. If he had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.

Emma Smith could speak authoritatively regarding the period during which she herself served as a scribe. What about the much longer period when Oliver Cowdery was taking dictation? While they were in Harmony, Pennsylvania–where most of the Book of Mormon text was committed to writing–Emma says that Joseph and Oliver were not far away from her:

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Q. Where did father and Oliver Cowdery write?

A. Oliver Cowdery and your father wrote in the room where I was at work.7

A correspondent from the Chicago Times interviewed David Whitmer on 14 October 1881 with the same story:

Mr. Whitmer emphatically asserts as did Harris and Cowdery, that while Smith was dictating the translation he had no manuscript notes or other means of knowledge save the seer stone and the characters as shown on the plates, he [that is David Whitmer] being present and cognizant how it was done.

Similarly, the St. Louis Republican based on an interview in 1884, reported that

Father Whitmer, who was present very frequently during the writing of this manuscript [i.e., the Book of Mormon] affirms that Joseph Smith had no book or manuscript, before him from which he could have read as is asserted by some that he did, he (Whitmer) having every opportunity to know whether Smith had Salomon Spaulding’s or any person’s romance to read from.

David Whitmer repeatedly insisted the translation process occurred in full view of Joseph Smith’s family and associates. (The common image of a curtain hanging between the Prophet and his scribes, sometimes seen in illustrations in the story of the Book of Mormon, is based on a misunderstanding.)

Further evidence that, whatever else was happening, Joseph Smith was not simply reading from a manuscript, comes from the Omaha Herald, reporting (in perhaps somewhat condescending language) an 1886 interview with David Whitmer. The newspaper’s correspondent speaks that the Prophet needed to be spiritually and emotionally ready for the translation process to proceed:

This rigorous enactment required him to be humble and spotless in his deportment in order that the work might progress. On one occasion the prophet had indulged in a stormy quarrel with his wife. Without pacifying her or making any other reparation for his brutal treatment, he returned to the room in the Whitmer residence to resume the work with the plates. The surface of the magic stone remained blank, and all his persistent efforts to bring out the coveted words proved abortive. He went into the woods again to pray, and this time was gone fully an hour. His friends became positively concerned, and were about to institute a search, when Joseph entered the room, pale and haggard having suffered a vigorous chastisement at the hands of the Lord. He went straight in humiliation to his wife, entreated and received her forgiveness, returned to his work, and much to the joy of himself and his anxious friends surrounding him, the stone again glared forth its letters of fire.

A note here, incidentally, is his propensity to retire to a grove of trees to pray when he was faced with a serious problem. It seems to me this adds plausibility to his accounts of the First Vision and there are other stories of his retiring to a grove to pray as well. Perhaps, of course, emotional distractions interfered with Joseph Smith’s ability to remember a text that he had memorized the night before for dictation to his naive secretaries, or perhaps personal

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upheavals distracted him from improvising an original text for them to write down what has occurred to him. (Now whether it’s even remotely plausible to imagine whether Joseph Smith or anybody else memorizing or composing nearly 5,000 words daily, day after day, week after week in the production of a lengthy and complex book is a question that people can ponder for themselves.)

I might just add that I had a fairly productive period in terms of writing over the past two years, and I have kept daily records of the number of words I had written. I’ve averaged just over 3,000 words a week over the past two years of what I would consider publishable prose. Some of it has been published and has resulted so far in at least one very bad book and several articles, in any event, that’s a fairly good level of productivity in that I’m not working at it full-time but I’m working fairly consistently at it, and in the production of the Book of Mormon is that a process that’s resulting in almost 5,000 words a day for a period of just little over two months. To me that’s breath-taking, that’s really astonishing. Especially for a person with Joseph Smith’s level of education, and people who just say, well he just had a great level of imagination gushed out of him, need to try it. Books don’t gush, at least in my experience, I wish they did.

An anecdote recounted by Martin Harris to Edward Stevenson seems to argue against the translation process being either the simple dictation of a memorized text or the mechanical reading of an ordinary manuscript being surreptitiously smuggled into the room. Harris is speaking about the earliest days of the work, before the arrival of Oliver Cowdery, when he was serving as scribe:

After continued translation, we would become weary, and would go down to the river (in Harmony, Pennsylvania by the Susquehanna) and exercise by throwing stones out on the river, etc. While so doing on one occasion, I found a stone very much resembling the one used for translating, and on resuming our labour of translation, I put in place the stone that I had found. . . The prophet remained silent, unusually and intently gazing in darkness. . . Much surprised, Joseph exclaimed “Martin what is the matter? All is as dark as Egypt!” My countenance betrayed me, and the Prophet asked me why I had done so. I said, to stop the mouths of fools, who told me that the Prophet had learned those sentences and was merely repeating them.12

Furthermore, it’s clear from careful analysis of the original manuscript, and I won’t go into detail here but Royal Skousen has published on this, that Joseph did not know in advance what the text was going to say. Chapter breaks and book divisions repeatedly surprised him, and had to be added as an afterthought by his scribe.13 Moreover there were parts of the text that he did not understand. “When he came to proper names that he could not pronounce, or long words,” recalled his wife Emma, “he spelled them out.”14 “When Joseph could not pronounce the words” agreed David Whitmer, “he spelled them out letter by letter.”15 E.C. Briggs recalled an 1856 interview with Emma Smith in which “she remarked of her husband Joseph’s limited education while he was translating the Book of Mormon, and she was scribe at the time, ‘He could not pronounce the word Sariah.’ And one time while translating, where it speaks of the walls of Jerusalem, he stopped and said, ‘Emma, did Jerusalem have walls surrounding it?’ When I informed him it had, he replied, ‘O, I thought I was deceived.’”16 As the Chicago Tribune summarized David Whitmer’s testimony in 1885, he confirmed Emma’s experience:

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In translating the characters Smith, who was illiterate and but little versed in Biblical lore was oftimes [sic] compelled to spell the words out, not knowing the correct pronunciation, and Mr. Whitmer recalls the fact that at that time Smith did not even know that Jerusalem was a walled city.17

In its notice of the death of David Whitmer, and undoubtedly based upon its prior interviews with him, the 24 January 1888 issue of the Chicago Times again alluded to the difficulties Joseph Smith had with the text he was dictating. “Smith being an illiterate would often stumble over the big words, which the village schoolmaster [Oliver Cowdery] would pronounce for him, and so the work proceeded.”18

This is my summation paragraph on this particular section: Thus, we see that Joseph Smith seems to have been reading from something, but that he had no book or manuscript or paper with him. It seems to have been a text that was new and strange to him, and one that required a certain emotional or mental focus before it could be read. All of this is entirely consistent with Joseph Smith’s claim that he was deriving the text by revelation through an interpreting device, but it does not seem reconcilable with claims that he had created the text himself earlier, or even that he was reading from a purloined copy of somebody else’s manuscript. In order to make the latter theory plausible, it is necessary to reject the unanimous testimony of the eyewitnesses to the process.

Now that’s a limited conclusion but I think that it’s an important look, to be really established and sustained.

Further Notes:

Emma Smith, who acted as an earlier scribe for Joseph, gave this account in 1856:

“When my husband was translating the Book of Mormon, I wrote a part of it, as he dictated each sentence, word for word, and when he came to proper names he could not pronounce, or long words, he spelled them out, and while I was writing them, if I made any mistake in spelling, he would stop me and correct my spelling although it was impossible for him to see how I was writing them down at the time. Even the word Sarah he could not pronounce at first, but had to spell it, and I would pronounce it for him.

“When he stopped for any purpose at any time he would, when he commenced again, begin where he left off without any hesitation, and one time while he was translating he stopped suddenly, pale as a sheet, and said, ‘Emma, did Jerusalem have walls around it?’ When I answered, ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘Oh! [I didn’t know.] I was afraid I had been deceived.’ He had such a limited knowledge of history at that time that he did not even know that Jerusalem was surrounded by walls.” (Edmund C. Briggs, “A Visit to Nauvoo in 1856,” Journal of History, Jan. 1916, p. 454)

On another occasion, Emma Smith recorded:

“The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen tablecloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper,

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and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.” (“Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald, 1 Oct. 1879, p. 290; spelling modernized.)

Emma acknowledged that Joseph possessed only rudimentary literacy at the time he translated the gold plates: “Joseph Smith … could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter; let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon. And, though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, it is marvelous to me, ‘a marvel and a wonder,’ as much so as to anyone else.” (Ibid.)

David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, described how Joseph Smith placed the "seer stone" into a hat to translate the Book of Mormon:

"I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. (An Address to All Believers in Christ, by David Whitmer, 1887, p.12)"

A woman… wrote to Emma Bidamon, requesting information as to the translation of the Book of Mormon. Emma Bidamon replied… March 27, 1876. Sister Bidamon’s letter states in part:

"Now the first that my husband translated, was translated by the use of the Urim and Thummim, and that was the part that Martin Harris lost, after that he used a small stone, not exactly black, but was rather a dark colour."

According to the testimony of Emma Smith and David Whitmer, the angel took the Urim and Thummim from Joseph Smith at the time of the loss of the 116 pages. This was in June 1828, one year before David became involved with the work of translation. David Whitmer could never have been present when the Urim and Thummim were used. All of this he clearly states in his testimony to Brother Traughber:

"With the sanction of David Whitmer, and by his authority, I now state he does not say that Joseph Smith ever translated in his presence by aid of Urim and Thummim, but by means of one dark colored, opaque stone called a ‘Seer Stone,’ which was placed in the crown of a hat, into which Joseph put his face, so as to exclude the external light. Then, a spiritual light would appear before Joseph, upon which was a line of characters from the plates, and under it, the translation in English; at least, so Joseph said." (Saints’ Herald, November 15, 1962, page 16) According to the testimony of Martin Harris, Mr. Smith often used the "seer stone" in place of the Urim and Thummim, even while the later remained in his possession – using it as a mere matter of convenience.

Elder Russell M Nelson Stated: “Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness

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the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.” (Elder Russell M. Nelson, "A Treasured Testament," Ensign, July 1993, p.61

Why the Seer Stone was used

Note that from the beginning, the way he used this seer stone to “see” what couldn’t otherwise be seen “with the natural eye” (as his mother Lucy referred to it) was to put it in the hat and then put his face in the hat to look at the stone. Despite having the interpreters, for translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph would often used the seer stone to translate “for convenience.”  The Urim & Thummim were apparently very cumbersome:

They were too large for Joseph’s eyes; they must have been used by larger men.

William Smith

Charles Anthon recalling Martin Harris’ description wrote:

These spectacles were so large that if a person attempted to look through them, his two eyes would have to be turned towards one of the glasses merely, the spectacles in question being altogether too large for the breadth of the human face.

This is supported by the fact he would sometimes use the Urim & Thummim stones the same way he used the seer stone.    Added insight for how the stones worked was this experience Martin Harris gave during the translation process.

 Once Martin found a rock closely resembling the seer stone Joseph sometimes used in place of the interpreters and substituted it without the Prophet’s knowledge. When the translation resumed, Joseph paused for a long time and then exclaimed, “Martin, what is the matter, all is as dark as Egypt.” Martin then confessed that he wished to “stop the mouths of fools” who told him that the Prophet memorized sentences and merely repeated them

Translation of the Book of Mormon 21 Dec 2009 Mike Ash Mormon Times

According to some of Joseph's closest associates as well as those who saw Joseph translate the Book of Mormon, when Joseph looked into the Urim and Thummim he was able to see the English translation. Some witnesses even claimed that Joseph spelled out proper names and the English text remained in view until it was written down correctly. Most of the accounts that describe the translation process were recorded long after the fact and are often second or third hand. Because Joseph did not share the details himself, however, it is from these other reports that scholars attempt to deduce what took place when Joseph translated the Nephite record.

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Among LDS scholars there are at least two different views as to the transmission of the Book of Mormon text into English. Some believe in a "tight control" and others in a "loose control" (still others believe in a combination of the two). Those who hold a "tight control" view of the translation believe that Joseph saw God-revealed English words that were then dictated to a scribe. According to this position, the English translation represents a fairly literal-translation from the Nephite text. It's important to note that such a translation would only have been "fairly literal" for at least three reasons: 

(1) Many words do not have an exact word-for-word translation from one language to another. For instance, I understand that the Japanese language has no word which simply means "brother." Instead, there are different words for "older brother" and "younger brother." This presents an interesting problem when translating the "brother of Jared" into Japanese. Many other such examples could be found. 

Word-for-word translations sometimes yield nonsense or even humorous results. If we translated the German word "Kindergarten" literally into English, for example, we would get "child garden" rather than the intended meaning of a school that precedes first grade.

(2) A literal translation to Joseph Smith would not necessarily equate to a literal translation to twenty-first century Americans or even other nineteenth-century contemporaries of Joseph Smith. This was discussed briefly in issue 18 and it relates to the problem we see with a word-for-word translation above. Words have meaning in the context of other words as well as the context of culture. The word "gay" for example, means something completely different to twenty-first century Americans than it did to nineteenth-century Americans. A crystal clear translation to Joseph Smith would not guarantee that other readers would understand the precise meaning just as clearly.

In other instances the words used to translate a foreign text may accurately reflect the sense of the original language but may not reflect a precise word-for-word conveyance of the foreign words.

(3) The accuracy of Book of Mormon translation would still have been dependant on the accuracy for which Joseph dictated the text as well as how accurate the scribe was in recording the dictation.

Tight control is not the same as what has been called "iron-clad control." LDS scholars do not believe that the English Book of Mormon manuscript was the perfect, unalterable word of God. This is typically the position taken by critics who wish to construct a straw man Book of Mormon which they hope to destroy. Many of those critics who impose this view on the Book of Mormon also believe that the Bible is the perfect, error-free word of God -- something not accepted by Latter-day Saints.

The second position held by many LDS scholars is a "loose control" view of the Book of Mormon translation. According to this view, Joseph was more than a mere fax machine for the English translation. Instead of seeing God-revealed English words, Joseph would have received God-given impressions that conveyed ideas, images, or concepts to Joseph's mind. Joseph then would have formulated -- in his own language -- words that expressed and conveyed those impressions. When English words were formed, that "fairly" accurately

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expressed those impressions, Joseph could have seen the result of such formulations as English text in the Urim and Thummim -- which he then dictated to his scribe.

Some people -- myself included -- believe in a combination of the two positions. I believe that while Joseph may have seen God-revealed English translations of the text -- especially in regards to proper names -- Joseph typically expressed that translation in his own language, as well as his understanding of the English of his day.

In the next issue we'll examine some of the implications and results of both tight and loose control for the Book of Mormon translation.

The “tight control theory” in the Translation of the Book of Mormon

The "tight control" theory for the Book of Mormon translation suggests that Joseph dictated a fairly literal translation of the Nephite text into the scriptural language of his day. According to several witnesses, Joseph actually spelled out proper nouns the first time he dictated them to his scribe. One interesting example is the name "Coriantumr." 

Dr. Royal Skousen , the foremost expert on the original Book of Mormon manuscript (the text written by scribes as dictated by Joseph), explains that when Joseph dictated "Coriatumr" to Oliver Cowdery, Oliver wrote "Coriantummer," crossed it out, and then wrote "Coriantumr." The first spelling makes sense based on what Oliver would have heard. There is no way Oliver could have known that the name ended with "umr" unless Joseph offered the correct spelling.

It also appears, however, that Joseph spelled out proper names only on their first usage. In subsequent usages he relied on the scribe to remember the correct spelling (which didn't always happen). In Alma 46:3, for instance, we encounter the first occurrence of the name "Amalickiah" which Joseph likely spelled out to Oliver. Later in the book of Alma, Oliver began putting "e's" in place of the second and third vowels. Oliver corrected his spelling and moved on. Eventually, he quit making corrections (since the first usage set the correct standard) and generally continued to misspell "Amalickiah" as "Ameleckiah."

An interesting by-product of this discovery suggests that when Joseph pronounced "Amalickiah" he put the heavier stress on the first syllable while the second and third vowels (those that Oliver frequently misspelled) probably produced the "uh" sound. We can surmise this based on the way Oliver heard -- and frequently misspelled -- the word. Today, we tend to put the emphasis on the "al" part of the name. While we generally pronounce the name as "uh-MAL-uh-KY-uh," Joseph likely pronounced it "AM-uh-luh-KY-uh."

Decades after the Book of Mormon was published there was a wide diversity of ways that members pronounced Book of Mormon proper names. Finally, in the early 1900s a church committee was organized to produce a "pronunciation guide." This committee formulated a set of rules -- based on common English standards rather than revelation -- for pronouncing proper names. The intent of the committee was not to dictate the absolute correct way to pronounce the proper names, but rather to establish some uniformity. Today, thanks to

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Skousen, we have a more likely candidate for the correct pronunciation of the name Amalickiah. 

The original grammar of the 1830 Book of Mormon also provides some evidence for "tight control." Before we get to this evidence some explanation is in order. All LDS scholars recognize that changes were made to later editions of the Book of Mormon. For many critics, this is a sure sign that God was not the source for the book's translation. For Mormons, however, who do not believe in infallible prophets or inerrant scripture, this presents no problem whatsoever. 

Some Book of Mormon changes were made to conform to modern spellings. In 1828, for instance, six different dictionaries spelled some words differently. Other changes were made to clarify ambiguous sentences. In the 1830 edition, for example, 1 Nephi 8:4 originally read: "for, behold, me thought I saw a dark and dreary wilderness." In 1837 this was changed to, "for behold, me thought I saw in my dream, a dark and dreary wilderness." In 1830, 1 Nephi 20:1 originally read: "Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah." In the 1840 edition the words, "(or out of the waters of baptism)" were added to the end of this verse.

Many critics have complained about the supposedly bad English grammar found in the first edition. As with the spelling changes and clarifications, when subsequent editions were printed many of non-standard grammatical errors were corrected. The original poor grammar sentences, however, provide some interesting evidences for the "tight control" theory. In many instances the original readings -- which are improper in English -- make perfect grammatical sense in Hebrew. The late Dr. Sidney Sperry, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School's Oriental Language and Literatures Department (and did a year of post-doctoral research in archaeology at the American School of Oriental Research), claimed that a strong case could be made that the Book of Mormon often betrays a "a too literal adherence to an apparent Hebrew original" ("The Book of Mormon as Translation English," Improvement Era, March, 1935). Mormon Times 28 Dec 2009 Ash

Four evidences of a 'tight control' Book of Mormon translation

Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon

As explained last week, some of the evidences for a "tight control" Book of Mormon translation comes from the fact that several sentences that sounded ungrammatical in the first printing actually make perfect grammatical sense in Hebrew. 

It should be remembered that it wasn't until 1835 -- five years after the Book of Mormon was published -- before Joseph began to study Hebrew and it was decades later before LDS scholars first noticed the Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon.

LDS scholars currently recognize a variety of Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon. These include cognates, compound prepositions, subordinate clauses, relative clauses, extrapositional nouns and pronouns, interchangeable prepositions, comparisons, naming coventions, colophons, parallelism, merismus, and difrasismo, antenantiosis, epanalepsis,

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antithetical parallels, climatic forms, enallage, and more. 

For the sake of space I'll focus on four examples in this article.

Repetition

In the Book of Mormon and in Hebrew, conjunctions are used much more frequently. For example, in a list in English, one might write, "nuts, bolts, nails, screws, and staples." In Hebrew a conjunction, such as "and," is usually used before each item. The Book of Mormon contains many such examples: "in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores." (2 Nephi 5:15.) 

The frequent use of not only "and" but the more lengthy "and it came to pass" has been the target of ridicule since the Book of Mormon was published. Mark Twain teased that this expression occurs so many times, if it were taken out of the book there would be nothing left to "come to pass." In ancient languages that had no punctuation -- like Hebrew and Egyptian -- "it came to pass" and similar monotonous phrases, are grammatical necessities and cannot be omitted. 

Construct State

Another interesting Book of Mormon Hebraism involves the construct state wherein the word "of" (although it does not exist in Hebrew) must be added to a descriptive relationship between two nouns in a literal translation. Book of Mormon examples include: "altar of stones" (1 Nephi 2:7) instead of "stone altar," "plates of brass" (1 Nephi 3:3) and never "brass plates," "words of plainness" (Jacob 4:14) rather than "plain words," "skin of blackness" (2 Nephi 5:21) instead of "black skin," "vapor of darkness" (1 Nephi 12:5) instead of "dark vapor," "rod of iron" (1 Nephi 8:19) and never "iron rod," "daughters of Ishmael," "house of Laban," and the list goes on and on. (Ibid., 79.) 

Rent Garment

On page 351 of the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon we find this unusual expression:

"And when Moroni had said these words, he went forth among the people, waving the rent of his garment in the air, that all might see the writing which he had wrote upon the rent, and crying with a loud voice..."

For clarification and to improve the grammar, the current edition reads: "written upon the rent part" (Alma 46:19). While the language in the first instance is ungrammatical (as the critics have been quick to point out) it is interesting to note that in Hebrew the word "rent" derives from a word that is both a verb and a noun, just as is we find in the Book of Mormon.

Conditional Sentence

Once LDS scholars pointed out that the Book of Mormon contained authentic Hebraisms, critics were quick to claim that Joseph inadvertently -- and coincidently -- included Hebraisms because he mimicked the language of the Bible. Drs. Royal Skousen and Daniel Peterson, however, have recently noted the odd, and foreign -- yet authentically ancient

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Hebrew -- "if/and conditional sentence." In the original Book of Mormon manuscript, dictated by Joseph and recorded by Oliver, we find the following examples from the printer's manuscript of what is now Helaman Chapter 12: 

...yea and if he saith unto the earth move and it is moved....

...yea if he say unto the earth thou shalt go back that it lengthen out the day for many hours and it is done.......and behold also if he saith unto the waters of the great deep be thou dried up and it is done....

These phrases were modified in later printings to sound more grammatically correct in English. As Peterson points out, neither he, nor Skousen, have been able (thus far) to find any nineteenth-century English example of the "if/and conditional sentence." It exists in biblical Hebrew, but not in the English translations of the Bible published in Joseph's lifetime, and is an interesting evidence of an underlying Hebrew text in the Book of Mormon. Mormon Times Michael R. Ash 4 Jan 2010

Loose-control translation theory and Joseph's language

While there are interesting evidences for a "tight control" over the Book of Mormon translation, there are also evidences and logical reasons to assume a "loose control." 

Here are some things to consider:

When Oliver Cowdery made a failed attempt at translating, he was told he failed because he did not "study" it out in his mind (D&C 9:8).

The Lord told Joseph that revelation came according to not only the recipients' language, but also in the "weakness" of their language (D&C 1:24).

As pointed out in  Issue 30 , a word-for-word translation from one language to another would result in a mess that would be difficult to understand.

Those who favor a loose translation -- and it must be remembered that a number of members believe that both processes could have been used at different points in the translation -- believe Joseph received spiritual impressions and then had to formulate the most appropriate English expressions to convey those impressions. Once Joseph formed expressions that were sufficiently accurate, the English words would have appeared in his mind (or, as he saw it -- in the seer stone). 

Elder John A. Widtsoe believed that Joseph, as a "translator," would first have perceived thoughts and then would have attempted to reproduce those thoughts correctly "with every inflection of meaning, in the best words at his command. ... This makes it unavoidable that much of the translator himself remains in his translation" (Gospel Interpretations (1947)).

Elsewhere he wrote, "The language of the English Book of Mormon is to a large degree the language of the Prophet as used in his everyday conversation on religious subjects, but brightened, illuminated and dignified by the inspiration under which he worked" (Joseph

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Smith: Seeker of Truth (1951), 42).

Likewise, Orson Pratt, a contemporary and friend of Joseph's, claimed the prophet "received the ideas from God, but clothed those ideas with such words as came to his mind" (Ensign, December 1984, 34).

There are at least three important points to consider if Joseph utilized his own language to convey spiritual impressions.

Many of the words and expressions in the Book of Mormon come from Joseph's day. The Book of Mormon translation was and is open to modifications to more accurately

convey the intent of the original text. Some of the translated text may not have been on the plates, but reflect Joseph's

divinely inspired attempt to teach the spiritual truths that were contained on the plates.

In this issue, I'll deal with the first of these points. If we assume a loose translation, Joseph unavoidably would have used expressions, terms and words from his own culture and vernacular. 

Critics, for example, have often cried foul because the Book of Mormon includes the French word "adieu." According to the critics, this means the Nephites must have spoken French. Among the many silly anti-Mormon arguments, this has to be one of the silliest. The word "adieu" was part of the common vocabulary in Joseph's day. While the word is certainly French, it had become part of the English language many decades before Joseph translated the plates.

Similarly, the word "ghost," which comes from the German "geist" is part of the English language, yet we don't accuse the King James translators with deceit because they included the term "Holy Ghost" in the Bible, although New Testament people didn't speak German. English -- like all languages -- appropriates words from other languages that eventually become part of it. 

The same can be said for phrases and expressions. Joseph's job was to convey the intent of the Nephite scripture. In the loose-translation theory, he accomplished this by using the words at his disposal. It should come as no surprise or scandal to discover that Joseph used words and phrases -- even religious phrases from his Protestant environment -- to convey those ideas. 

Nineteenth-century phrases might seem out of place if we tried to force those phrases on the original culture. For example, we know that Joseph's scriptural language would have been the King James language of his day. Keeping in harmony with this scriptural vernacular Joseph -- either on his own, or by divine direction -- utilized King James language and expressions.

In 3 Nephi 14:7, for example, when Jesus tells the Nephites that if they "knock ... it shall be opened," the verse is translated according to the King James understanding of similar New Testament passages. It is unlikely the Nephites (as ancient Americans) had doors that could be knocked upon. The intent of the scripture -- that God will answer the prayers of the righteous -- was translated in a language that made sense to Joseph Smith and his audience. Michael R. Ash Mormon Times 11 Jan 2010

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A co-creative view of Book of Mormon translation Michael R. Ash Mormon Times 18 Jan 2010

Some of those who accept the "loose translation" theory for the Book of Mormon also believe Joseph Smith may have included, to various degrees, elements that conveyed the intent of the text but with words that may not have actually been on the plates. 

LDS scholar Blake Ostler, for instance, believes in what he has calls the "co-creative" view of revelation. As he recently wrote on the newly launched website Mormon Scholars Testify.com: 

"I knew from my own experience that I had impressions, revelations and insights that spoke in my mind and that I could formulate in many different ways," Ostler said. "In fact, the fullness of the knowledge could almost never be expressed adequately and as I grew in capacity I was better able to express even what I had learned in earlier revelations. I figured it was the same for Joseph and the translation of the Book of Mormon." 

This "co-creative" view of revelation explains why Joseph updated some of his revelations, including some passages in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, as his learning increased. Like all of us, Joseph's spiritual knowledge grew line upon line. As more pieces of the puzzle came together and as the overall picture grew sharper into focus, Joseph could more clearly understand some of his past experiences and revelations and modified them to reflect a more spiritually mature perspective.

Joseph also recognized, however, that while future revelations could shed additional light on past revelations, less-accurate scriptures could still convey the word of God. In D&C 128, for example, Joseph Smith quoted Malachi 4:5-6 exactly as it is quoted in the King James Version Bible. In verse 7 the prophet Joseph added: "I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands."

As noted previously it's also possible that Joseph may have added, perhaps unconsciously, divinely inspired insights, words or phrases that may not have been on the original plates. The same can be said for Mormon, the Nephite prophet, who compiled and edited the writings of past Nephite prophets.

We learn, for example, of similar editorial additions from the translation of other ancient documents. Two common Bible-scholar words are "midrash" and "Targum." Midrash refers to a Jewish method of interpreting scriptures. A Targum generally refers to an Aramaic (the likely language of Jesus and his apostles) translation of Hebrew scripture. Aramaic Targums sometimes include midrashic comments (explanations and expansions) that were not in the original Hebrew documents themselves. 

Such comments, or expansions "likened," in a sense, the scriptures to an audience who were removed -- in a different era -- from those who originally wrote the scriptures (see 1 Nephi 19:23). In some of these Targums it's not easy to tell where the original text ends and the midrashic expansions begin. Instead, these expansions are often seamlessly included into the translation as if they were part of the original text. Someone unfamiliar with the original document might not be able to distinguish which parts of the Targums are midrashic or

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original. A number of scholars believe that expansions, interpretive comments, additions and modifications are common in biblical scripture.

It's possible that some of these attributes can also be found in the Book of Mormon. Mormon unquestioningly added commentaries when he rewrote the words of prior Nephite prophets. While some of his editorial comments are obvious, it's likely that he made editorial comments that are not as obvious. We'll come back to this point again later in this series.

Regardless of whether one takes the tight, loose or somewhere-in-between translation approach, there is an important principle that applies to any approach: The very fact that the Book of Mormon was translated into English leads to the inescapable fact that English words were selected, either by Joseph or God, for a specific audience -- be that Joseph, 19th-century Americans, etc. This is important in understanding the meaning of some Book of Mormon words or phrases.

Critics often claim Joseph served as a fax machine for the word of God and that every single word in the Book of Mormon should be 100 percent accurate and precise if it came from God. They prefer this straw-man argument so they can argue that, because changes have been made to the Book of Mormon or because there is some scholarly dispute as to what some specific words actually mean, it could not have come from God. 

Ambiguity in Book of Mormon translation bound to happen 25 Jan 2010

For those who believe that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, the issue of a loose or tight translation method is academic. Somehow, by the power of God, Joseph was able to translate the Book of Mormon plates. For those who reject the Book of Mormon as the word of God, the issue of the translation method is also academic -- unbelievers are convinced that Joseph (or a cohort) wrote a fictional narrative and that there never were any Nephites or Lamanites.

In the end, it's really a matter of faith. There are "evidences" that Joseph Smith translated an ancient text (some of those evidences were listed in previous issues and more evidences will follow in later issues), but secular "proof" is something that we ultimately won't find for any spiritual truth (more on this in a future issue).

In this article, I'd like to tackle an important point related to the topic of Book of Mormon translation. As alluded to in the last article, some critics claim that if God gave Joseph the power to translate the Book of Mormon, then every single word in the English translation should be 100 percent accurate and precise.

It's hard to understand how anyone who really thinks this through could make such a claim. Even if God would provide a perfect, unambiguous translation or text, that text would only be perfect and unambiguous to an audience of one -- in the case of the Book of Mormon, that audience would be Joseph Smith. As soon as those words went from Joseph to anyone else, however, ambiguity would be unavoidable.

As noted several times in this series, words only have meaning in a context, and documents are written not only from within a context but they are written to a specific audience as well. Translations are also written (or in the case of the Book of Mormon, dictated) to a specific

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audience within a specific context. As non-LDS Bible scholar Dr. Bruce Malina explains: "...meaning does not come from the words. Meaning inevitably derives from the general social system of the speakers of a language" ("New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology," 1).

It's disingenuous to claim that God could give a perfect translation if that translation is to be recorded in a human language and read by human readers. All human languages are, at times, ambiguous. All authors write from their own perspective, with their own understanding about the world, culture, etc. All readers interpret what they read according to their own understanding of what words mean, as well as how such words are depicted in their understanding of the world, culture, etc. As two prominent non-LDS Bible scholars explain, all readers "must interact with the writing and 'complete' it if it is to make sense.... Every written document invites immediate participation on the part of the reader. Thus writings provide what is necessary, but cannot provide everything" (Malina and Rohrbaugh, "Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels," 8-14).

Dr. William Hamblin, an expert on the ancient Near East, notes that there are two primary rules to follow when trying to understand any text that has been translated from a foreign language. The first is to accurately understand what the text has to say. This is typically done by reading the text in its original language. While we can't read the Book of Mormon in its original language, we can put forth the effort in trying to understand what the text has to say rather than simply assuming that the meaning of the text is obvious to 21st century readers.

Second, Hamblin says that the reader "must contextualize the text in its original setting -- that is to say, read it in the context of the culture, history, values, science, and social norms from which the text derives" (Hamblin, FARMS Review, 21:2, 50). While there are several theories as to the precise location of Book of Mormon events (and I, along with most LDS scholars, prefer the Mesoamerican geographic model (more on this in a future issue)), Latter-day Saints agree that the Nephites lived in the ancient Americas from about 600 B.C. until about 400 A.D. If we want to really understand what the Book of Mormon says, we need to "contextualize" the book with this time frame and general geography in mind. Knowing the ambiguity of language and the context of author and reader becomes important when we look at the reasons why Book of Mormon authors expressed or described some things in the Nephite text.”

'A marvellous work and a wonder': A look back at the translation of the Book of Mormon 185 years after it was first published by Whitney Butters Wilde, Deseret New March 26 2015

“But for Cowdery, the opportunity to assist with the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon was a treasured one. “These were days never to be forgotten — to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven,” Cowdery said, according to the translation topic page.

The “drudgery” that set the stage for the coming forth of the Book of Mormon extended into the realm of housework and farm chores. One person known for providing assistance with the everyday matters was Mary Whitmer, the mother of the Whitmer family.

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Jensen said Mary Whitmer’s grandson John C. Whitmer told of her being “bogged down” with the additional cooking, cleaning and other house chores that came as a result of Joseph and other visitors staying in her home during the translation process. One day while she was milking the cows, Mary Whitmer saw an angel who acknowledged her hard work and proceeded to show her the gold plates.

“From that moment, my grandmother was enabled to perform her household duties with comparative ease, and she felt no more inclination to murmur because her lot was hard,” said John C. Whitmer, as cited in an article Jensen wrote titled “A Bit of Old String” on history.lds.org.

Jensen also pointed out that contributions were even made by some who didn’t believe in the Book of Mormon as a book of divine origin, including John H. Gilbert, who was the principal typesetter at Grandin’s printing office. As Joseph dictated the translation to the scribes, he “did not call for punctuation.” Therefore, both the original manuscript and the printer’s manuscript were devoid of it, according to the topic page. The task of punctuating the Book of Mormon and setting the type, letter by letter, was left to Gilbert, a job he “took pride” in later in life, Jensen said.

The Book of Mormon has gone a long way since it first hit the shelves of Grandin’s bookshop in the small town of Palmyra, New York. More than 168 million copies have been distributed since March 1830, according to LDS Church Public Affairs, and an average of 4.5 million physical copies are distributed each year. With 110 different language translations of the book and digital translations available in 40 different languages onscriptures.lds.org and the Gospel Library app, the Book of Mormon continues to expand the church’s reach.

“You could very much make the case that the LDS Church was founded on the publication of a book,” Jensen said. “Word of mouth only has a limited radius. It really was the publication of this book, and therefore this dissemination of this information through missionaries and others, that people began to hear about and then believe in Joseph Smith, his prophetic calling and the Restoration.”

“The Book of Mormon referred to this instrument, together with its breastplate, as a device ‘kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord’ and ‘handed down from generation to generation, for the purpose of interpreting languages,’” the topic page states.

The second, known as a seer stone, was a “small oval stone” that Joseph “discovered in the ground years before he retrieved the gold plates,” according to the lds.org topic page, that he later learned could be used in the translation process. Jensen said the idea of seer stones was common during Joseph’s time. They were seen as “a way to confront the spiritual, supernatural world.”

Witnesses of the translation process recorded that “when Joseph looked into the instruments, the words of scripture appeared in English,” according to the topic page.

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Joseph was in his early 20s at the time and had “very little formal education and was incapable of writing a book on his own, let alone translating an ancient book written from an unknown language,” according to the topic page.

Joseph repeatedly testified that it was “by the gift and power of God” that he was able to complete the translation, a fact his wife, Emma, affirmed.

“The Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity — I have not the slightest doubt of it,” Emma told their son Joseph III on one occasion. “I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired; for, when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me for hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him.”

The topic page also asserts the idea that the original Book of Mormon manuscript, 28 percent of which has survived through the years, also supports statements that Joseph dictated the text from another language in a short period of time.

“For example, it includes errors that suggest the scribe heard words incorrectly rather than misread words copied from another manuscript,” the topic page states. “In addition, some grammatical constructions that are more characteristic of Near Eastern languages than English appear in the original manuscript, suggesting that the base language of the translation was not English.”

‘Days never to be forgotten’

Joseph may have been the one called to translate the Book of Mormon, but Jensen emphasized that he was not completely alone in the process.

“We have a lot of faithful individuals who believed in the Book of Mormon, believed in the power of the Book of Mormon and who were willing to put up with a lot of drudgery, and then of course later in church history, a lot of trial, a lot of hardship,” Jensen said.

Jensen highlighted Joseph's scribes as examples of others who performed “time-intensive” work during the process.

Oliver Cowdery is known as the primary scribe for the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon, but many others took up a quill to assist Joseph during the translation, according to Jensen. They include Martin Harris, a friend of Joseph’s who later was one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon and who financed the printing; Emma Smith; Samuel Smith, one of Joseph’s younger brothers; Reuben Hale, Joseph’s brother-in-law; and Christian Whitmer, one of the sons of the Whitmer family who allowed Joseph to finish translating in their home in Fayette, New York. Christian’s brother John Whitmer also may have served as scribe for a time, and there is handwriting of an additional unidentified scribe found in the original manuscript.

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After completing the first manuscript, Joseph also asked Cowdery to take charge on creating a second copy of the text to provide to E.B. Grandin’s printing office in Palmyra, New York. Although Hyrum Smith and another unidentified scribe assisted, Cowdery wrote the bulk of the scripture by hand twice, according to Jensen.

“Think of the hand cramps that Oliver Cowdery had to endure,” Jensen said. But for Cowdery, the opportunity to assist with the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon was a treasured one.

“These were days never to be forgotten — to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven,” Cowdery said, according to the translation topic page.

The “drudgery” that set the stage for the coming forth of the Book of Mormon extended into the realm of housework and farm chores. One person known for providing assistance with the everyday matters was Mary Whitmer, the mother of the Whitmer family.

Jensen said Mary Whitmer’s grandson John C. Whitmer told of her being “bogged down” with the additional cooking, cleaning and other house chores that came as a result of Joseph and other visitors staying in her home during the translation process. One day while she was milking the cows, Mary Whitmer saw an angel who acknowledged her hard work and proceeded to show her the gold plates.

“From that moment, my grandmother was enabled to perform her household duties with comparative ease, and she felt no more inclination to murmur because her lot was hard,” said John C. Whitmer, as cited in an article Jensen wrote titled “A Bit of Old String” on history.lds.org.

Jensen also pointed out that contributions were even made by some who didn’t believe in the Book of Mormon as a book of divine origin, including John H. Gilbert, who was the principal typesetter at Grandin’s printing office. As Joseph dictated the translation to the scribes, he “did not call for punctuation.” Therefore, both the original manuscript and the printer’s manuscript were devoid of it, according to the topic page. The task of punctuating the Book of Mormon and setting the type, letter by letter, was left to Gilbert, a job he “took pride” in later in life, Jensen said.

The Book of Mormon today

The Book of Mormon has gone a long way since it first hit the shelves of Grandin’s bookshop in the small town of Palmyra, New York. More than 168 million copies have been distributed since March 1830, according to LDS Church Public Affairs, and an average of 4.5 million physical copies are distributed each year. With 110 different language translations of the book and digital translations available in 40 different languages on scriptures.lds.org and the Gospel Library app, the Book of Mormon continues to expand the church’s reach.

“You could very much make the case that the LDS Church was founded on the publication of a book,” Jensen said. “Word of mouth only has a limited radius. It really was the publication

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of this book, and therefore this dissemination of this information through missionaries and others, that people began to hear about and then believe in Joseph Smith, his prophetic calling and the Restoration.”

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