Quote From Lds.Org About Bom Translation

[MIkew]

Hi all, before I post my question I will let you know that I haven't been to church in while and I am pretty certain it isn't "true" but I think about it all the time so I am obviously not done with it. If that makes sense.

One of the issues that bothers me is how the church teaches the BOM translation. I grew up believing that the scribe sat on one side of the table and Joseph sat on the other side of the table with a sheet between them so that the scribe could not see the plates.

I have come to understand that likely none of the BOM we have today was translated in that manner but actually received through a medium(the rock) with his face in a hat. (http://lds.org/ensig...tament?lang=eng). There are many eye witness accounts to this face in the hat process.

Here is the quote from the gospel art picture kit found on lds.org.

"When the Prophet Joseph Smith received the gold plates from the angel Moroni, he studied the strange language written on them. With Heavenly Father's help, Joseph translated the writing on the gold plates into words he could understand. Oliver Cowdery helped Joseph by being his scribe. As Joseph read out loud from the plates, Oliver wrote down the words. When the translation into English was completed, the book was printed. It is called the Book of Mormon." (http://lds.org/hf/ar...1-4-128,00.html)

In my current state of thought I feel that teaching it this way is dishonest. For the record the dishonest part is in bold above, but to summarize, making it seem like he could read the characters and then express them in english.

Am I wrong, if so how am i wrong?

Thanks.

[kolipoki09]

Hi all, before I post my question I will let you know that I haven't been to church in while and I am pretty certain it isn't "true" but I think about it all the time so I am obviously not done with it. If that makes sense.

One of the issues that bothers me is how the church teaches the BOM translation. I grew up believing that the scribe sat on one side of the table and Joseph sat on the other side of the table with a sheet between them so that the scribe could not see the plates.

I have come to understand that likely none of the BOM we have today was translated in that manner but actually received through a medium(the rock) with his face in a hat. (http://lds.org/ensig...tament?lang=eng). There are many eye witness accounts to this face in the hat process.

Here is the quote from the gospel art picture kit found on lds.org.

"When the Prophet Joseph Smith received the gold plates from the angel Moroni, he studied the strange language written on them. With Heavenly Father's help, Joseph translated the writing on the gold plates into words he could understand. Oliver Cowdery helped Joseph by being his scribe. As Joseph read out loud from the plates, Oliver wrote down the words. When the translation into English was completed, the book was printed. It is called the Book of Mormon." (http://lds.org/hf/ar...1-4-128,00.html)

In my current state of thought I feel that teaching it this way is dishonest. For the record the dishonest part is in bold above, but to summarize, making it seem like he could read the characters and then express them in english.

Am I wrong, if so how am i wrong?

Thanks.

The words appearing on the stone were those engraved on the plates. The stone was a medium. The words read aloud were still the same words that appeared on the plates. If the stone was the means by which the plates could be deciphered, Joseph was still reading aloud from the plates, but not directly.

Most Institute classes talking about the translation process are now mentioning the stone in the hat. I think we have Richard Bushman to thank for making it not as "weird" as it used to be.

Our misconceptions about events in Church history are often formulated because of inaccurate/crappy LDS art.

http://fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_history/Accuracy_of_Church_art

[Freedom]

I think it was an economical reason to approach it this way. The aim was to convey in as simple manner as possible how it occurred just to inform the novice that it was translated through divine means. The church did not want to teach the method of translating because this was never explained by the prophet. From my perspective, however, I do not see the difference in the miracle between reading it off the plates or receiving it through another divine object. Also, we do not know how much of the translating process occurred through the stone. He went through a progression as he worked out his gift to translate.

Does the use of the stone trouble you? If so, why?

[Freedom]

Our misconceptions about events in Church history are often formulated because of inaccurate/crappy LDS art.

http://fairmormon.or...y_of_Church_art

I would agree with you. We have Sons of Helaman on steroids and Christ visiting the Nephites within days if not hours of the destruction at the time of his crucifixion. We have a blond Eve and a host of other problems. Of course, it is just art and not doctrine but it does lead the uninformed to misconceptions.

[Scott Lloyd]

The words appearing on the stone were those engraved on the plates. The stone was a medium. The words read aloud were still the same words that appeared on the plates. If the stone was the means by which the plates could be deciphered, Joseph was still reading aloud from the plates, but not directly.

Most Institute classes talking about the translation process are now mentioning the stone in the hat. I think we have Richard Bushman to thank for making it not as "weird" as it used to be.

Our misconceptions about events in Church history are often formulated because of inaccurate/crappy LDS art.

http://fairmormon.or...y_of_Church_art

The FAIR article linked to here is an excellent treatment of this (non-)issue, one of the best I have seen.

[Saints Alive]

This reminds me of Paul Telling the Corinthians not to eat meat dedicated to Idols if it would provide a stumbling block to others.

The church isn’t necessarily being dishonest; it’s trying to provide a simple message without people getting hung up on the whole rock in hat thing.

[MIkew]

The words appearing on the stone were those engraved on the plates. The stone was a medium. The words read aloud were still the same words that appeared on the plates. If the stone was the means by which the plates could be deciphered, Joseph was still reading aloud from the plates, but not directly.

Most Institute classes talking about the translation process are now mentioning the stone in the hat. I think we have Richard Bushman to thank for making it not as "weird" as it used to be.

Our misconceptions about events in Church history are often formulated because of inaccurate/crappy LDS art.

http://fairmormon.or...y_of_Church_art

So you are saying I am wrong to think it is dishonest?

Crappy art? I really like most LDS art, always have always will.

The part of me who no longer trusts the church thinks the art was there to distract from the real story. A picture is worth a thousand words. The Ensign still included a classic picture of joseph and oliver sitting at a table while he read from the plates.

[MIkew]

I think it was an economical reason to approach it this way. The aim was to convey in as simple manner as possible how it occurred just to inform the novice that it was translated through divine means. The church did not want to teach the method of translating because this was never explained by the prophet. From my perspective, however, I do not see the difference in the miracle between reading it off the plates or receiving it through another divine object. Also, we do not know how much of the translating process occurred through the stone. He went through a progression as he worked out his gift to translate.

Does the use of the stone trouble you? If so, why?

There are a few of reasons:

1. the church's current stand on occult practices
   
2. the association with treasure seaking
   
3. no church leader today would ever admit to using a stone in a hat
   
4. the fact that people who believe find it ok to fudge the story because it is wierd(this is directed to your post)
   

[Storm Rider]

We like exactness in almost everything. We like to know the exact score of the game, but many of us are not really interested in every play. Regardless, we want to know the score it is all-important. Baseball statisticiams are addicted to know all things about every play in the game; the rest of us, as in the vast majority, could not careless what a batter batted last year, we want him to hit the final homerun to win the game and then we are satisfied.

You mentioned that we have several eyewitness accounts of the hat method. All Joseph said is that it was translated by the gift and power of God. What do I really think happened? I think Joseph use dthe Urim & Thummim to translate the plates, I think one of the processes (but not only process) was using a stone in a hat, and I would not be surprised to find out he used none of the above.

At the end of the day, I am not a statistician that is interested in every play. I like to know the score. I have read the Book of Mormon countless times and every time I pick it up to read, it makes me happier. I learn things and I try to be a better man. In addition, I can talk about a number of very spiritual manifestations that have further stregthened my belief in Joseph and the Book of Mormon, but those are beside the point. Is it true? Just as true as a baseball flying over the fence. Does it matter if you believe it or not? No, God does not need us to verify his truths. He knocks at the door and we answer or we don't. It is our choice. I am grateful for that. I think you are grateful for it also regardless if you believe in the Book of Mormon.

[MIkew]

I would agree with you. We have Sons of Helaman on steroids and Christ visiting the Nephites within days if not hours of the destruction at the time of his crucifixion. We have a blond Eve and a host of other problems. Of course, it is just art and not doctrine but it does lead the uninformed to misconceptions.

As a good member i used the gospel art picture kit for many FHE lessons, believing i could trust the church to produce honest materails. I tried to only use church approved materials.

[MIkew]

The FAIR article linked to here is an excellent treatment of this (non-)issue, one of the best I have seen.

If it were only the art I guess we could call it a non issue.

[MIkew]

This reminds me of Paul Telling the Corinthians not to eat meat dedicated to Idols if it would provide a stumbling block to others.

The church isn’t necessarily being dishonest; it’s trying to provide a simple message without people getting hung up on the whole rock in hat thing.

I see the church not wanting the truth to get in the way of running the program.

[cinepro]

Here is the quote from the gospel art picture kit found on lds.org.

"When the Prophet Joseph Smith received the gold plates from the angel Moroni, he studied the strange language written on them. With Heavenly Father's help, Joseph translated the writing on the gold plates into words he could understand. Oliver Cowdery helped Joseph by being his scribe. As Joseph read out loud from the plates, Oliver wrote down the words. When the translation into English was completed, the book was printed. It is called the Book of Mormon." (http://lds.org/hf/ar...1-4-128,00.html)

In my current state of thought I feel that teaching it this way is dishonest. For the record the dishonest part is in bold above, but to summarize, making it seem like he could read the characters and then express them in english.

Am I wrong, if so how am i wrong?

Thanks.

I can see your misunderstanding. The part you bolded isn't describing what happened 180 years ago, it's describing what is happening in the picture on the other side of the card.

That would be really confusing (and a really bad job of captioning) if they described something different.

[cinepro]

Most Institute classes talking about the translation process are now mentioning the stone in the hat. I think we have Richard Bushman to thank for making it not as "weird" as it used to be.

Our misconceptions about events in Church history are often formulated because of inaccurate/crappy LDS art.

http://fairmormon.or...y_of_Church_art

CFR on the "most institute classes" part.

FWIW, I'll be teaching a 17yo Sunday School class in January to start the Book of Mormon study year, and I'll be teaching them about the rock-the-hat method of translation. I'm actually curious to see how many already knew...

Edited December 2, 2011 by cinepro

[MIkew]

We like exactness in almost everything. We like to know the exact score of the game, but many of us are not really interested in every play. Regardless, we want to know the score it is all-important. Baseball statisticiams are addicted to know all things about every play in the game; the rest of us, as in the vast majority, could not careless what a batter batted last year, we want him to hit the final homerun to win the game and then we are satisfied.

You mentioned that we have several eyewitness accounts of the hat method. All Joseph said is that it was translated by the gift and power of God. What do I really think happened? I think Joseph use dthe Urim & Thummim to translate the plates, I think one of the processes (but not only process) was using a stone in a hat, and I would not be surprised to find out he used none of the above.

At the end of the day, I am not a statistician that is interested in every play. I like to know the score. I have read the Book of Mormon countless times and every time I pick it up to read, it makes me happier. I learn things and I try to be a better man. In addition, I can talk about a number of very spiritual manifestations that have further stregthened my belief in Joseph and the Book of Mormon, but those are beside the point. Is it true? Just as true as a baseball flying over the fence. Does it matter if you believe it or not? No, God does not need us to verify his truths. He knocks at the door and we answer or we don't. It is our choice. I am grateful for that. I think you are grateful for it also regardless if you believe in the Book of Mormon.

If the only thing that mattered was what Joseph said the church wouldn't need a prophet today. As most members like to say it is what the living prophets have to say that means the most. If the leaders today and yesterday have chosen to be dishonest about something as foundational as where the BOM came from how am I to trust anything they say.

[Scott Lloyd]

If it were only the art I guess we could call it a non issue.

I have to say I don't see much of a problem. The phrase you bolded does not strike me as dishonest. Joseph was dictating a translation of content from the plates, and Oliver was writing down what he said.

[MIkew]

I can see your misunderstanding. The part you bolded isn't describing what happened 180 years ago, it's describing what is happening in the picture on the other side of the card.

That would be really confusing (and a really bad job of captioning) if they described something different.

I can't diagree with that, the caption does describe the picture.

[kolipoki09]

So you are saying I am wrong to think it is dishonest?

Crappy art? I really like most LDS art, always have always will.

The part of me who no longer trusts the church thinks the art was there to distract from the real story. A picture is worth a thousand words. The Ensign still included a classic picture of joseph and oliver sitting at a table while he read from the plates.

Did you not go to the FAIR link I posted that addresses this very issue?

What religious message(s) does the Del Parson translation picture convey?

Artist's rendition of Joseph and Oliver translating the Book of Mormon.

• The translation was carried out openly—Joseph had no opportunity to hide notes or books. This was confirmed by Elizabeth Ann Cowdery and Emma Smith.
  
• The plates had a physical reality, and Oliver Cowdery was convinced of this reality. Unlike some of the other Three Witnesses, who spoke only of seeing the angel and the plates, Oliver Cowdery insisted that "I beheld with my eyes and handled with my hands the gold plates from which it was translated. I also beheld the Interpreters. That book is true…I wrote it myself as it fell from the lips of the Prophet." Oliver is also quoted in one account as describing Joseph "as sitting at a table with the plates before him, translating them by means of the Urim and Thummim, while he (Oliver) sat beside him writing every word as Joseph spoke them to him. This was done by holding the "translators" over the hieroglyphics..." This alternative technique was confirmed by John Whitmer, who said of Oliver that "[w]hen the work of translation was going on he sat at one table with his writing material and Joseph at another with the breast-plate and Urim and Thummim. The later were attached to the breast-plate and were two crystals or glasses, into which he looked and saw the words of the book."
  
• The translation was not a weird, esoteric exercise.
  

It is, I suspect, this last point that makes many critics cry "foul." The critics are not anxious to "reveal the truth" about the seer stone in the hat. The hat detail provides a setting for the theory espoused by critics that Joseph cheated with notes while dictating. In Parson's painting, with it's open setting, the cheat-notes theory can't get any traction.

In the face of other evidence, critics don't seem worried about historical accuracy. Instead, they downplay the impressive witness testimonies of the plates' reality. Nor is a seer stone in a hat intrinsically less plausible than a Urim and Thummim with breastplate.

Perhaps what critics want above all is to make the translation alienating. They may want it to seem bizarre, even eerie. They may hope that a historical truth in visual form will allow them to slip a bigger lie by us.

It seems like they want a portrait of the translation that will convey something to a modern audience that it never portrayed to the participants—that the Book of Mormon was uninspired and uninspiring.

[MIkew]

I have to say I don't see much of a problem. The phrase you bolded does not strike me as dishonest. Joseph was dictating a translation of content from the plates, and Oliver was writing down what he said.

It is giving the impression that he read from the plates, which from what I can tell he did not do. He put his face in a hat and a parchment appeared which had the words in english which joseph read or spelled out. The plates were not even in the same room at times and never uncovered(according to what accoutns I have read)

[Storm Rider]

If the only thing that mattered was what Joseph said the church wouldn't need a prophet today. As most members like to say it is what the living prophets have to say that means the most. If the leaders today and yesterday have chosen to be dishonest about something as foundational as where the BOM came from how am I to trust anything they say.

MIke, where did Joseph lie? Where do any of the prophets lie? BY took many positions, which I argue with him about today and others have said he was wrong.

Is your issue that the Church does not describe every method of translating every time the process is discussed? Or is it something else? When I talk about the game score, I just state the score and may give the very best highlights, but not too much else. What is the real problem you have?

[Storm Rider]

It is giving the impression that he read from the plates, which from what I can tell he did not do. He put his face in a hat and a parchment appeared which had the words in english which joseph read or spelled out. The plates were not even in the same room at times and never uncovered(according to what accoutns I have read)

Not a single, not one, person was in the room every time. In fact, Joseph was the only person that knows every process he used to translate and he did not tell us. BTW, a parchment never appeared; just words in the stone according to a few accounts. Be careful that you are not using a few examples and then saying the entire process was like that. No one knows.

[Scott Lloyd]

I grew up believing that the scribe sat on one side of the table and Joseph sat on the other side of the table with a sheet between them so that the scribe could not see the plates.

I have come to understand that likely none of the BOM we have today was translated in that manner but actually received through a medium(the rock) with his face in a hat. (http://lds.org/ensig...tament?lang=eng).

Mikew, I just scanned the article you linked here. I am curious about what it is in the article that led you to the conclusion that "likely none of the BOM we have today was translated in that manner." I don't get that from my reading of the article.

Also, I'm wondering what makes you think the seer stone was the only means of translation, which is what you seem to imply here. And why you think you can definitively conclude that there was never a time in the translation process when Joseph physically examined the plates. As Storm Rider indicated in a post above, the "eyewitness accounts" on which you are relying so heavily are, at best, snapshots of a process that took place over many months.

Edited December 2, 2011 by Scott Lloyd

[kolipoki09]

CFR on the "most institute classes" part.

I can only speak from experience, both as a teacher and a student. But if you're a college student attending BYU or one of its other sister universities, taking a class in Church History or Book of Mormon, chances are the teacher will bring it up.

However, if you're taking the class from a teacher who is not an academic (i.e. someone who was hired by CES to teach Seminary or Institute without any specialized training in the subjects at hand, such as the Ancient Near East or early American History), the odds of "overlooking the weird stuff" goes up dramatically.

Over the course of about four years, I went from having a high school Seminary teacher (who had a B.S. in P.E.) who accused me of being an anti-Mormon for bringing up the stone in the hat, to having a Church History instructor who had required reading assignments out of Rough Stone Rolling and who acted out the process using an iPod in a cowboy hat.

[Saints Alive]

I see the church not wanting the truth to get in the way of running the program.

So if a child asks you where babies come from, your "not wanting the truth to get in the way of running the program." if you don't explain the mechanics of procreation?

Edited December 2, 2011 by Saints Alive

[MIkew]

Did you not go to the FAIR link I posted that addresses this very issue?

I would have to spend some time looking up those quotes, but I believe the majority of eye witness accounts are the stone in the hat.

What do you think? How was the BOM translated? Excluding the power of god part. What happened in the room, where were the plates, where was joseph where was the scribe.