Translating The Book Of Mormon

[Log]

I guess my question would be "In your view, does the English text of the Book of Mormon bear any relationship to the text present on the brass plates? If so, what is that relationship, and if not, whence the plates?"

[cdowis]

Since they were in the same room, the simplest assumption is that they asked Smith what he saw, and he told them.

The idea that they would offer wild speculation "words appearing on parchment", rather than ask, seems rather far fetched to me.

As I remember, JS refused to discuss the translation process, and the witnesses never gave any indication that he had discussed it with them. I find it interesting that "JS told me" is missing from his statement, but made it sound as if it were an eyewitness account. But I think we can all agree that was not the case. He certainly would have mentioned JS statement to him, and I find it far fetched that it is missing.

[HiJolly]

Since Don announced his topic for the conference, I thought I would do the same. The title is "The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon," not coincidentally the title of the book that we are expecting to have ready for the conference.

There is no way to cover everything in the book in a 45 minute presentation, and I am still trying to narrow exactly how to do it, but I figure that most people will be interested in two sections, seeing in a stone and translating with a stone.

Bring virtual tomatoes. I am going to offer an explanation of how seer stones worked and the mechanism that Joseph used to translate with one. Is that a sufficient teaser?

Today, the only community of people that I have heard of who know how to constuct (or fashion) a seer-stone are the chaos magicians. Anyone know of another group?

HiJolly

[Brant Gardner]

I guess my question would be "In your view, does the English text of the Book of Mormon bear any relationship to the text present on the brass plates? If so, what is that relationship, and if not, whence the plates?"

The question of how the English translates to the plate text (golden plates rather than brass plates) is important and difficult to discern because we don't have the original language. Therefore, all argument is based on inference from data available in English. That is, of course, the reason that there are so many opinions.

When I worked on this question I used a three-fold typology for how a translation might relate to an original: literalist, figurative, and conceputal. The literalist is similar to a word-for-word translation, but allowing for the fact that no good translator ever really does that. Nevertheless, it would be a very close alignment. The figurative is still tied to the text through meaning, intent and basic information, but with a little greater flexibility in vocabulary (allowing, for example, idioms to be updated to be comprehensible). The conceptual translation is most distant, with a tie to the text but with the possible addition of material not present in the original (but perhaps explanatory of the original). All of these types are known from secular translation studies.

My analysis of the evidence (your mileage may vary) tells me that the majority of the text follows the figurative model. That is, I think that the intent, meaning, and structures of the text relate to the underlying plate text, but that there is flexibility in the vocabulary in which the terms are expressed. Nevertheless, I have found a couple of specific occasions where, for specific reasons, there are examples of both the literalist and conceptual translations. Basically, I argue that without a specific justification for any other type, the best descriptive default choice is figurative.

[Ariarates]

Not at all. I asked a few questions relating to your statement in post no. 5. You didn't answer them in your reply (although you copied them into your post no. 15) so I thought I'd follow up.

Anything yet? Or is this one of those threads where you don't answer my questions, I keep repeating them and then get kicked off the thread?

[mfbukowski]

Anything yet? Or is this one of those threads where you don't answer my questions, I keep repeating them and then get kicked off the thread?

Better yet, why don't you just leave while you're behind?

I'm surprised Brant hasn't said to you what most authors would say: "Read the book and find out!"

[Brant Gardner]

Anything yet? Or is this one of those threads where you don't answer my questions, I keep repeating them and then get kicked off the thread?

I thought I had answered. Neither of us is a Bishop (at least I am not) and the question is never asked in such a way that I would have a problem with a "yes" answer.

As for my qualification of how I see prophets as simultaneously human, please see previous responses.

[mfbukowski]

I thought I had answered. Neither of us is a Bishop (at least I am not) and the question is never asked in such a way that I would have a problem with a "yes" answer.

As for my qualification of how I see prophets as simultaneously human, please see previous responses.

The questions of course relate to having a testimony of "the Restoration" and sustaining the present Quorum of Twelve, and first Presidency as prophets, seers, and revelators. There are no questions directly even about the Book of Mormon- just the restoration in general.

There is nothing about Joseph or any other prophet being infallible or without human foibles and failings.

[Jaybear]

I find it interesting that "JS told me" is missing from his statement, but made it sound as if it were an eyewitness account. But I think we can all agree that was not the case. He certainly would have mentioned JS statement to him, and I find it far fetched that it is missing.

What is also missing from the statement, per your interpretation: "Joseph won't say, but here is how I am guessing the process worked."

The person quoted was addressing the question of how the process worked. You have correctly noted, I agree that the witnesses could not state with certainty how the process works unless Smith told them.

Since they offered a clear certain statement as to how the process works one must conclude either that: (1) Smith told them; or (2) they don't know so they made it up...they lied.

Either is possible, the former strikes me as more likely. My comment was directed at your statement that only one possible explanation existed: "I think we need to assume that he was just speculating, giving his opinion."

[cdowis]

What is also missing from the statement, per your interpretation: "Joseph won't say, but here is how I am guessing the process worked."

I have considered both possibilities, and concluded that it is the most likely because:

• JS refused to discuss the translation process in public, and we are unable to find any corroborating evidence, there is no independent source. The statement was made as if it were eyewitness testimony, which, to use your term, makes him a "liar" already (antimormons really like that word, don't they Jaybear).
  On the other side, I can easily see where someone would couch their opinion as fact. I see it every day where someone wants to impress people with their "inside knowledge". He was intimately involved in the translation process, someone who is on the inside and with a knowing wink attempts to impress the listener with what he "knows".

He was not a liar, he was just human. And that works for me.

[cdowis]

I'm sure I won't cover that in the FAIR presentation, but it is covered in the first section of the book. I have attempted to cover all of the known bases.

Let me see if I understand.

This is not covered in your speech, you will not answer basic questions here on this discussion forum, but refer us to your book.

Well, how about a discount on your book, since that is the only way we are going to get an answer from you. How about at least 20 % so that we can "read the book" to get a response from you.

If I sound annoyed, I really am. It makes me wonder about the real purpose behind this thread.

I asked you a basic question on whether you dealt with the statement regarding the translation process, and your cleverly couched your answer with words that basically told me to read the book.

[Brant Gardner]

Let me see if I understand.

This is not covered in your speech, you will not answer basic questions here on this discussion forum, but refer us to your book.

Well, how about a discount on your book, since that is the only way we are going to get an answer from you. How about at least 20 % so that we can "read the book" to get a response from you.

If I sound annoyed, I really am. It makes me wonder about the real purpose behind this thread.

I asked you a basic question on whether you dealt with the statement regarding the translation process, and your cleverly couched your answer with words that basically told me to read the book.

I'm sorry you have the impression I am plugging the book. This market isn't big enough that any of us make much, so it really isn't all that big of a consideration. The reason for my answer is that in a 45 minute presentation I can't cover the topics that are in a 350+ page book. In selecting what to talk about, I figure more people are interested in seer stones and how they worked than in the way the stories about the translation were developed.

Answering the question about why there are particular stories told about the translation method by the witnesses (Joseph studiously avoided much, at least that we have in print) comprises going through quite a bit of evidence and couching it in folklore theory. It is too complicated to deal with reasonably on a message board.

The short answer is that while the witnesses have some very definite statements, there are places where they can be demonstrated to be incorrect (specifically on the issue of inerrant spelling). Thus we have a situation where there is a lot of agreement on something that we can show is incorrect. Now the question becomes how they told such a similarly incorrect story. That is where there is more too it than I can cover in a board.

However, if you are looking for discounts on books, FAIR does a pretty good job for most of the things they sell--and discounts abound on books during the conference. Many of us leave with arms heavier and wallets lighter.

[Calm]

And if you don't have the time to attend the conference, you should still be able to get into the bookstore to get the great conference deals (at least you could in the past, I've missed the recent ones...sigh).

[Jaybear]

I have considered both possibilities, and concluded that it is the most likely because:

• JS refused to discuss the translation process in public, and we are unable to find any corroborating evidence, there is no independent source. The statement was made as if it were eyewitness testimony, which, to use your term, makes him a "liar" already (antimormons really like that word, don't they Jaybear).
  On the other side, I can easily see where someone would couch their opinion as fact. I see it every day where someone wants to impress people with their "inside knowledge". He was intimately involved in the translation process, someone who is on the inside and with a knowing wink attempts to impress the listener with what he "knows".

He was not a liar, he was just human. And that works for me.

Who is the "he" that you are referring to. There were multiple first hand witnesses to the purported translation process all of them describe a process whereby Smith was reading words which appeared to him while his face is buried in his hat.

But lets assuming that none of them had the temerity to ask Smith what was happening, it should nonetheless be rather obvious to a first hand viewer of the process whether Smith put his head in his hat to either (1) aid in his concentration of his thoughts; or (2) to read or pretend to read words which were appearing in the hat.

As for whether they lied, any one providing this level of detail ...

A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English.

... is either repeating what they were told by Smith, or making up facts, aka "just being human."

Bear in mind, I am not the one accusing them of making up facts.

[LeSellers]

Bear in mind, I am not the one accusing them of making up facts.

Yes, you are. Just differently.

Some among us Saints (I am not among these) say they were emending what actually happened because they were not eye witnesses or some other thing.

You, on the other hand, say there was nothing for them to have seen except staging, that there was no translation; that they were in cahoots with Joseph, et cetera, etc, &c.

Lehi