bdouglas

Very interesting story. I like stories like this. We have a story similar to this in my family that has been passed down over the years, always with the understanding that it will be kept in the family.

But the whole JS story is unusual. Given the strangeness of the whole JS story we already know, would it really be that unusual for there to be parts of this story that we haven’t been made aware of?

I have zero background in linguistics so I can’t comment on “or”, but ... I am reading Skousen original text BOM. I finish 2nd Nephi and I come Jacob … and Jacob speaks in a different voice than Nephi. There are distinctive elements to his speech not present in Nephi's speech. Then the odd language ... (EModE, according to Skousen/Carmack) ... I get the feeling that what I’m reading is a deliberate and studied translation of an ancient text, a translation that maybe took place over many years, someone rendering into his native English an ancient text, also "reshaping" (Bushman)

!! I have been reading the Skousen/Carmack original text BOM. There is so much of the language in the original text that is hard to imagine coming from JS. Where would he have pulled that language from?

P.S. - I have volume one of your Second Witness series, First Nephi. Halfway thru. Learning a lot.

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my question. To me the theory that he was reading off an already existing translation, a "cultural and creative translation" (Skousen), is more plausible. JS did things that are not ordinarily possible to humans (dictating the revelations in the D & C, for example), but even so, giving us the BOM in 67 working days, an uninterrupted flow, spelling out proper names, places, so many distinctive and unique voices (how many distinctive voices? 28, I think), complex geographies, radically different places and cultures (1 Nephi, Book of Ether)

Maybe. But more often (it seems to me) God uses human agents to do his work here.

I'm curious to know how you see JS producing BOM without referencing plates. What was he seeing in seer-stone, do you think? If he was working things out on the fly, how does he do this in 67 days, dictating text, spelling out names, places? Someone who does not subscribe to theory that he was reading off an existing text told me he thought JS did it in the same way he dictated revelations in the D & C i.e. the words were given to him, but yet at the same they were JS's words, his language. Is this the way you see it?

This is the traditional view, the one I used to have: that JS was "studying it out in his mind" and then rendering it into his own English. But the fact that we now know that JS did not reference the plates while translating, that he read off the words from seer-stone, so many words per minute (as per Skousen), spelling out names, places, and that he did this in 67 working days ... It seems he was reading off an existing translation. Or at least this is the theory that makes the most sense to me.

The only theory I have heard was advanced by Royal Skousen, that the BOM is a "creative and cultural translation" from 15th-16 century, but he does not say who did this translation. I assume he thinks it was a prophet, or prophets. I have heard Stanford Carmack (name correct?) say that, considering the mix of EModE and modern English, this translation was perhaps done by more than one person. It seems to me that JS, looking into his seer-stone and producing BOM in 67 days, no pauses, no going back to rework anything, spelling out names, places—it seems clear to me that he was not working

Podcast: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/01/07/mormon-land-historian/ Print: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/12/31/agnostic-believer/ Some time ago Royal Skousen, in a BYU interview, said that JS, when he looked into his seer-stone, was transmitting an already existing translation, and that this was a “creative and cultural translation” from the 15th-16th century. And now we have Bro. Bushman hinting at the same thing only he says 19th century. I get that this is very disturbing to some LDS, who feel that such a theory diminishes the BOM and JS, but f

An interesting OP, one I agree with. In C S Lewis’ The Great Divorce certain souls on the other side (what LDS would call the Spirit World) make a long pilgrimage to see Napoleon. I was a full-blown drug addict by the time I was 15, and I have continued to struggle with drug addiction all through my adult life, and I can tell you that (1) addicts, perhaps more than other people, harbor grievances, and (2), the first thing an addict has to do when going into recovery is toss out all of the grievances. "But what if the grievances are justified?" It doesn’t matter. They sti

If you do not believe in the historicity of the Bible, then Israel Finkelstein is your man. If you do believe in the historicity of Bible, as I do (I also believe in the historicity of the BOM), then you go with William Dever, William F. Albright, etc. Who you choose to make your expert depends on what you already believe.

Two things: (1) archaeology is an inexact science; and (2) Israel Finkelstein is very controversial. See this to get an idea about how controversial he is: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/29/in-search-of-king-davids-lost-empire

https://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions/ Not for discussion. This is why I'm posting it here.