Did Joseph Smith think that North and South America were "islands of the sea"?

[Joseph Antley]

If a continent is an island, then what is an island as we know it? Another island, indistinguishable from continents the size of asia? Why even bother with the semantics of differing landmass sizes then? Lets call any chunk of land at any ol' place an "island" and rid ourselves of cumbersome definitions like continent, peninsula, archipelago, bay, atoll, cape, fjord, gulf, isthmus and all the rest.

Maybe the ancients didn't have the terminology of such things. But then, why is God the creator of the universe bound to translate the ignorance of the ancients to Joseph Smith?

If you apologists can see the problems of terminology distinctions, why couldn't an omnipotent and omniscient being? Is God less clever than a human apologist? Amazingly, it seems so.

I would rather if we didn't distract the thread by arguing about continents and islands. Obviously Nephi distinguished between islands and continents by the fact that he uses the phrase "islands of the sea".

My apologetic argument, and the reason that I started this thread, seems to have gone unnoticed.

[Tchild2]

I would rather if we didn't distract the thread by arguing about continents and islands. Obviously Nephi distinguished between islands and continents by the fact that he uses the phrase "islands of the sea".

My apologetic argument, and the reason that I started this thread, seems to have gone unnoticed.

Not unnoticed, but a head scratching wonderment. Apparently, you are able to recognize that the ancients did not or could not make distinctions between large continents and islands, but an omniscient God offering translation services to a mere mortal who translated ancient writings couldn't, or wouldn't help Joseph Smith to clarify what ancient writers really intended, meant or wanted to impart to future readers.

[Joseph Antley]

Not unnoticed, but a head scratching wonderment. Apparently, you are able to recognize that the ancients did not or could not make distinctions between large continents and islands

No, that's the opposite of what I'm saying.

but an omniscient God offering translation services to a mere mortal who translated ancient writings couldn't, or wouldn't help Joseph Smith to clarify what ancient writers really intended, meant or wanted to impart to future readers.

Again, you're missing my entire argument. Nephi and Jacob wrote "island"/"isle", and literally meant "island", not continent. They thought they were on an island. They did not realize that the "promised land" they had been led to was as large as it was.

Joseph Smith translated what they meant. Had it been a product of Joseph Smith or any other modern writer, they would not have called North and South America an "island".

[Tchild2]

No, that's the opposite of what I'm saying.

Again, you're missing my entire argument. Nephi and Jacob wrote "island"/"isle", and literally meant "island", not continent. They thought they were on an island. They did not realize that the "promised land" they had been led to was as large as it was.

Joseph Smith translated what they meant. Had it been a product of Joseph Smith or any other modern writer, they would not have called North and South America an "island".

I get it. Nephi and Jacob believed their land mass was an island and wrote their equivalent word on plates to pass on to others. Joseph Smith then translated those ancient plates by the "power of God". Since Joseph Smith didn't know any of their words, nor what they meant, God who helped Joseph to translate didn't bother to correct or replace the best word in the translation process.

Why would God fail to translate the best words based on what the ancients really meant, and not just on what they wrote in error? Here you are an apologist, able to recognize that the word "island" may not really be an island as we know it today, but a continent....then why wouldn't God know that same thing and assist in the translation to Joseph the first go around? That is what is perplexing.

[Joseph Antley]

I get it. Nephi and Jacob believed their land mass was an island and wrote their equivalent word on plates to pass on to others. Joseph Smith then translated those ancient plates by the "power of God".

Correct.

Since Joseph Smith didn't know any of their words, nor what they meant, God who helped Joseph to translate didn't bother to correct or replace the best word in the translation process.

Here's where you're off. He did translate the best word! Island is what Nephi and Jacob meant, and it's what God helped Joseph translate! Had he been translating a geography textbook, then perhaps it would have been appropriate for him to take it upon himself to change it to "continent", but in this religious text that just makes no sense.

Why would God fail to translate the best words based on what the ancients really meant, and not just on what they wrote in error?

...that is what they really meant!

Here you are an apologist, able to recognize that the word "island" may not really be an island as we know it today, but a continent....

...sigh. Nephi meant "island" as we know it!

then why wouldn't God know that same thing and assist in the translation to Joseph the first go around? That is what is perplexing.

You're transforming into something "perplexing". In reality, it makes perfect sense.

[volgadon]

Here are some later echoes of the phrase, from the Babylonian Talmud. They don't say islands, but land or country (medinah) of the sea.

M. Gittin 2:1. In the Yerushalmi, likewise.

Ibid 6:1.

Tosefta m. Gittin, 2:1.

The phrase indicates any distant land, with the exception of Babylon.