consiglieri Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 John Welch noted some time back that Alma quotes with precision an entire 20-word passage from Lehi's vision recorded in 1 Nephi 1.1 Ne. 1: 88 And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God. Alma 36: 2222 Yea, methought I saw, even as our father Lehi saw, God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels, in the attitude of singing and praising their God; yea, and my soul did long to be there.This is suggestive on a number of levels:1. It is not likely chance that would account for so exact a matching of words. Whoever was writing the words of Alma was intentionally (and even explicitly) quoting from Lehi's vision, and doing it with exactitude. In other words, Alma was quoting a previously existing text.2. This indicates rather tight control of the translation process, though admittedly there are other indicators of a less tight control.3. If Joseph Smith were writing as Alma, Joseph Smith must have been winnowing back through the manuscript to get the words of Lehi exactly, as it is not likely Joseph Smith got halfway through the Book of Mormon and then quoted this passage with such exactness.4. And yet, the witnesses, including Emma, are clear that Joseph Smith did not use any manuscripts or books in the translation. Indeed, it would likely have struck the participants as somewhat odd had Joseph Smith gone back to page one in order to "translate" a passage from the middle.5. What makes this occurrence even more remarkable is that most scholars are agreed that Joseph Smith commenced his translation of the current Book of Mormon at Mosiah, that being the point to which the lost 116-pages had taken him. Picking up there, he dictated the Book of Mormon through to the end of Moroni, and then commenced with 1 Nephi and translated up (almost) to the point where he had commenced with Mosiah.The wrinkle this produces is that Alma quoted Lehi's words with precision before Lehi's words were even translated as part of the Book of Mormon.Or, as I put it, Alma 36 was translated before 1 Nephi 1.It is a rather strange occurrence.All the Best!--Consiglieri
Jason Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 Of course, Lehi's words may have also been part of the lost 116 pages.
hagoth7 Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 Of course, Lehi's words may have also been part of the lost 116 pages.Interesting possible point.However, since they were probably already lost, Joseph still wouldn't have had access to them when translating Alma.
consiglieri Posted February 10, 2009 Author Posted February 10, 2009 Of course, Lehi's words may have also been part of the lost 116 pages.Hagoth hits the nail.The 116-pages were lost on or about June/July of 1828, if memory serves.Or, in other words, almost a full-year before Joseph Smith would have been translating Alma 36 in late April or early May of 1829.(Most scholars think Joseph Smith was up to 3 Nephi by May 15th, when a passage about baptism sent him and Oliver to the banks of the Susquehanna.) All the Best!--Consiglieri
Jason Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 Couldn't Joseph have translated the same reformed egyptian phrases the exact same way twice?
consiglieri Posted February 10, 2009 Author Posted February 10, 2009 Couldn't Joseph have translated the same reformed egyptian phrases the exact same way twice?There is a possibility you are mistaking my meaning.It is for those who propose a naturalistic explanation for the Book of Mormon that this poses a wrinkle in need of ironing out.All the Best!--Consiglieri
Sentinus Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 John Welch noted some time back that Alma quotes with precision an entire 20-word passage from Lehi's vision recorded in 1 Nephi 1.This is suggestive on a number of levels:1. It is not likely chance that would account for so exact a matching of words. Whoever was writing the words of Alma was intentionally (and even explicitly) quoting from Lehi's vision, and doing it with exactitude. In other words, Alma was quoting a previously existing text.2. This indicates rather tight control of the translation process, though admittedly there are other indicators of a less tight control.3. If Joseph Smith were writing as Alma, Joseph Smith must have been winnowing back through the manuscript to get the words of Lehi exactly, as it is not likely Joseph Smith got halfway through the Book of Mormon and then quoted this passage with such exactness.4. And yet, the witnesses, including Emma, are clear that Joseph Smith did not use any manuscripts or books in the translation. Indeed, it would likely have struck the participants as somewhat odd had Joseph Smith gone back to page one in order to "translate" a passage from the middle.5. What makes this occurrence even more remarkable is that most scholars are agreed that Joseph Smith commenced his translation of the current Book of Mormon at Mosiah, that being the point to which the lost 116-pages had taken him. Picking up there, he dictated the Book of Mormon through to the end of Moroni, and then commenced with 1 Nephi and translated up (almost) to the point where he had commenced with Mosiah.The wrinkle this produces is that Alma quoted Lehi's words with precision before Lehi's words were even translated as part of the Book of Mormon.Or, as I put it, Alma 36 was translated before 1 Nephi 1.It is a rather strange occurrence.All the Best!--ConsiglieriConsig,IMO it isnt strange at all. It contains very common language regarding God. God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.Numerous references to this very scene are made in hundreds of places within "Mainstream" Christianity. How many times in the Bible alone is the throne of God mentioned? How many times are angels mantioned singing and praising God? How many times are groups of Angels reffered to as innumerable by pre LDS Christians? I guess I don't see any reason why Joseph simply couldn't have resaid what he had already said whether Alma was written before or after Nephi it doesn't seem to matter. Perhaps I am missing your overal point, I do have 4 kids screaming in the background if so please forgive my intrusion. Regards,Sentinus
The Dude Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 That's just part of one little verse, consiglieri. You could make a stronger argument by asking how Joseph Smith got so many exact quotes from the KJV bible, along with translation errors, if witnesses like Emma say he never used books or manuscripts.
consiglieri Posted February 10, 2009 Author Posted February 10, 2009 That's just part of one little verse, consiglieri. You could make a stronger argument by asking how Joseph Smith got so many exact quotes from the KJV bible, along with translation errors, if witnesses like Emma say he never used books or manuscripts.Hah!I will gladly concede your point if you will return the favor, Duderino!All the Best!--Consiglieri
consiglieri Posted February 10, 2009 Author Posted February 10, 2009 Numerous references to this very scene are made in hundreds of places within "Mainstream" Christianity.You may be right about that, and yet I am struck by the fact that the exact same 20-words are used in both instances; and that no such identical 20-word batches show up anywhere else in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, or even (drum roll, please) the Pearl of Great Price.In fact, I just googled a part of the phrase, "God sitting upon his throne surrounded by numberless concourses of angels," and got only four results . . . all four quoting from the Book of Mormon. (And one featuring our beloved Unca Dale!)But it seems that Mssr. Google is not aware of anybody else using even the first part of the phrase.All the Best!--Consiglieri
The Dude Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 I think statements from witnesses like Emma are not completely accurate and do not account for 100% of the time Joseph spent working on the Book of Mormon. There was no skeptical witness sitting there monitoring JS. The KJV quotes and the passages you mentioned in the OP suggest that JS sometimes used outside materials.
consiglieri Posted February 10, 2009 Author Posted February 10, 2009 I think statements from witnesses like Emma are not completely accurate and do not account for 100% of the time Joseph spent working on the Book of Mormon. There was no skeptical witness sitting there monitoring JS. The KJV quotes and the passages you mentioned in the OP suggest that JS sometimes used outside materials.I hear what you are saying, Dude, and I agree we must always be on the watch for sleight of hand before a credulous audience, but I think that both Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris displayed a somewhat critical (though not cynical) approach to the translation process.Martin Harris' tests are numerous and well-known, but Oliver Cowdery also was skeptical, and asked for the Lord to reveal something that nobody else could know except Oliver himself as a test of Joseph's prophetic mantle . . . which the Lord proceeded to do resulting in D&C Section 6.At bottom, then, although we can never disprove that Joseph Smith wasn't up to some kind of perfectly explicable legerdemain during the translation process, it is probably not correct to view the witnesses as completely credulous country cousins. (With alliteration like that, I should be a GA!)And then there is the fact that Joseph Smith appears to have dictated the lion's share of the Book of Mormon sitting in the middle of the room with his face in a hat. It is almost as if the Lord set up conditions so as to make such skullduggery impracticable if not impossible.All the Best!--Consiglieri
Mighty Curelom Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 As the Dude pointed out, the verbatim KJV verses prove conclusively that the Bible was used in the production of the Book of Mormon. This trumps any witness accounts to the contrary. Emma can swear up and down that no Bible was present while Joseph was "translating," but when there are entire chapters of Isaiah, including mistranslations and peculiarities unique to the KJV translation, we can only conclude that Emma was wrong. Wrong, or intentionally fudging the truth in an effort to preemptively refute critics' charges of plagiarism. It would be quite understandable for Emma, Cowdery, or Harris, all of whom believed fervently in the supernatural origins of the BoM, to tell a "white lie" about the use of outside materials in the production of the BoM. The reasoning behind such "truth fudging" could be that they knew the BoM was of divine origin, and they knew that admitting certain things could cast doubt on the divinity thereof. As we all know, some things are true, but not useful.Whatever the situation may have been, the facts demonstrate that the witnesses statements with respect to the production methods of the BoM should be taken with a grain of salt.
The Dude Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 Consiglieri-I remain skeptical of the witnesses because it is so breathtakingly easy to reverse engineer these quotations if we lower the barriers placed by people who had an interest in making the BoM seem miraculous. Furthermore, defenders of the BoM are not in 100% agreement that Joseph Smith never used the KJV Bible, so it isn't just cynics like me who doubt the witnesses. So why not a bit of looking back to get Lehi's 20 words just the way Alma quoted them? Or, almost as easy, he could have reviewed Alma's words ahead of time and memorized them for use during dictation. Some people have even memorized the entire Gettysburg Address.
Jason Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 As the Dude pointed out, the verbatim KJV verses prove conclusively that the Bible was used in the production of the Book of Mormon. This trumps any witness accounts to the contrary.It trumps them all, eh? There are no other possibilities at all, right?
Joseph Antley Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 I just find it strange that Joseph would think it necessary to fish back through the manuscript to find that obscure verse so that he could quote it again. If he did it to make the record look more authentic, I wonder why he never drew attention to it.I agree with consig that this is evidence of some sort of actual translation, and this instance is not unique. There are several cases of the Book of Mormon quoting itself when it is long separate from the original quotation, and I do not think it's possible that they were all from memory.And if they were not from memory, that means he either had to dig back through the manuscript to find these little passages, which if he were going to go to the trouble of doing, I think he would have made the quotations more explicit.But perhaps I am underestimating a money-digger's genius subtlety.
Mighty Curelom Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 By the way, my opinion about this topic is that Joseph just used the same phrase twice. No memorizing previous chapters of surreptitiously leafing through manuscript pages--it's just a phrase that popped out twice. If you wrote an essay on a certain topic, then wrote another essay on the same topic two or three months later, it wouldn't be head-bogglingly coincidental to find a sentence or two reproduced.
Joseph Antley Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 By the way, my opinion about this topic is that Joseph just used the same phrase twice. No memorizing previous chapters of surreptitiously leafing through manuscript pages--it's just a phrase that popped out twice. If you wrote an essay on a certain topic, then wrote another essay on the same topic two or three months later, it wouldn't be head-bogglingly coincidental to find a sentence or two reproduced.I would give that more plausibility if the quotation in Alma didn't say he was quoting Lehi.
hagoth7 Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 If you wrote an essay on a certain topic, then wrote another essay on the same topic two or three months later, it wouldn't be head-bogglingly coincidental to find a sentence or two reproduced.Willing to take that theory for a test drive?You have over 2800 posts on things related to the LDS faith (i.e. "a certain topic"). That's a healthy sampling. So I invite you to find any two of those posts that repeat a word-for-word sentence of twenty words or more.
The Dude Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 But perhaps I am underestimating a money-digger's genius subtlety.And overestimating the value of this consiglieri's find. BTW, he still owes me an explanation for the KJV quotations in the BoM.
Areabird Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 By the way, my opinion about this topic is that Joseph just used the same phrase twice. No memorizing previous chapters of surreptitiously leafing through manuscript pages--it's just a phrase that popped out twice. If you wrote an essay on a certain topic, then wrote another essay on the same topic two or three months later, it wouldn't be head-bogglingly coincidental to find a sentence or two reproduced.I have heard Joseph described as uneducated and also as incredibly intelligent. I think we have to identify in what way he was intelligent. I don't think he was particulaly book smart, but was street smart. And I also think, as people like Bushman have said, that he was a religious genius. His ideas were just unheard of before. He looked at the Christian religion from completely new angles. I wouldn't be surprised if he were able to look in a hat and come up with the same story three separate times. At present I don't believe that Joseph was a prophet. But I do think he was easily underestimated and had unbelievable intelligence in ways that most people did not recognize. Just being charismatic might get you a lot of friends, but being charismatic and intelligent would get people to follow you across the country through very trying times.
Joseph Antley Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 And overestimating the value of this consiglieri's find. BTW, he still owes me an explanation for the KJV quotations in the BoM.Until he gets here, let me offer you my explanation. His, of course, may (and probably does) differ.I think Joseph used a KJV during the translation. However, I don't think that's especially relevant to the the point of this thread. I admit the possibility that Joseph could have flipped through the already-written manuscript to find obscure statements to indirectly quote. I just think it's improbable.
Mortal Man Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 BTW, he still owes me an explanation for the KJV quotations in the BoM.According to Matthew Roper, Joseph Smith did not own a bible.http://farms.byu.edu/publications/review/?...um=2&id=161The witnesses describe the extreme poverty of Joseph Smith and his family, making it unlikely that they even owned a Bible.
The Dude Posted February 10, 2009 Posted February 10, 2009 I admit the possibility that Joseph could have flipped through the already-written manuscript to find obscure statements to indirectly quote. I just think it's improbable.Every author in the world does this but you think Joseph Smith didn't. It might have gone something like this: in the middle of translation, JS exclaims to his helper "Hey, this next part has Lehi saying the words that Alma quotes later on. Lets grab that already-written manuscript and make sure we get it right." So they look, Joseph verifies that it's the same, and voila -- you have Lehi saying exactly what Alma later quotes.According to Matthew Roper, Joseph Smith did not own a bible. Okay then, how do you and Matthew Roper think the KJV quotations got into the Book of Mormon?
consiglieri Posted February 10, 2009 Author Posted February 10, 2009 Some people have even memorized the entire Gettysburg Address. I was one of the people . . . at one time. But the Book of Mormon in its entirety is less like the Gettysburg Address and more like Edward Everett's 13,607-word oration which preceded it.And who, dare I ask, has memorized that?All the Best!--Consiglieri
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