Translation

[inquiringmind]

Mark Beesley, on 27 July 2011 - 03:27 PM, said:

I am also mindful that the words of the angel that we have are a translation. We do not know what word the angel used originally, and whether or not church really describes what the angel intended

Do you mean to say that even if Joseph translated the plates "by the gift and power of God," and an angel told the three witnesses that they'd been "translated correctly," we still don't know if the word Joseph chose to use (in 1 Nephi 14:10) really describes what the angel who spoke to Nephi intended?

Edited July 29, 2011 by inquiringmind

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

It's kind of a convoluted issue, unfortunately. You might be interested in Orson Scott Card's in-depth take: http://www.nauvoo.com/vigor/issues/16-extra.html

[mfbukowski]

Do you mean to say that even if Joseph translated the plates "by the gift and power of God," and an angel told the three witnesses that they'd been "translated correctly," we still don't know if the word Joseph chose to use (in 1 Nephi 14:10) really describes what the angel who spoke to Nephi intended?

It's absurd to even bring up what he said. What we have is what we have- either you have a testimony it's "true" or not.

Anything else is totally unknowable by anyone anywhere anytime.

We have three or four layers of supernatural "hearsay" with nothing written until the final record which was "translated" supernaturally.

I wouldn't worry about it!

Edit: It would be useful to have a link to the quote to see the context better

Edited July 29, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Robert F. Smith]

It's absurd to even bring up what he said. What we have is what we have- either you have a testimony it's "true" or not.

Anything else is totally unknowable by anyone anywhere anytime.

We have three or four layers of supernatural "hearsay" with nothing written until the final record which was "translated" supernaturally.

I wouldn't worry about it!

Edit: It would be useful to have a link to the quote to see the context better

The whole context can be found at here..

[Robert F. Smith]

Quote

Mark Beesley, on 27 July 2011 - 03:27 PM, said:

I am also mindful that the words of the angel that we have are a translation. We do not know what word the angel used originally, and whether or not church really describes what the angel intended

Do you mean to say that even if Joseph translated the plates "by the gift and power of God," and an angel told the three witnesses that they'd been "translated correctly," we still don't know if the word Joseph chose to use (in 1 Nephi 14:10) really describes what the angel who spoke to Nephi intended?

It is indeed a translation issue, at least in part, and cinepro was quite wrong to declare

The problem with the "it's a philosophy" approach is that, as of ~600BC when Nephi was talking with the angel, the "Church" had yet to be "formed" yet.

This is a common misconception. John Tvedtnes long ago dealt with this issue in his book The Church of the Old Testament. The KJV and other translations frequently mask the fact that "church" is merely a modern English form of more archaic kirk and kirche, which were derived from Greek Kyriakos "belonging to the Lord (i.e. The Congregation of the Lord)." Such terms parallel LXX and NT Greek synagoge, and ekklesia, and refer directly to and translate well-known Hebrew terms for "congregation" (kehilla, 'eda, etc.), which lie behind the modern terms. In other words, the Book of Mormon term "church" should be interpreted as "congregation." I don't know how that was rendered in the Egyptian on the gold plates, although there are several attractive possibilities.

[mfbukowski]

The whole context can be found at http://www.mormondia...h-of-the-devil/ here..

Thanks, I appreciate that, I definitely misunderstood the context, but I was responding more to Inquiring's question about how one could know we have an "innacurate" translation of the Book of Mormon

Clearly, it makes virtually no sense whatsoever to speculate that it is possible to know if we have an "inaccurate translation" of the BoM or not. It is a waste of time.

So as it turns out, though I was wrong about the context, I think I am still happy with my answer to Inquiring!

Edited July 29, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Ray Callis Hatton III]

The language used could be well influenced by Joseph Smith. Joseph could choose to render anything as long as it still adequately represented the text's intent. It is translated as "church" in the King James Version of the New Testament when it used the Greek word "ekklesia" which is the same Greek word that occurs in the Septuagint rendering of the Old Testament as the equivalent of the Hebrew "Qahal", 'convocation,' 'the called,', used to refer to Israel, not in their national but in their religious unity. As one of many examples, Psalms 89 speaks of praising the Lord "in the congregation of the saints" and says that God is to be feared (respected, revered) "in the assembly of the saints."

Edited July 29, 2011 by Ray Callis Hatton III