Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon

[Mighty Curelom]

Did MC or you consider the fact that the 'translation' was most likely done by a young man who was trained in neither Hebrew or polished English?

To bring us back to reality for JUUUST a moment, let's remember that there was no translation. There were no gold plates. No reformed Egyptian. No Nephites or Lamanites, whether they be white and delightsome or pure and delightsome. When we critics get dragged into surreal disputes about how the translation took place, what the mechanical process was, and all the excruciating minutia of the whole affair, that point gets overlooked.

Having said that, I'll say this: Joseph Smith didn't translate the Book of Mormon. He dictated it. Those are the facts no matter which side of the aisle you're on. Like you said, Joseph didn't know Hebrew at the time, nor did he know "reformed Egyptian." There is one very important requirement for translating from one language to another: you must know both languages. It's really that simple. If you don't know both languages, you can't translate. Joseph didn't know both languages, so Joseph didn't translate the Book of Mormon.

So who did? God. The Holy Ghost. Whoever was making words appear on Joseph's peep stone. Because that's how the BoM was translated. Joseph didn't have the plates open on his desk, along with a handy Reformed Egyptian to English dictionary (3rd edition). In fact, he didn't even have the plates in the same room with him! His role was to read the words and letters from his peep stone that God (or whomever) put there.

So the question is not "should we expect Joseph Smith to make certain errors that traditional translators sometimes make?" The question is "should we expect God to make certain errors that traditional translators sometimes make?" With respect to the particular "Hebraism" we're discussing, I say no. Brother P. hasn't demonstrated that if/and constructions are EVER retained, even by traditional translators. But from what I understand, if/and constructions finding their way into English translations would be the result of translator carelessness or fatigue. That's why, if they happen to pop up, they're immediately corrected. In other words, they're a mistake.

Does God make mistakes?

[Abulafia]

Daniel, I am doing my best to get my un-scholarly head round this subject.

If one takes the spiritual confirmation out of the equation, which I think is the all important factor for most believers, then without that, one has to go on the weight of evidence. Though I am as skeptical about this (if I am even understanding it!)as evidence for authenticity as I was when Chiasmus was doing the rounds as proof positive that the Book of Mormon was what Joseph said it was.

The weight of evidence seems so much to be in favour of human origins that it really does need a spiritual confirmation to believe otherwise in my opinion of course.

[David Bokovoy]

Greetings to all from the lovely state of Deseret,

I'm genuinely curious. Is there anybody here who agrees with Mr. Graham that Brenton's translation of LXX Genesis 34:15-16 (or, even, 34:15-17) contitutes a genuine "if/and" conditional in the manner of the passages from Helaman and Moroni that I've cited?

Thank you, Dan, for explaining so clearly why Kevin's example remains so problematic. The example Kevin cited is clearly not an "if/and" conditional sentence like the ones featured in the Book of Mormon, neither have I seen any sort of pattern to suggest that Brenton rendered biblical conditional sentences into a Book of Mormon/Hebraiclike "if/and" pattern.

Until I have looked closely at every example--which I may or may not do-- I'm open to the possiblity that there might be one in Brenton's work, however, the point is mute when one considers not only the date of publication, but also the fact that a pattern would certainly need to exist--which as I have shown, it does not--in order for anyone to declare that an uneducated reader might have simply absorbed the structure.

Nice work.

So aren't we back to MC's point, several pages ago, that the Book of Mormon contains (well, contained) an alleged artifact of translation from Biblical Hebrew, but that no other translation from Biblical Hebrew contains the alleged artifact?

Which of course leads us back to the point I made several pages ago:

The interesting thing about the Hebrew conjunction is that it really is so incredibly difficult for translators to pin down. Though somewhat exaggerated, the philosopher John Locke

[Bill Hamblin]

So the question is not "should we expect Joseph Smith to make certain errors that traditional translators sometimes make?" The question is "should we expect God to make certain errors that traditional translators sometimes make?" With respect to the particular "Hebraism" we're discussing, I say no. Brother P. hasn't demonstrated that if/and constructions are EVER retained, even by traditional translators. But from what I understand, if/and constructions finding their way into English translations would be the result of translator carelessness or fatigue. That's why, if they happen to pop up, they're immediately corrected. In other words, they're a mistake.

Does God make mistakes?

A few comments on MC's claims.

1- MC is once again clearly showing his fundamentalist mentality. Even if God doesn't make mistakes, God works through human beings, and they always make mistakes.

2- MC does not understand the nature of translation. There are many ways to correctly translate a document. If/and is a literal translation of Hebrew im/waw, and therefore a semiticism. It is not, however, idiomatic English. There is no way even for God to simultaneously translate im/waw idiomatically and literally. Using MC's model and method, no matter which way it was translated, God could be accused of making a mistake.

3- The critics have not offered any counter-explanation for the occurrence of if/and in the BOM. Clearly the ancient model explains the data better than the modern model.

4- In MC's position, his theory is clearly controlling the data. Since we know--according to MC--that the BOM is the work of JS, then it is not a translation. Since it is not a translation, there can be no semiticisms. MC's fundamentalism and dogmatism prevents him from being able to evaluate the evidence.

[Calm]

Did MC or you consider the fact that the 'translation' was most likely done by a young man who was trained in neither Hebrew or polished English?

To bring us back to reality for JUUUST a moment, let's remember that there was no translation.

Hey, I put "translation" in ' ' just for you. Why the rant about reality?

[Alf O'Mega]

The critics have not offered any counter-explanation for the occurrence of if/and in the BOM.  Clearly the ancient model explains the data better than the modern model.

Well, how about this explanation: Joseph Smith dictated the text. While trying to sound scriptural, he often constructed long, repetitive sentences with semi-automatic conjunction fire. Occasionally* he lost track of his antecedents or got mesmerized by the rondo rhythm of all those ands and let an ungrammatical conjunction slip in. He certainly committed his share of other grammatical infelicities during the dictation. That this particular one matches a Hebrew construction is yawnsome.

* (very occasionally, given the hundreds of other conditionals in the BoM that use or imply then instead of and for their consequents)

Let's consider the if/ands that I know about (most referenced by DCP earlier). I mark in bold the conjunctions and other repetitive words (like yea). The if/and pairs are marked in red. All language is from the 1830 edition.

Alma 20:24

If thou wilt grant that my brethren may be cast out of prison,

and also that Lamoni may retain his kingdom,

and that ye be not displeased with him,

but grant that he may do according to his own desires,

in whatsoever thing he thinketh,

and then will I spare thee;

Notice the rhythm of conjunctions and the distance between the if and its consequent.

Alma 30:43

If thou wilt shew me a sign,

that I may be convinced that there is a God,

yea, shew unto me that he hath power,

and then will I be convinced of the truth of thy words.

This one's a little ambiguous. It could be an if/and, or it could be an abortive conditional with a missing consequent, or it could be an if/that. It's hard enough to parse that it has apparently resisted all subsequent editing and survives in all its contorted glory in modern editions of the BoM. It also illustrates how quickly the Prophet could get into grammatical thickets from which he could not extricate himself.

Helaman 10:8

[Kevin Barney]

Those interested in the subject of BoM Hebraisms might find my comments on the subject of interest. See pp. 111-124 under the caption "Hebraisms" at the following article from the FR 15/1 (2003):

http://farms.byu.edu/pdf.php?filename=OTAw...m&type=cmV2aWV3

[William Schryver]

Alf O'Mega:

Now one thing I still don't understand is how the Hebraism apologetic is reconciled with the loose translation apologetic. It seems to me that if Hebraisms are detectable, it was a fairly tight translation (as Royal Skousen advocates). But if it's a tight translation, then you can't really blame the translator for anachronisms like the extensive textual dependence on the New Testament. I know, there's the unknown common ancient source apologetic, but really

[cksalmon]

So the question is not "should we expect Joseph Smith to make certain errors that traditional translators sometimes make?" The question is "should we expect God to make certain errors that traditional translators sometimes make?" With respect to the particular "Hebraism" we're discussing, I say no. Brother P. hasn't demonstrated that if/and constructions are EVER retained, even by traditional translators. But from what I understand, if/and constructions finding their way into English translations would be the result of translator carelessness or fatigue. That's why, if they happen to pop up, they're immediately corrected. In other words, they're a mistake.

Does God make mistakes?

A few comments on MC's claims.

1- MC is once again clearly showing his fundamentalist mentality. Even if God doesn't make mistakes, God works through human beings, and they always make mistakes.

2- MC does not understand the nature of translation. There are many ways to correctly translate a document. If/and is a literal translation of Hebrew im/waw, and therefore a semiticism. It is not, however, idiomatic English. There is no way even for God to simultaneously translate im/waw idiomatically and literally. Using MC's model and method, no matter which way it was translated, God could be accused of making a mistake.

3- The critics have not offered any counter-explanation for the occurrence of if/and in the BOM. Clearly the ancient model explains the data better than the modern model.

4- In MC's position, his theory is clearly controlling the data. Since we know--according to MC--that the BOM is the work of JS, then it is not a translation. Since it is not a translation, there can be no semiticisms. MC's fundamentalism and dogmatism prevents him from being able to evaluate the evidence.

Actually, you appear to have misread the central point of MC's post here, which was that translation definitionally involves knowledge of both the source language and the target language. If JS didn't know the source language of the text he was purportedly translating, then, by definition, he was not "translating."

You suggest, "MC does not understand the nature of translation. There are many ways to correctly translate a document."

Without reference to any particular Hebraism claimed for BoM, it would seem that MC has the general "nature of translation" fairly well pinned down: source language to target language, involving a working knowledge of both.

And, as at least some LDS argue, based on the historical materials, that JS read out the English words revealed to him via the peepstone

[Daniel Peterson]

Did MC or you consider the fact that the 'translation' was most likely done by a young man who was trained in neither Hebrew or polished English?

To bring us back to reality for JUUUST a moment, let's remember that there was no translation. There were no gold plates. No reformed Egyptian. No Nephites or Lamanites, whether they be white and delightsome or pure and delightsome. When we critics get dragged into surreal disputes about how the translation took place, what the mechanical process was, and all the excruciating minutia of the whole affair, that point gets overlooked.

This is simply a dogmatic assertion.

William James discusses the difference between what he calls "live options" and "dead options." For Might-C, theism and the Book of Mormon are dead options. In other words, no evidence whatever, at least in his current mental state, can ever be permitted to count in favor of the proposition that God exists or that the Book of Mormon is what it purports to be. In fact, no such evidence can really even be admitted to exist. One might also think in terms of Bayesian analysis: For Might-C, the prior probability of theism and of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is zero. Nada. Hence, no matter what evidence is plugged elsewhere into the Bayes probability theorem, the final result will be . . . (drum roll) zero. Nada. Nichts. Zilch.

This means that discussing such matters with Might-C is of relatively little value for anyone who does not share his dogmatic position. His position, essentially, is unfalsifiable (as he sees it).

Having said that, I'll say this:  Joseph Smith didn't translate the Book of Mormon.  He dictated it.  Those are the facts no matter which side of the aisle you're on.  Like you said, Joseph didn't know Hebrew at the time, nor did he know "reformed Egyptian."  There is one very important requirement for translating from one language to another: you must know both languages.  It's really that simple.  If you don't know both languages, you can't translate.  Joseph didn't know both languages, so Joseph didn't translate the Book of Mormon.

One one level, this is a truism, and trivial. Nobody has ever claimed that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon in the conventional sense.

So who did?  God.  The Holy Ghost.  Whoever was making words appear on Joseph's peep stone.

Note the term peep stone. This represents a cheap attempt to score by rhetoric a point that one has not earned by evidence or analysis. It is a favorite of Might-C's.

Because that's how the BoM was translated.  Joseph didn't have the plates open on his desk, along with a handy Reformed Egyptian to English dictionary (3rd edition).  In fact, he didn't even have the plates in the same room with him!  His role was to read the words and letters from his peep stone sic that God (or whomever) put there. 

So the question is not "should we expect Joseph Smith to make certain errors that traditional translators sometimes make?"  The question is "should we expect God to make certain errors that traditional translators sometimes make?"

This particular Might-C technique is known as the "straw man" fallacy, where one refutes (or, in this intellectually lazier approach, implicitly mocks), a position that one's opponent doesn't actually hold. No serious Latter-day Saint believes in the kind of human-puppet inspiration that Might-C's unserious portrayal assumes.

With respect to the particular "Hebraism" we're discussing, I say no.  Brother P. hasn't demonstrated that if/and constructions are EVER retained, even by traditional translators.

From what I've been told, Brother P feels no obligation to make such a demonstration.

But from what I understand, if/and constructions finding their way into English translations would be the result of translator carelessness or fatigue. That's why, if they happen to pop up, they're immediately corrected.  In other words, they're a mistake.

I agree that they were a mistake. That's why, after the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, they were corrected.

Does God make mistakes?

No.

Are prophets robots?

Also no.

The critics have not offered any counter-explanation for the occurrence of if/and in the BOM.  Clearly the ancient model explains the data better than the modern model.

Well, how about this explanation: Joseph Smith dictated the text. While trying to sound scriptural, he often constructed long, repetitive sentences with semi-automatic conjunction fire. Occasionally* he lost track of his antecedents or got mesmerized by the rondo rhythm of all those ands and let an ungrammatical conjunction slip in. He certainly committed his share of other grammatical infelicities during the dictation. That this particular one matches a Hebrew construction is yawnsome.

The frequent occurrence of and in the Book of Mormon may itself be a Hebraism, though that is not so open and shut a matter as, it seems to me, the "if/and" conditional sentence is.

Alf O'Mega's sense that the "if/and" structure is merely "yawnsome" is, well, not exactly an airtight argument. 100-line monorhyme jaahili-Arab qasida poems and Homeric ornamental epithets might well strike him as "yawnsome," too. But they're authentically ancient.

As for Joseph's simply making the Book of Mormon up on the fly, I don't buy it. I've tried, but I cannot. I set forth some of my reasons for rejecting the notion in my recent "Editor's Introduction

[cksalmon]

(cksalmon @ Aug 22 2006, 03:27 PM)

You suggest, "MC does not understand the nature of translation. There are many ways to correctly translate a document."

Without reference to any particular Hebraism claimed for BoM, it would seem that MC has the general "nature of translation" fairly well pinned down: source language to target language, involving a working knowledge of both.

Flat out wrong. The "general 'nature of translation'" is as I described it above: To transfer a meaning from one language or utterance or symbolic system into another. That is essential. Methods are accidental.

(cksalmon @ Aug 22 2006, 03:27 PM)

JS read out the English words revealed to him via the peepstone

Incidentally, use of the term peepstone, it seems to me, is a rather accurate diagnostic test by which to determine the agenda and intellectual seriousness of an author on Mormonism.

Absolutely irrelevant, frankly. Would you have preferred seer stone? Something else? Very well. No offense meant.

==>"Flat out wrong. The "general 'nature of translation'" is as I described it above: To transfer a meaning from one language or utterance or symbolic system into another. That is essential. Methods are accidental."

I suppose

[Matt Andrews]

Daniel Peterson wrote:

For Might-C, theism and the Book of Mormon are dead options. In other words, no evidence whatever, at least in his current mental state, can ever be permitted to count in favor of the proposition that God exists or that the Book of Mormon is what it purports to be.

Talk about dogmatic assertions. Perhaps you were attempting a subtle parody of what some dogmatic critics say about you? If so, kudos! You pulled it off brilliantly.

Does God make mistakes?

No.

Are prophets robots?

Also no.

So you agree that leaving the 'if/and's is a mistake, and God didn't tell Joseph to write the 'if/and's, AND that Joseph 'dictated' rather than 'translated'.

If these are all the case, then how did it get in there? Can you describe a possible mechanism for how it got from the Hebrew that Joseph knew nothing about, to English, even though God told him to use 'if/and'? If your theory is that this is an translational artifact, it seems the burden is on you to suggest how this is possible since God was the translator. How does the error creep in?

Saying JS wasn't a "robot" suggests you think he might have just messed up in dictating (which is Alf's theory)? I know you don't know how it got there, but can you describe even one possible way for it to have happened?

[Bill Hamblin]

If these are all the case, then how did it get in there? Can you describe a possible mechanism for how it got from the Hebrew that Joseph knew nothing about, to English, even though God told him to use 'if/and'? If your theory is that this is an translational artifact, it seems the burden is on you to suggest how this is possible since God was the translator. How does the error creep in?

Saying JS wasn't a "robot" suggests you think he might have just messed up in dictating (which is Alf's theory)? I know you don't know how it got there, but can you describe even one possible way for it to have happened?

Speculating about why a particular passage is translated the way it is is perfectly pointless. It involves multiple assumptions about a revelatory translation process which I daresay no one participating on this board has experienced. It requires us to read not only the mind of Joseph Smith, but the mind of God (which I suspect even Dan Vogel would not venture--since you can't read the mind of someone who doesn't exist )

I have, on the other hand, had experience with human translating from several different languages and know for a fact that there is no single "correct" translation for any text. There are always multiple possible "correct" translations.

According to the ancient theory, the if/and phrase occurs in the BOM because it literally reflects the ancient text.

If I were forced to speculate as to why that particular translation was made, I might suggest that God knew it would evetually be recognized as a Hebraism, and did it to annoy anti-Mormons. (You see, unlike some anti-Mormons, God has a sense of humor.)

[Daniel Peterson]

Incidentally, use of the term peepstone, it seems to me, is a rather accurate diagnostic test by which to determine the agenda and intellectual seriousness of an author on Mormonism.

Absolutely irrelevant, frankly. Would you have preferred seer stone?

"Absolutely irrelevant"? No. It was responding to your post.

But, true, not relevant to my main point. Which was why I used the word incidentally.

And, yes, I would prefer seer stone. Mockers like Might-C use peep stone in order to score a cheap rhetorical point. Friendly historical sources use seer stone. People not seeking to score a cheap rhetorical point will eschew peep stone and use the language favored by friendly historical sources, even if they do not believe in what it says about that stone.

I suppose

[mormon fool]

I don't believe that God, as such, "translated" the Book of Mormon.

I believe that Joseph Smith was the unconventional translator of the Book of Mormon, in a way quite distinct from the way I translate foreign language texts. I believe that he did it through the gift and power of God. (Actually, I have a slightly more complex theory of this, borrowed from Royal Skousen, that I'm entertaining. But it still involves inspired human translation of the Book of Mormon.

Dr. Peterson,

I would be interested in your translation theory, if you would care to sketch it out.

I have done a little wild speculating on what Skousen's observations might imply for the Book of Mormon. I suspect the use of 16th-17th century archaic English might mean that an intermediate, spiritual translation was done at about that time. Then the problem turned to which groups of people should be brought to the American continent to prepare the way for the Book's reception.

When Joseph Smith was brought on the project, what happened to the KJV-Isaiah text is what happened to the proto-English text. One model for the Isaiah translation might be that Joseph Smith clairvoyantly could read KJV text (witnesses indicate no Bible was present). JS's value added to the KJV-Isaiah texts in the Book of Mormon is on par with his JST accomplishments (which I have a healthy respect for as they fuse inspired conceptual insights, appear at times to restore ancient meanings, and clarify the English towards a more modern comprehension.) JS's seer stones would provide the raw input text and act as a word processor of sorts while JS manipulated it to accomodate his inspired insights until he had some indication he was sufficiently ready to move on, then he would dictate 15 or so words at a time in its final form, but staying a step ahead of his scribe.

Put this way, the heavy inter-language work would have been done by a divinely appointed committee with a number of design constraints to make the proto-English Book of Mormon an optimal text (a companion volume to the KJV, subtle Hebraicisms, etc.), but not so optimal that it couldn't be used as a training experience for Joseph Smith to learn how to receive revelation and communicate it to others.

I am sure your theory is much more coherent.

[MAsh]

Skousen is not, as I understand it, an advocate, per se, of a "tight translation."

Or, in other words, I don't believe he is suggesting that the translated words viewed by Joseph Smith were an exact translation of the actual text appearing on the plates of Mormon.  Rather, he simply argues that the "translation" process must have consisted of words appearing on the seer device and then being precisely recited by Joseph Smith to the scribe.  The words that Joseph saw need not have represented a "tight translation" of the actual "reformed Egyptian" text on the plates, but they were "tightly controlled" by the power which revealed them. 

Skousen does not use the phrase "tight translation", but rather "tight control".

Therefore, there is not necessarily a conflict between the concept of "tight control" of the text, and the other apologetic responses concerning alleged anachronisms.

I briefly discussed this with Skousen some years ago. It's possible that I either misunderstood him or that his views have changed.

At the time he did seem to suggest a belief in a tight "translation." He did not believe, for example, that the BoM "horse" referred to any animal other than a literal "horse" (in fact, his comments to me regarding Sorenson's suggestions on BoM anachronisms led me to believe that he thought such apologetics were silly and unnecessary). I don't know how he would have reconciled other (more difficult) anachronisms (that must surely be based on a "loose" translation). From my previous conversation wiht Skousen, regarding (supposedly) anachronistic animals, I think that he does, indeed, believe in a tight "translation."

[William Schryver]

Mike,

You could very well be right. I suppose we

[MAsh]

Mike,

You could very well be right.  I suppose we

[Daniel Peterson]

I agree with MAsh. I see no reason why a long translation must be either all tightly-controlled or all loosely-controlled.

No translation that I've ever done that was of any length has been absolutely uniform throughout. I'm not even sure that such uniformity would be desirable.

[Moksha]

Are there any Yiddish expressions in the Book of Mormon? For instance, is a bagle with a schmear mentioned?

[Dr. Shades]

And, yes, I would prefer seer stone. Mockers like Might-C use peep stone in order to score a cheap rhetorical point. Friendly historical sources use seer stone.

What about people like me who use magic rock?

[The Dude]

I prefer [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palant

[Daniel Peterson]

And, yes, I would prefer seer stone.  Mockers like Might-C use peep stone in order to score a cheap rhetorical point.  Friendly historical sources use seer stone.

What about people like me who use magic rock?

Mockers like Shades use magic rock in order to score a cheap rhetorical point that they have not earned by virtue of evidence or analysis. Friendly historical sources use seer stone.

[The Dude]

And, yes, I would prefer seer stone.

[Alf O'Mega]

Thanks for the clarification on Skousen's views, William and Mike. My citation of Skousen was incidental, because regardless of whether the dictation was tightly controlled, the if/and argument itself posits a tight translation. This is what I meant when I cited its incompatibility with a "loose translation" apologetic. I think we can agree that "tight control" excludes any anachronistic contributions by Joseph Smith. Obviously Blake Ostler's "modern expansion" theory is right out.

The frequent occurrence of and in the Book of Mormon may itself be a Hebraism. . . .

If so, it is trivially attributable to the influence of the King James Version. (Just look at the first chapter of Genesis, where 29 of 31 verses begin with and!)

Alf O'Mega's sense that the "if/and" structure is merely "yawnsome" is, well, not exactly an airtight argument. 100-line monorhyme jaahili-Arab qasida poems and Homeric ornamental epithets might well strike him as "yawnsome," too. But they're authentically ancient.

Actually, what I find yawnsome (i.e., entirely to be expected) is not the form but the chance that contorted English might occasionally accidentally resemble Hebrew, especially when the Hebraisms are vastly outnumbered by idiomatic English in parallel constructions elsewhere. Joseph Smith dictated many perfectly idiomatic conditionals, so when, under the burden of imitating scriptural language with a wooden ear, he occasionally let an extra conjunction creep in, I simply have difficulty stifling a yawn at the claim that this represents an authentic Hebrew artifact. (There is a coherent argument in there, Dr. Peterson. You'll find it between the yawns.)

I'm grateful that Alf O'Meaga undertook to find additional "if/and" conditionals, and I agree that Alma 20:24 and Alma 30:43 are potentially interesting.

I should clarify that the if/ands I presented were culled from Appendix B of Edward H. Ashment's article "'A Record in the Language of My Father': Evidence of Ancient Egyptian and Hebrew in the Book of Mormon," in Brent Lee Metcalfe, New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 329