On the earliest manuscripts of the Bible

[Questing Beast]

This essay is a good place to start:

http://www.margaretb...tAndContext.pdf

After reading "Text and Context" read 1 Nephi 13 again.

...

I started into this and am rapidly losing immediate interest, for lack of time. This should illustrate the point I wish to make here:

For several generations, the early Church was beset with the problem of the Old Testament Scriptures: in the

second century Marcion had advocated abandoning the whole Hebrew tradition, but the churches condemned

this stance and kept the older Scriptures. The question is: which Scriptures? As early as the mid second

century the

[Questing Beast]

...

How is [The Book of Mormon] a targum of the Bible? There are a few proto-targumim in the BoM, such as 2 Nephi 27, and some proto-midrashim like the exchange between Abinadi and Noah's priests, yet there is very little that could be called targumic. A targum is a translation of a biblical text, often rewritten. The JST is, the BoM isn't.

In the strictest sense of the word none of the BofM is a targum, since Joseph Smith's rendering of OT and NT passages are not Jewish exegesis. But "targum" is a slightly redefined term applies to what Joseph Smith did. Grant H. Palmer put me onto the word "targum" in his explanation of what the BofM is and (likely) is not.

And "translation" is a problematic word when talking about what Joseph Smith did. The BofM is every bit as much a targum as the JST, since the KJV formed the basis of its biblical content, including many of the stories which can be shown to resemble biblical stories more than a bit and are usually augmented in the BofM, i.e. made even more miraculous (e.g. the comparison that Jesus produced bread and wine out of thin air in the BofM story, whereas in the Gospel stories in similar circumstances, he at least starts with some bread and fishes to work with)....

[Bob Crockett]

So Joseph Smith, "translating" from the gold plates, which take their OT quotations directly from the 7th century BCE Brass Plates, winds up with an 18th century KJV of Isaiah; not some pure and plain "original" Isaiah, but the bastardized, English version in an 18th century edition complete with its errors. Somehow I am not convinced that the BofM is anything but a targum and work of imaginative fiction

Of course, the same criticism could be leveled against Matthew, Luke and Paul in their mangling of scripture, quoting myth as if it were scripture. And, in Paul's case, quoting from Jesus statements found nowhere in the gospel accounts.

In Joseph Smith's case, we don't know how the Isaiah passages got to be there. I favor the theory, which is so obvious, that he just quoted from the KJV where the translation process seemed to so indicate. After all, he used a French word where it seemed to suit him; why not use paragraphs from the Bible if he got the point across?

[Kevin Christensen]

I started into this and am rapidly losing immediate interest, for lack of time. This should illustrate the point I wish to make here:

Your rapid loss of interest illustrates a great deal. Alas. I personally found that essay electrifying to read, when she sent me a prepublication copy back in 2003. I periodically make time to read it again, and to learn and marvel.

So Joseph Smith, "translating" from the gold plates, which take their OT quotations directly from the 7th century BCE Brass Plates, winds up with an 18th century KJV of Isaiah; not some pure and plain "original" Isaiah, but the bastardized, English version in an 18th century edition complete with its errors.

That does not summarize the findings of John Tvedtnes, Hugh Nibley, or John W. Welch on the topic, to cite a few who approached this issue without any discernable rapid loss of interest, and who gave the issue far more time.

Somehow I am not convinced that the BofM is anything but a targum and work of imaginative fiction; but then, so is the Bible this long after the time in which it was cobbled together.

We shall disagree on that, and I am content with my own reasons.

I am not denigrating scripture as valuable. But asserting that the Bible is the "complete perfect word of God" as many Protestants do (do any RCs? I don't know),or that the BofM directly "restores many of the plain and precious truths taken from the book of the Lamb", as Mormons assert, is not supported by Baker's research.

Oddly enough, Margaret Barker and I collaborated on an essay that touches on the issue of plain and precious things taken from the Book of the Lamb. Not only does Margaret agree with me, but Oxford University Press published our collaborative essay. The essay is called "Seeking the Face of the Lord: Joseph Smith and the First Temple Tradition." I'll weigh the presence of that essay against your unsupported assertion.

It appears that ALL of religious history has been little more than a "battleground" of scripture revisions to validate "our" denomination/religion. The Muslims complained, and then embarked on the very same agenda. Modern Palestinians are doing archeological research in the ME in order to connect themselves to the Canaanites, so that "they" can trump the Jews/Israelis by being in Palestine "first", etc. Archeology, science, is the new "scripture": and everyone is doing his best to make it "say" what they want it to say....

"ALL" here is a rather grandiose hyperbole. Efforts to control the past are very evident (as Nibley observed), but I take a broader view of what constitutes religious history.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Bill Hamblin]

In the strictest sense of the word none of the BofM is a targum, since Joseph Smith's rendering of OT and NT passages are not Jewish exegesis. But "targum" is a slightly redefined term applies to what Joseph Smith did. Grant H. Palmer put me onto the word "targum" in his explanation of what the BofM is and (likely) is not.

And "translation" is a problematic word when talking about what Joseph Smith did. The BofM is every bit as much a targum as the JST, since the KJV formed the basis of its biblical content, including many of the stories which can be shown to resemble biblical stories more than a bit and are usually augmented in the BofM, i.e. made even more miraculous (e.g. the comparison that Jesus produced bread and wine out of thin air in the BofM story, whereas in the Gospel stories in similar circumstances, he at least starts with some bread and fishes to work with)....

Targum means "translation."

[volgadon]

In the strictest sense of the word none of the BofM is a targum,

It can only be a targum in the loosest sense possible. A targum is a thelogical translation of a biblical text, such as Targum Onkelos, Pseudo-Jonathan, or Saadia's Tafsir. The BoM does not fit those criteria.

since Joseph Smith's rendering of OT and NT passages are not Jewish exegesis.

What that has to do with method is beyond me.

But "targum" is a slightly redefined term applies to what Joseph Smith did. Grant H. Palmer put me onto the word "targum" in his explanation of what the BofM is and (likely) is not.

Slightly redefined? Try so redefined as to be practically meaningless. Not surprising that Grant Palmer is the source of this.

[WalkerW]

Slightly redefined? Try so redefined as to be practically meaningless. Not surprising that Grant Palmer is the source of this.

I was thinking the exact same thing.

[volgadon]

I was thinking the exact same thing.

He fails to understand that targum and midrash are not synonymous, though the former often contains examples of the latter. He also doesn't take into account the way they function.

[SkepticTheist]

evidence that the redactors down the centuries were very careful indeed (and putting "they have taken away many of the plain and precious parts of the Book of the Lamb" into a problematical position). It appears that our OT is the result of a fairly late redaction;

The question of the plain and precious parts being taken out is not a problematical position, though it is somewhat a position of faith, because most of the time, once something has been redacted, and the original manuscripts dispensed with or lost, you cannot prove that something was redacted. The survival of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch is one instance of how Satan's plans for a particular book were thwarted. Most of the copies of the book were destroyed, except for a few in the Geez language. And to my knowledge, there is no other Old Testament era book outside of the Book of Isaiah and the Psalms hat testifies of the divinity of Jesus Christ as much as the Ethiopic Book of Enoch does. It doesn't matter to me that it is a pseudopigraphic piece of literature, or if it went through many redactions, or had multiple authors. Its core message about Christ is absolutely clear, notwithstanding the fact that it contains weird stories. They are only weird when not understood in the metaphorical light they were meant to be seen in. I think if the reader looks at the book in the right light, he comes to understand that the author never meant the book to be understood as a literal history of Enoch, but as a ritualistic metaphor.

The fact that the Jews and Christians all had it in for this book is evidence that Satan wanted it destroyed. And the same is so for other pieces that he had people redact or destroy from among the scriptures.

Ed Goble

[Nathair/|\]

Nathair,

You wrote:

There are several points of relevance to your question. I may not even cover them all here, but I

[Robert F. Smith]

He fails to understand that targum and midrash are not synonymous, though the former often contains examples of the latter. He also doesn't take into account the way they function.

He also fails to understand that Grant Palmer cannot read any targum and has never had training in midrash or aggada.

[Robert F. Smith]

The Bible Unearthed by Finklestein and Silberman, asserts that the earliest plausible date for the original OT is the 7th century BCE. The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest extant copies of the OT books. Iirc, we have all of them except the Book of Esther in the DSS; the earliest date for them is c. 100 BCE and the latest is 100 CE. Avraham Gileadi did a new translation of Isaiah using the DSS Isaiah; it agrees almost exactly with our Isaiah in contemporary Bibles; evidence that the redactors down the centuries were very careful indeed (and putting "they have taken away many of the plain and precious parts of the Book of the Lamb" into a problematical position). It appears that our OT is the result of a fairly late redaction; largely oral traditions finally committed to writing after literacy became commonplace: before the 8th century BCE there is virtually no evidence of Jewish literacy. The world depicted for the Patriarchs fits the 7th century BCE like no other time frame, indicating that that is the date of the composition of the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Law was first codified at that time. Archeological evidence best supports a view of a very small hill tribes population around Judea until quite late; making king David and his son Solomon more like hilltop chieftains than mighty conquerors; their people still semi-nomadic, with c. 5,000 souls total in Judea and c. ten times that number for the "kingdom of Israel" to the north. I find the book's thesis very convincing....

Israel Finkelstein is a great guy and I like him, but his 2002 book that you cite is well out of date.

Too many recent excavation results make his position completely untenable. You portray his position (and other late dating) as though they are normative, and they are certainly not. I recommend that you view a recent Nova presentation, "Quest for Solomon's Mines" (WGBH, 2010). I saw it broadcast on PBS Jan 17, 2011 (DVD available at shopPBS.org ). It deals primarily with the intensive industrial production of copper at Khirbet el-Nahas in the Dead Sea Rift Valley near Wadi Fenan during the 2nd millennium B.C. using smelters (shaft furnaces) with multiple foot bellows. The mines were up to 100 feet deep and probably used slave labor. Slag heaps indicate that around 5,000 tons of copper were produced, and nearly all copper artifacts found in the region were made from raw copper from there. It was probably first managed by Egypt, based on a sanctuary and scarab found there. Edomites then probably took over, and finally King David or Solomon likely conquered the area -- until Shishak I from Egypt came in after the death of Solomon. The mining slag dates to the 11th & 10th centuries via C-14. Edomite occupation in the 7th century B.C. includes no mining. See also National Geographic magazine for Dec 2010.

[Questing Beast]

Your rapid loss of interest illustrates a great deal.

I've "been there and done that" already. I don't get NEW insights from reading "papers", only more "facts" that remain as arguable as all the other "facts" I've already collected and largely discarded as either irrelevant or unreliable or both. Reading the collected writings of Hugh Nibley educated me on the methodology of apologetics: the writer is convincing himself first and foremost; the more s/he writes, count on it, the more convincing s/he requires. But by now, "they" (you) are not even asking the same questions that I am interested in enough to spend many hours reading about them.

... Efforts to control the past are very evident (as Nibley observed), but I take a broader view of what constitutes religious history.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Okay, so your view of religious history is broader than mine. I don't doubt that. But, how do you separate out the various conflicting claims and discard the "erroneous" ones? Apparently you use the "sift" of Mormon scholarship. How is that more valid than say a Jewish exegesis? Or a Roman Catholic religious world view ? Etc., even ad nauseam. Right away in that first Baker paper I could see the problem that she was illustrating: how the more things scripturally change the more they have stayed the same: REVISIONIST. And there is no chance this long after the fact that the "genuine" scripture can possibly be separated from the bogus; if there was ever any distinction, which I do not believe.

The best interpretation of the evidence of how the BofM came to be is that Joseph Smith's religious world view (that of a gifted and enthusiastic youthful mind) and his gifts as a story teller (including a phenomenal memory for details) combined with his access to biblical concepts via an 18th century KJV and religious concepts and practices of his own culture (e.g. camp meetings, which get transposed into the setting for king Benjamin's speech), etc. To assume, instead, that the brass plates held a 7th century BCE Isaiah which under divine inspiration just happens to match the KJV, out of ALL the myriad reworkings of Isaiah that had to have occurred between the 8th century BCE and the KJV, is asking too much. That's where I am at this point....

[Questing Beast]

Targum means "translation."

It also means "interpretation", which is more in keeping with what Joseph Smith was always about; HIS interpretation of what the scriptures actually mean....

[Questing Beast]

It can only be a targum in the loosest sense possible. A targum is a thelogical translation of a biblical text, such as Targum Onkelos, Pseudo-Jonathan, or Saadia's Tafsir. The BoM does not fit those criteria.

What that has to do with method is beyond me.

Slightly redefined? Try so redefined as to be practically meaningless. Not surprising that Grant Palmer is the source of this.

Don't blame Palmer. He understands the word "targum" well enough. I just haven't "associated" with it long enough to be comfortable. But "interpretation" or even REinterpretation, is what Palmer was pointing out as Joseph Smith's method in producing scripture and the revision of the same....

[Calm]

• It has dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people (see 1 Nephi 14:11).

At what time on earth did the RCC have dominion over all the earth, was among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people?

This seems to be a very Euro-centric point of view, ignoring what has been going on in the rest of the world during the same time periods.

[Calm]

I did have a reason for the restrictions I put in place (there is always madness to my method), but I can't remember at the moment what it was.

Someone else I see with the same problem I have.

[volgadon]

It also means "interpretation", which is more in keeping with what Joseph Smith was always about; HIS interpretation of what the scriptures actually mean....

It does not mean "interpretation" in a general sense. Targum never refers to anything other than a rendering of the hebrew Bible into other languages, often with significant rewrites.

[Calm]

It does not mean "interpretation" in a general sense. Targum never refers to anything other than a rendering of the hebrew Bible into other languages, often with significant rewrites.

Someone (not the Don) is relying on wikipedia a bit too much, I suspect.

[volgadon]

Don't blame Palmer. He understands the word "targum" well enough. I just haven't "associated" with it long enough to be comfortable. But "interpretation" or even REinterpretation, is what Palmer was pointing out as Joseph Smith's method in producing scripture and the revision of the same....

I think I have mentioned that the JST is a targum. The BoM isn't, though it contains some examples of proto-targmumim. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that the BoM is a collection of stories reworking biblical ones, that still could not be called a targum. The targum would require an actual biblical verse to be present, not merely a similar incident involving a setting and people who have nothing to do with the biblical narrative. Nephi decapitating Laban IS NOT a targum of the verse about David cutting Goliath's head off. A targum would read more along the lines of "David ran, and stood triumphantly upon the uncircumcised Philistine and took Goliath's sword which none could raise, and drew it out of the sheath, and slew the Philistine, and cut off his head in a single blow." Of course, some targums are more faithful than others to the text, the point being that the targum ALWAYS translates a biblical text. Works that ma be rooted in biblical stories are not targums. If Palmer understands the word he hides it well.

[Questing Beast]

At what time on earth did the RCC have dominion over all the earth, was among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people?

This seems to be a very Euro-centric point of view, ignoring what has been going on in the rest of the world during the same time periods.

You are focused on a literal "all the earth" here. The BofM and the Bible both use "all the earth" or "the whole earth" in much more limited ways. In the Nephi vision he's addressing ONLY the parts under the sway of the apostate GaAC that corrupts "the book of the Lamb", i.e. the Bible....

[Questing Beast]

Questing Beast, on 05 February 2011 - 01:37 PM, said: It also means "interpretation", which is more in keeping with what Joseph Smith was always about; HIS interpretation of what the scriptures actually mean....

It does not mean "interpretation" in a general sense. Targum never refers to anything other than a rendering of the hebrew Bible into other languages, often with significant rewrites.

How has this questioning of my (and Palmer's) understanding of "targum" produced any "light"?

targum [L Heb targ?m, fr. Aram, translation, interpretation] : an Aramaic translation or paraphrase of a portion of the Old Testament (Webster's Third New International Dictionary)

Palmer uses the word "targum" to get close to describing what Joseph Smith did with his "translation" gift. In effect Joseph Smith took inspirational stories and whole passages of scripture from the OT and transposed them into a new setting. If that's not strictly a targum it is closer to that method than some miraculous gift of translation; especially when we look at the JST, which was just him looking at the KJV and deleting and inserting words to make it say clearly what he thought it should say: i.e. "interpretation".

Also, translation rarely enjoys the luxury of direct transference from one lingo into another: "interpretation" almost always enters into the process, as I understand it...

[Calm]

You are focused on a literal "all the earth" here. The BofM and the Bible both use "all the earth" or "the whole earth" in much more limited ways. In the Nephi vision he's addressing ONLY the parts under the sway of the apostate GaAC that corrupts "the book of the Lamb", i.e. the Bible....

In making an accusation such as this, I think it wiser to err on the side of caution especially if one has to make assumption after assumption to make the RCC fit the description (the time period involved is a huge obstacle and the concept being taught of only two churches existing opposed to each other).

There have been individuals or even groups in the RCC that at times have promoted some of the requirements of the GAC for their own personal benefit, but at no time was such official teachings nor was there any time that all RCC members went along with this.

I find your conclusion to be very lacking in actual historical knowledge and instead appears to be based on prejudice and antiCatholic sentiments and propaganda.

[Calm]

What is actually taught in the LDS faith about the GAC:

• [*]
  • [*]Elder Bruce R. McConkie said,

[volgadon]

How has this questioning of my (and Palmer's) understanding of "targum" produced any "light"?

How has your misinterpretation of "targum" produced any "light"? I pointed out how even from a purely secular POV Palmer's misuse of terminology fails to hit the mark. Indeed, it could only obscure the issue.

targum [L Heb targ?m, fr. Aram, translation, interpretation] : an Aramaic translation or paraphrase of a portion of the Old Testament (Webster's Third New International Dictionary)

Ah, the mighty Webster. Poor Philip R. Davies must be chopped liver.

"Targums are Aramaic translations, sometime literal, sometimes free, of the Hebrew text.. A good deal of additional explanation is still found in the targums, allowing us to see where the scriptures were felt to need amplification and clarification.

Targum, as we see in the following selection, is no mere translation but serves as a hedge between literal statements and the meanings they ought to have." (The Blackwell reader in Judaism, pg. 39-40)

Palmer uses the word "targum" to get close to describing what Joseph Smith did with his "translation" gift.

Yet because he incorrectly uses (and no doubt understands) the term "targum" he comes nowhere near an accurate description.

In effect Joseph Smith took inspirational stories and whole passages of scripture from the OT and transposed them into a new setting. If that's not strictly a targum

And in almost all cases these inspirational stories have not merely new settings, but a new cast of characters. This is of course conceding for the sake of argument that you are correct. I don't hold that you are. At any rate, this is precisely NOT a part of targum.

it is closer to that method than some miraculous gift of translation; especially when we look at the JST, which was just him looking at the KJV and deleting and inserting words to make it say clearly what he thought it should say: i.e. "interpretation".

What do you think targum is? See above. See also Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 4:1 for an example. "And Adam was aware that Eve his wife had conceived from Sammael the angel, and she became oregnant and bare Cain and he was like those on high, not like those below."

Also, translation rarely enjoys the luxury of direct transference from one lingo into another: "interpretation" almost always enters into the process, as I understand it...

Yet that does not mean that "targum" equals interpretation. There are perfectly good Hebrew words for the latter, such as pesher and (in later usage) perush.