A Bible! A Bible! How Would Js Hide A Bible?

[DonBradley]

The whole proposal set forth seems almost like an oxymoron. On the one hand, Oliver was an intelligent and pious man whom Joseph was smart enough to fool into thinking that he was a prophet even while they copied straight from the KJV of the bible. On the other hand, Joseph was stupid enough to think he could fool anyone into thinking that he was prophet after doing a thing like that.

Umm....Joseph Smith did convince a number of anyones that he was a prophet after dictating from the KJV.

In other words, the whole idea of tricking Oliver seems pretty foolish on Joseph's part, and if he was smart enough to pull that off, he should have been smart enough to not try it in the first place.

Sargon

I don't see how this follows.

Don

[Doctor Steuss]

Don (or anyone else who knows more about this topic than I [which is probably everyone]),

Is there any possibility that the Printer was the one to utilize a KJV while editing the manuscript for printing (i.e. trying to correct the scribesâ?? problems with grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.)?

[DonBradley]

Don (or anyone else who knows more about this topic than I [which is probably everyone]),

Is there any possibility that the Printer was the one to utilize a KJV while editing the manuscript for printing (i.e. trying to correct the scribesâ?? problems with grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.)?

A good question. You're thinking like a textual critic.

To an extent, yes. I believe Royal Skousen has found that the typesetter used the KJV to help spell and punctuate 3 Nephi's Sermon at the Temple. This, of course, would have increased the odds that he'd contaminate the text with KJV readings.

But this doesn't explain the KJV readings and italic variants in the Book of Mormon "Printer's Manuscript"--the manuscript from which the printer set type for most of the printed book. And it definitely doesn't explain such elements in the extant portion of the Original Manuscript (the one dictated by JS) containing the 1 Nephi quotations.

In short, the typesetter's actions may provide a small part of the answer.

Don

[CE Digger]

At the time this venture was concocted, the best selling book in history was the bible. JS was writing a new bible, one in which he held the copyright.

YES! Very good.

This plays into Joseph Smith's motives. But he alone held the copyright. It was not held by a pair, a group, a church. It was held by Joseph Smith individually.

Sorry Don but the first image that popped into my head when you said "YES! Very good." was the Emperor in Return of the Jedi as he tries to make Luke his apprentice!

[DonBradley]

YES! Very good.

This plays into Joseph Smith's motives. But he alone held the copyright. It was not held by a pair, a group, a church. It was held by Joseph Smith individually.

Sorry Don but the first image that popped into my head when you said "YES! Very good." was the Emperor in Return of the Jedi as he tries to make Luke his apprentice!

Sorry, CE, but it's hard for an apprentice not to quote his master once in a while.

[Doctor Steuss]

A good question. You're thinking like a textual critic.

To an extent, yes. I believe Royal Skousen has found that the typesetter used the KJV to help spell and punctuate 3 Nephi's Sermon at the Temple. This, of course, would have increased the odds that he'd contaminate the text with KJV readings.

But this doesn't explain the KJV readings and italic variants in the Book of Mormon "Printer's Manuscript"--the manuscript from which the printer set type for most of the printed book. And it definitely doesn't explain such elements in the extant portion of the Original Manuscript (the one dictated by JS) containing the 1 Nephi quotations.

In short, the typesetter's actions may provide a small part of the answer.

Don

Does Skousen (or any others) speculate at all as to why the typesetter used the KJV in that particular area and not in others (say the extensive Isaiah passages)? Was it due to the typesetter's likely familiarity with that particular scriptural address, or was the "Printer's Manuscript" more-so riddled with errors (thusly necessitating KJV usage) in that section than others?

Perhaps I need to bump Skousenâ??s volumes up on my â??need to buyâ? booklist (I only added it a couple of weeks ago when structurecop brought it to my attention).

Thanks Don,

Stu

[DonBradley]

Hi again Ed,

As for Emma , you make a good point as to the limited time she acted as scribe for a

that limited portion of the text , which may not have contained many , if any , biblical text. It may have , we simply don't know because the text is lost to us. So , at least for that smaller portion of the translation Emma's witness of Joseph that "He had neither manuscript nor book to read from." would tend toward this being a utilization of only the seerstone , which she said was the only method he employed during that time.

You're right that we don't know that the portion for which Emma acted as scribe contained no biblical quotation. It may have. However, since biblical quotation comprises a very small proportion of the extant text, it seems unlikely that the portion she recorded would have contained such quotation unless she scribed for quite a long period. Note that one can go from late 2 Nephi to mid-Mosiah with no biblical quotation, from mid-Mosiah to mid-3 Nephi, and then from mid-3 Nephi to the end of Moroni. For Emma to have not encountered such quotation during her brief scribal tenure at the beginning of the book would be quite unsurprising. So, while Emma's testimony indicates that Joseph Smith used only the seerstone during her scribal tenure, this does not significantly affect the probability that he used a Bible when dictating lengthy biblical quotations.

It also seems that when Emma wasn't actually translating she was at times in the room while translation was on-going. Emma said ," Oliver Cowdery and your father wrote in the room where I was at work."(supra , pg 51) and during those periods of time she denied Joseph had used any other source material.

I've quoted the relevant portion of her final interview above, and her statements about source materials are explicitly regarding the period of her own scribal tenure. But let's consider the odds that Emma would have observed the use of a Bible. As I understand it, Joseph Smith dictated to Oliver Cowdery in an upstairs room of the house in which they stayed in Harmony, PA. If this is correct, Emma would not likely have been present for most of the dictation unless her housework primarily focused on this room. Consider also how much of the text believed to have been dictated at Harmony (Mosiah through Moroni) consisted of biblical quotation--only the Ten Commandments quoted in Mosiah, the "Sermon at the Temple" in 3 Nephi, and the Isaiah, Micah, and Malachi portions of 3 Nephi 20-21 and 24-25. We could look into what fraction of the total Harmony text this constitutes. I would estimate under 2%. Now, if we inquire what the odds might be that Emma would have failed to observe the dictation of a given 2% of the text, it would seem to me that these odds would be fairly high. It's not like we're talking about a large proportion of the text, and Emma had responsibilities, and family and friends living a stone's throw away.

After the move to Fayette, Joseph Smith apparently dictated 1 Nephi through Words of Mormon, with a great deal of this text consisting of biblical quotation (perhaps 25%?). Had Emma been present through this time, she very likely would have observed any use made of a Bible. However, the historical sources are clear that when Joseph Smith moved to Fayette, he left Emma behind in Harmony. It appears that Emma followed a few weeks later, but this might well have placed her arrival in Fayette after the biblical quotations (which cease with 2 Nephi 27). Joseph's move to Fayette occurred on about June 1, and the translation is consistently reported to have been complete by the end of June. This would have required a rapid pace of dictation, and could easily have placed the dictation at the end of 2 Nephi three weeks after the move.

So, even if Emma's statement is seen as precluding Emma having ever seen her husband employ a Bible during the dictation, which would appear to go beyond the content and intent of her statement, this could easily be accounted for by her probable absence during most of the Bible use.

Emma's testimony therefore provides, at best, only a minor reduction in the probability that a Bible was used.

David Whitmer also reported that Joseph had no other means at his disposal while translating. â??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 being present and cognizant how it was done.â?(Lyndon W. Cook ed., David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness (Grandin Book Co., 1993). While there is no explicit denial by Whitmer that the Bible was used as a reference in the translation process , his statement which was exclusionary of "other means of knowledge" except for the seerstone and the gold plates themselves would imply that the Bible was excluded as a source.

I've already addressed this statement. First, these are admittedly not Whitmer's words but those of a reporter. Whether Whitmer's statement was actually so broad cannot be established by a secondhand summation. Secondly, in the other cases where David Whitmer denies the use of an external source, his comments are aimed explicitly at rebutting the Spalding theory, not at addressing Joseph Smith's presumably inspired use of a Bible. The context of the statement is not given in the newspaper report you cite above, but could easily be discussion of the Spalding claim, which was dealt with in the interview.

Still , I remember from my reading , but I can't remember where , that there was a time when Joseph was translating from the plates using the seer stone and came across the fact that Jerusalem was a walled city. Astonished at the revelation that Jerusalem had walls around it , Joseph stopped translating until he and his scribe , I don't remember who that was , found a Bible and Joseph confirmed that Jerusalem did indeed have walls around it. It must have been in the early stages of translation as the mention of the walls of Jerusalem is found at 1 Ne. 4: 4

So , there is evidence in that anecdote that Joseph had a Bible available as a reference resource early in the translation process. How extensively he used it in the actual translation process , if he used it at all , is , as you note , an open question.

Yes, quite accurate. Emma reports the "walls of Jerusalem" incident in her last interview, and, I believe, elsewhere as well. Note, however, that this occurred during the translation of the lost Book of Lehi, not in 1 Nephi. By the time of 1 Nephi, Joseph Smith would have already been familiar with the walls of Jerusalem from the Book of Lehi account. He would also, by the time of 1 Nephi, have been quite familiar with the name "Sariah," which Emma says Joseph didn't know how to pronounce when he first encountered during his scribal tenure.

So, as you note, a Bible was on hand and could be used as a reference from the beginning of the dictation.

I have not seen all of the statements made by all those who had acted as scribe or had witnessed the translation so I don't know whether they in some cases or no case specifically deny the use of a Bible as a translation resource. If they just gave a general statement that manuscripts were not used then you are right , an argument from silence cannot be made that a Bible was not used anymore than the opposite argument can be made the the Bible was used.

Yes. I'd encourage you to examine the other statements of the translation witnesses. None of them deny the use of an outside source, or address the issue of the use of a Bible one way or the other. And the only known scribe for the biblical material, Oliver Cowdery, left no statement related to the matter, and had little to say about the translation process.

In such a case we would have a stalemate , with no means of knowing one way or the other.

Actually, this is incorrect. The methods for determining whether one text depends on another are quite well-developed. There is an entire, well-established discipline devoted to this--textual criticism.

When the Book of Mormon perpetuates the errors of the KJV, which it sometimes does, and varies on the italicized KJV text at 20 times the rate it varies on the non-italicized KJV text, it reveals its dependence on the KJV at these points. The question of whether a King James Bible was employed has been answered, whether or not this answer is widely known or accepted. The remaining questions have to do with the "why" and the "how" of the KJV use.

I'll have to do more research into the matter , as you have given me some good points to look at...italics etc.

I would just point out one thing which did impress me in my reading as it relates to whether Joseph may have used the Bible as a reference.

David P. Wright's paper on the BoM Isaiah variants is partly online, on his Brandeis website, I believe. His full essay is available in American Apocrypha, and John Tvedtnes' examination of BoM Isaiah variants may still be available through the BYU Bookstore. If not, inquire with your local Daniel C. Peterson.

That would be in the comparison between Jesus' statments in the biblical Sermon on the Mount with His statements in the BoM Sermon at the Temple. The comparison text would be Matthew 5:22.

This is given in the BoM at 3 Ne. 12: 22 as ,

It is believed that the KJV inclusion of "without a cause" in the text of Matthew is an errant reading and in the earlier translations such as the Tyndale and Luther Bibles the phrase "without a cause", was exluded. Joseph , if he used a bible as reference material for this passage , would have had to have used a version which did not contain this phrase , as opposed to using the KJV. Now , the question needs to be answered , how many versions of the Bible did Joseph have available to him at the time he was translating? Did he have Wycliffe , Tyndale , Luther or some other translation which excluded "without a cause" from the text? Why did he use the KJV at one point as a reference and then switch to using a different bible translation as reference material later in the BoM?

These are good questions. It's possible that Joseph Smith had other sources besides a KJV available to him. From the believing LDS perspective, he had whatever was on the plates and/or divine inspiration to revise the KJV, as he later did in the JST. I'm not attempting to argue against this. How the BoM biblical quotations relate to ancient sources is beyond my area of expertise and research interest. But whether or not Joseph Smith had divine access to more authentic biblical texts, he did clearly sometimes rely on the KJV, even where the KJV text contradicts more ancient variants. There is no necessary either/or here. Joseph Smith could have employed the KJV and relied on the plates/inspiration. Indeed, this was B. H. Roberts' suggestion over a century ago.

As to whether Joseph Smith, on a naturalistic interpretation, would have had other sources besides the KJV--e.g., other versions of the Bible, this is an extremely interesting question, and one that has been addressed to a very small extent by Ronald V. Huggins. Ultimately, it's something I'd like to explore further myself. But I haven't gotten there yet, and probably won't for a good while.

Enjoy your further research,

Don

Hey Wade,

I see you on this thread. I repent of my former decision to not talk with you. If you have input here, shoot!

Don

[wenglund]

I am impressed with both the statistically disproportional variation of the KJV-italicized words and by the specific cases of variation, as laid out mainly by David P. Wright, and to a lesser extent by John Tvedtnes.

Don

Hi Don,

To your knowledge, has anyone done a study of the JST to see if the variations in italicized words fit the same statistical pattern as with the Book of Mormon? And/or, whether the biblical passages in the Book of Mormon are the same as those in the JST?

I don't know if such studies will help directly answer the question of this thread, but it may gives at least some insights into the translation process, which in turn may shed some light on the Book of Mormon translation and whether the Bible was used or not, and if so whether it was read from directly by Joseph Smith or prompted via the Seer stone in the hat or otherwise.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Hey Wade,

I see you on this thread. I repent of my former decision to not talk with you. If you have input here, shoot!

Don

I am grateful for the invite, and in addition to my previous post, it may be of interest to learn if there are studies looking to find if there are biblical passages in the D&C recorded during the time of the Book of Mormon translation, and which explore whether the same statistical pattern emerges, and also that determine if there was any mention of the Bible being used in such cases?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Dan Vogel]

I have not yet located the texts of the letters online. They are contained in Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, Volumes 1 and 2. If Dan returns to this thread, he may be able to point us to online texts.

I haven't looked for them.

[ed2276]

Hi again Ed,

You're right that we don't know that the portion for which Emma acted as scribe contained no biblical quotation. It may have. However, since biblical quotation comprises a very small proportion of the extant text, it seems unlikely that the portion she recorded would have contained such quotation unless she scribed for quite a long period. Note that one can go from late 2 Nephi to mid-Mosiah with no biblical quotation, from mid-Mosiah to mid-3 Nephi, and then from mid-3 Nephi to the end of Moroni. For Emma to have not encountered such quotation during her brief scribal tenure at the beginning of the book would be quite unsurprising. So, while Emma's testimony indicates that Joseph Smith used only the seerstone during her scribal tenure, this does not significantly affect the probability that he used a Bible when dictating lengthy biblical quotations.

I've quoted the relevant portion of her final interview above, and her statements about source materials are explicitly regarding the period of her own scribal tenure. But let's consider the odds that Emma would have observed the use of a Bible. As I understand it, Joseph Smith dictated to Oliver Cowdery in an upstairs room of the house in which they stayed in Harmony, PA. If this is correct, Emma would not likely have been present for most of the dictation unless her housework primarily focused on this room. Consider also how much of the text believed to have been dictated at Harmony (Mosiah through Moroni) consisted of biblical quotation--only the Ten Commandments quoted in Mosiah, the "Sermon at the Temple" in 3 Nephi, and the Isaiah, Micah, and Malachi portions of 3 Nephi 20-21 and 24-25. We could look into what fraction of the total Harmony text this constitutes. I would estimate under 2%. Now, if we inquire what the odds might be that Emma would have failed to observe the dictation of a given 2% of the text, it would seem to me that these odds would be fairly high. It's not like we're talking about a large proportion of the text, and Emma had responsibilities, and family and friends living a stone's throw away.

After the move to Fayette, Joseph Smith apparently dictated 1 Nephi through Words of Mormon, with a great deal of this text consisting of biblical quotation (perhaps 25%?). Had Emma been present through this time, she very likely would have observed any use made of a Bible. However, the historical sources are clear that when Joseph Smith moved to Fayette, he left Emma behind in Harmony. It appears that Emma followed a few weeks later, but this might well have placed her arrival in Fayette after the biblical quotations (which cease with 2 Nephi 27). Joseph's move to Fayette occurred on about June 1, and the translation is consistently reported to have been complete by the end of June. This would have required a rapid pace of dictation, and could easily have placed the dictation at the end of 2 Nephi three weeks after the move.

So, even if Emma's statement is seen as precluding Emma having ever seen her husband employ a Bible during the dictation, which would appear to go beyond the content and intent of her statement, this could easily be accounted for by her probable absence during most of the Bible use.

Emma's testimony therefore provides, at best, only a minor reduction in the probability that a Bible was used.

I've already addressed this statement. First, these are admittedly not Whitmer's words but those of a reporter. Whether Whitmer's statement was actually so broad cannot be established by a secondhand summation. Secondly, in the other cases where David Whitmer denies the use of an external source, his comments are aimed explicitly at rebutting the Spalding theory, not at addressing Joseph Smith's presumably inspired use of a Bible. The context of the statement is not given in the newspaper report you cite above, but could easily be discussion of the Spalding claim, which was dealt with in the interview.

Yes, quite accurate. Emma reports the "walls of Jerusalem" incident in her last interview, and, I believe, elsewhere as well. Note, however, that this occurred during the translation of the lost Book of Lehi, not in 1 Nephi. By the time of 1 Nephi, Joseph Smith would have already been familiar with the walls of Jerusalem from the Book of Lehi account. He would also, by the time of 1 Nephi, have been quite familiar with the name "Sariah," which Emma says Joseph didn't know how to pronounce when he first encountered during his scribal tenure.

So, as you note, a Bible was on hand and could be used as a reference from the beginning of the dictation.

Yes. I'd encourage you to examine the other statements of the translation witnesses. None of them deny the use of an outside source, or address the issue of the use of a Bible one way or the other. And the only known scribe for the biblical material, Oliver Cowdery, left no statement related to the matter, and had little to say about the translation process.

Actually, this is incorrect. The methods for determining whether one text depends on another are quite well-developed. There is an entire, well-established discipline devoted to this--textual criticism.

When the Book of Mormon perpetuates the errors of the KJV, which it sometimes does, and varies on the italicized KJV text at 20 times the rate it varies on the non-italicized KJV text, it reveals its dependence on the KJV at these points. The question of whether a King James Bible was employed has been answered, whether or not this answer is widely known or accepted. The remaining questions have to do with the "why" and the "how" of the KJV use.

David P. Wright's paper on the BoM Isaiah variants is partly online, on his Brandeis website, I believe. His full essay is available in American Apocrypha, and John Tvedtnes' examination of BoM Isaiah variants may still be available through the BYU Bookstore. If not, inquire with your local Daniel C. Peterson.

These are good questions. It's possible that Joseph Smith had other sources besides a KJV available to him. From the believing LDS perspective, he had whatever was on the plates and/or divine inspiration to revise the KJV, as he later did in the JST. I'm not attempting to argue against this. How the BoM biblical quotations relate to ancient sources is beyond my area of expertise and research interest. But whether or not Joseph Smith had divine access to more authentic biblical texts, he did clearly sometimes rely on the KJV, even where the KJV text contradicts more ancient variants. There is no necessary either/or here. Joseph Smith could have employed the KJV and relied on the plates/inspiration. Indeed, this was B. H. Roberts' suggestion over a century ago.

As to whether Joseph Smith, on a naturalistic interpretation, would have had other sources besides the KJV--e.g., other versions of the Bible, this is an extremely interesting question, and one that has been addressed to a very small extent by Ronald V. Huggins. Ultimately, it's something I'd like to explore further myself. But I haven't gotten there yet, and probably won't for a good while.

Enjoy your further research,

Don

Hey Wade,

I see you on this thread. I repent of my former decision to not talk with you. If you have input here, shoot!

Don

Thanks for the reply , Don.

You given me alot of food for thought. While I'm a novice when it comes to these issues , you certainly have a firm grasp on the timelines , players and questions to be asked and answered. I do appreciate the background. I don't know when I will ever find the time to go into as much detail or to as great a depth as you have , but I will certainly take you up on your well-wishes and enjoy further research.

[caudicus]

As everyone knows, there are many different versions of the bible. Obviously the KJV shares more than passing resemblance to much of the text. The KJV was created out of a need to unite conflicting ideas and conflicting bibles... essentially for political reasons. Why would this particular translation make it into the BoM if it was already so mishandled when it came to the words? Even the Tindal version of the Bible, which the KJV is heavily influenced by, is noticeably altered to serve the purpose of propagating the beliefs of one particular man.

Early bible controversy created a market for bibles that were easy to hide, ones that fit in the palm of your hand. This would be an easy explanation if someone wanted to know how JS could sneak a bible into the translation process. Obviously, there is some debate as to the modifications, but they could have been intentional just as easily as they could have been mistakes.

Memorizing much of the bible is not that hard. My mother's entire family each have a very, very large portion of the KJV memorized. As far as I know, they don't recite many mistakes, (not that I check their work.)

Either way, producing the Book of Mormon, with or without a KJV bible present, though a difficult task, is far from impossible and, as far as the information contained within, was not in need of a divine intelligence to produce. A divine intelligence, no doubt, would have known that horses, elephants, and honey bees were not in North America during the time between Jesus' supposed death and the arrival of the Europeans.

[wenglund]

As everyone knows, there are many different versions of the bible. Obviously the KJV shares more than passing resemblance to much of the text. The KJV was created out of a need to unite conflicting ideas and conflicting bibles... essentially for political reasons. Why would this particular translation make it into the BoM if it was already so mishandled when it came to the words? Even the Tindal version of the Bible, which the KJV is heavily influenced by, is noticeably altered to serve the purpose of propagating the beliefs of one particular man.

Early bible controversy created a market for bibles that were easy to hide, ones that fit in the palm of your hand. This would be an easy explanation if someone wanted to know how JS could sneak a bible into the translation process. Obviously, there is some debate as to the modifications, but they could have been intentional just as easily as they could have been mistakes.

Memorizing much of the bible is not that hard. My mother's entire family each have a very, very large portion of the KJV memorized. As far as I know, they don't recite many mistakes, (not that I check their work.)

Either way, producing the Book of Mormon, with or without a KJV bible present, though a difficult task, is far from impossible and, as far as the information contained within, was not in need of a divine intelligence to produce. A divine intelligence, no doubt, would have known that horses, elephants, and honey bees were not in North America during the time between Jesus' supposed death and the arrival of the Europeans.

I think there is room for faith either way, be it faith in a supernaturalistic origins or faith in a naturalistic origins of the Book of Mormon.

However, that is not what is at issue in this thread. The question, instead, is whether the KJV Bible was used in the production of the Book of Mormon or not. The answer to that question leaves open the question whether the origins of the book are supernaturalistic or naturalistic.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[DonBradley]

I am grateful for the invite, and in addition to my previous post, it may be of interest to learn if there are studies looking to find if there are biblical passages in the D&C recorded during the time of the Book of Mormon translation, and which explore whether the same statistical pattern emerges, and also that determine if there was any mention of the Bible being used in such cases?

Hi Wade,

I don't believe I've ever seen a suggestion that the D&C revelations were dictated with a Bible on hand. By all accounts, these revelations, like the Book of Mormon text in general, were dictated while Joseph Smith looked into the stone.

The biblical echoes in the D&C revelations, like those in Joseph Smith's Nauvoo sermons, are only brief snippets of several words at a time, and so might be attributed to Joseph Smith's memory. I would account for most of the biblical echoes of the Book of Mormon in the same way. I only believe there was a Bible present for the lengthy quotations, mostly from Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew.

There have been limited studies on what Bible passages are alluded to and echoed in the D&C, and it would be interesting to compare these with the Bible passages alluded to and echoed in the BoM. The couple D&C studies of this nature with which I'm familiar are at the BYU library, and I believe they are M.A. theses.

To your knowledge, has anyone done a study of the JST to see if the variations in italicized words fit the same statistical pattern as with the Book of Mormon? And/or, whether the biblical passages in the Book of Mormon are the same as those in the JST?

While at BYU I made a study along these lines, though without statistical analysis. My findings regarding the use of 1830 BoM Isaiah material in the JST of Isaiah have been both cited and expanded on by Royal Skousen in chapter in the FARMS volume Isaiah and the Book of Mormon. In my studies, I also found that the JST deals with the italicized words in a way similar to how the Book of Mormon does. Building on this earlier research with statistical methods is an excellent idea, and one I may get around to, especially if I can find a co-researcher more statistically savvy than myself.

Don