Joseph Copied Parts Of The Book Of Mormon From The Kjv Bible (Church Source)

[ERayR]

Umm, yes actually I have read the BoM, many times in fact.

Then why did you ask the question I was responding to?

[Johnnie Cake]

ERayE....you know full well that I readily admit when I'm wrong and will again here in this thread if I am shown to be again just as I have in past threads when wrong...so go ahead...give it your best shot...go ahead and make a fool of me...I give you permission

Soooo....I'll remove the qualifier "credible"... I'd just really like for you to give it your best shot and share with all of us how you would answer these three questions. I'd like you're perspective

[why me]

I feel like JS should have never put the Bible as not being as correct as the BoM, it clearly is just as correct, if not more, and has actual identifiable landmarks and scrolls!

I remember that that it was claimed that the bible was missing texts, such as letters etc. And that it had been corrupted by the hands of men in picking and choosing what should be included in the bible.

[ERayR]

ERayE....you know full well that I readily admit when I'm wrong and will again here in this thread if I am shown to be again just as I have in past threads when wrong...so go ahead...give it your best shot...go ahead and make a fool of me...I give you permission

Soooo....I'll remove the qualifier "credible"... I'd just really like for you to give it your best shot and share with all of us how you would answer these three questions. I'd like you're perspective

You know full well that credibility like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The word credible is not removable because it is anything you would accept must be credible to you.

I have no desire to try to make a fool of you. That is one job you are much better at than I.

[Robert F. Smith]

I feel like JS should have never put the Bible as not being as correct as the BoM, it clearly is just as correct, if not more, and has actual identifiable landmarks and scrolls!

Joseph was probably referring to a more correct transmission and doctrine than with the Bible, which has many more variants and has more translation problems.

And, while it is true that one can easily identify particular locations in the Bible (Jerusalem), that is also true for the Book of Mormon (Jerusaslem), leaving disputes among archeologists about many other locations for both books -- even though the general region of both books is relatively secure. Realia can be examined and related to both texts.

The problem is that the Bible has been transmitted by a multitude of different scribes over time, and has been translated into a variety of languages -- a worldly process which brings in human fallibility writ large. The BofM, on the other hand, was brought forth by an angel, and then translated by the power of God, rather than scholarship.

The upshot is that one can be assured that the Bible, though certainly an historical artifact of literature, makes claims about an Israelite Exodus, and about the Resurrection of the Son of God, etc., which cannot be verified through evidentiary means. The Book of Mormon, given its improbable origins, has the opposite issue in its favor: If the internal evidence of the Book of Mormon matches a set of ancient cultures in the Old and New Worlds to the degree that there is probable cause to find it authentic, then it actually verifies the Bible!! Otherwise the Bible fails to convince the skeptic.

[Robert F. Smith]

If nothing else, this thread points to the fact that it isn't a fact that the book was dictated by the gift and power of God. It is a belief.

It all depends on whether you adhere to the theory of plenary dictation by God, or go with the alternate notion that Joseph puts it into his own words and understanding. And I am not even including the other notion (Royal Skousen's) that the translation was already made in the 16th century, and that Joseph simply read it off verbatim.

[omni]

Then why did you ask the question I was responding to?

Huh?

[canard78]

So explain how the plan would work. They have a manuscript that is already filled with "such markings", and then they mark it up some more...months (or years) later, Joseph has retranslated the lost pages, and the Book of Mormon is published. They then come forward and say "hey, the Book of Mormon is a fraud because we stole this manuscript of the first fifth of it, and it's different than the one that is in the published Book of Mormon..."

And potential readers would...what? Compare the published book with the stolen, years-old manuscript and decide that the book must be inauthentic because in addition to all the "markings" from Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery and the other scribes, the new markings are just too much.

Yeah, that's a great plan. (Not to mention that this plan requires the Book of Mormon to be finished and published in order to work, and Martin's wife Lucy didn't want him to spend his time and money on the project, so she wanted them to stop working on it, not to finish it and then fail.)

Don't get me started on the 116 pages. It seems fairly obvious to me: She burnt them to get her husband off the project. It almost worked. The rest of the story is just to make it more mysterious.

[Robert F. Smith]

Royal Skousen's brief paper on archaic English in the BoM does not arrive at any conclusions. He points to examples of archaic (even medieval) English in the BoM, many of which have subsequently been edited out. What the presence of archaic English in an early 19th century "translation" means he does not say. He does not know, he only observes and reports.

........................................................ .

Not so, Beast.

Royal has many times stated his position that the BofM was translated into 16th century English long before Joseph came on the scene. The reason he says that, he explains, is that there are 15th and 16th century words and phrases used in that translation which went out of use in the interim -- thus leaving Joseph nowhere to have obtained them. Where could he have obtained such archaic language? Perhaps, one can speculate, it is God having fun with us.

[ERayR]

Huh?

Your post #82.

If you don't believe they were destroyed then why go through all the effort of creating a second set of plates if the evil conspiring men didn't do what God said they were going to do?

If I have misunderstood what you posted sorry.

[guerreiro9]

It's not a problem at all ERayR if you can give credible answers to these yet unanswered questions I posed earlier....

01. If the Book of Mormon is a translation of ancient scripture taken from Golden Plates…why does it include additions to the Bible made after the 1700’s?

02. If it is a more pure rendering of Christ’s sermon,(which is quoted word for word in all but those missing original phrases) why doesn’t it include the same words given in our earliest Greek formats?

03. If during the translation process, Joseph took a short cut and merely copied the text from the Smith family Bible why when he saw Christ familiar sermon being given again to the Nephites did he remove those 2 sentences that were part of the oldest Greek manuscripts yet leave in the most recent man-made additions added in the 1700’s?

Tight or loose....neither can explain these away....that leaves....ummmm...

Though I am not ERayR I will answer you questions.

1) I assume you are referring to "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." from your previous post. While the earliest known manuscript of Matthew does not contain this phrase it is preposterous to claim this as an addition from the 1700s. This phrase is known as the doxology and is found in the Didache (estimated written between 70-140 AD) in the same form. It is also found in the Apostolic Constitutions (250-380 AD) and was used from the very earliest times in the Byzantine tradition. All we know from the Greek manuscripts is that on the earliest manuscript of Matthew that has survived the phrase is not included. That does not mean that this phrase was never spoken by Jesus, and it certainly was not an addition made in the 1700s.

2) I'm not sure what you mean by this. To the best of our knowledge Christ never spoke Greek during his earthly ministry (although I am assuming it is well within his abilities). What we have in the King James Version of the Bible and in the English translation of the Book of Mormon is not a word for word translation of what Christ said. When you translate from one language to another, you do not translate word for word. Let me repeat that when you translate from one language to another you do not translate word for word. Even if you did translate word for word, there are numerous ways in which the words could be translated, each equally valid. I do not find it surprising that the same teachings by the same person could be translated to the same language in nearly identical form, even though those were not his exact words in either instance.

3) I'm not sure what the difficulty here is. I guess it all depends upon what assumptions you are making. This is how I see the situation.

Jesus taught in Palestine most likely in Aramaic. Someone wrote down his teachings, perhaps many years later. It is very unlikely that the actual spoken words were recorded. Christ's teachings (not his words) were more easily preserved and at some point were written by people who spoke Greek. At some later time the remaining Greek manuscripts (and others) were translated into English.

Jesus taught in the Americas in an unknown language. Someone wrote down his teachings, though probably not word for word. Hundreds of years later Mormon abridged these teachings and engraved them on plates using modified Egyptian characters. The actual spoken language these characters represented is unknown, and Mormon may have had to translate from one language to another in his abridgment. At some later time this abridgment was translated into English.

If the meaning of the teachings was the same in both cases, it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to be translated into the same language in the same way, even though they may not have been word for word the same when given.

-guerreiro9

[MormonMason]

And that would all be good and well were it not for the fact that the Lord’s Prayer found in our current KJVis NOT the same Lord’s Prayer Found in the original 1611 A.D. first edition copy of the KJV.

That version of The Lord’s Prayer as it was originally printed in the 1611 A.D. KJV reads:

“Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. “

Note that in the original 1611 KJV both of the sentences left out of the Book of Mormon version i.e. “Thy kingdom come” and “Give us this day our daily bread” were included in the original 1611 KJV, but the last sentence …” For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen” is NOT found in the original first edition 1611 A.D. KJV nor in ANY earlier version of the Lord’s Prayer.

I don't have time for more tonight but I definitely wanted to put this above lie to rest now, before I retired for the night. Below is a photo of the very page from the 1611 KJV containing Matthew 6:13, original layout and all. Note carefully the contents of verse 13.

And, here is what the precursor to the King James Bible, the earlier version from which the KJV derives and of which the KJV is a revision, the Bishop's Bible of 1568 says:

And leade vs not into temptation, but delyuer vs from euyll. For thyne is the kyngdome, and the power, and the glory, for euer. Amen.

And, here is what the Geneva Bible of 1599 has to say:

And leade vs not into tentation, but deliuer vs from euill: for thine is the kingdome, and the power, and the glorie for euer. Amen.

And, here is what the Miles Coverdale Bible of 1535 has to say:

And lede vs not in to teptacion: but delyuer vs from euell. For thyne is the kyngdome, and the power, and the glorye for euer. Amen.

And, finally, here is the Greek Majority Text version of Matthew 6:13, which also contains in bold the very text that Johnnie cake claims did not exist in any earlier text than the later revision of the KJV:

κaὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρaσμόν, ἀλλὰ ρῦσaι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ. ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ baσιλείa κaὶ ἡ δύνaμις κaὶ ἡ δόξa εἰς τοὺς aἰῶνaς· ἀμήν.

You will note that the line claimed not to exist in the original 1611 KJV or in any other earlier version of the Lord's prayer" actually is right there--and in a number of earlier versions as well.

There is more to say about this, including textual criticism, and so forth, about the contents of this verse but that will have to wait for later. For now, enjoy the light of truth.

[canard78]

Why do you all insist Joseph was an automated, biological stenographic machine? Read D & C 9:8. Several times if necessary.

We go round in circles... He wasn't I agree with you. So now explain how the KJV was identical. If Joseph was translating Mormon's words, how did he manage to deliver an exact match to the KJV in the relevant sections. Why weren't those subject to the same issues?

[bcuzbcuz]

I don't have time for more tonight but I definitely wanted to put this above lie to rest now, before I retired for the night. Below is a photo of the very page from the 1611 KJV containing Matthew 6:13, original layout and all. Note carefully the contents of verse 13.

And, here is what the precursor to the King James Bible, the earlier version from which the KJV derives and of which the KJV is a revision, the Bishop's Bible of 1568 says:

And, here is what the Geneva Bible of 1599 has to say:

And, here is what the Miles Coverdale Bible of 1535 has to say:

And, finally, here is the Greek Majority Text version of Matthew 6:13, which also contains in bold the very text that Johnnie cake claims did not exist in any earlier text than the later revision of the KJV:

You will note that the line claimed not to exist in the original 1611 KJV or in any other earlier version of the Lord's prayer" actually is right there--and in a number of earlier versions as well.

There is more to say about this, including textual criticism, and so forth, about the contents of this verse but that will have to wait for later. For now, enjoy the light of truth.

Regardless whether Johnnie Cake got it completely right, the issue still stands. Matthew and Luke did not contain the "doxology" in the original writings. It was added later, by someone or someones that felt it was needed. In prayers offered by priests in the Eastern Orthodox church, that ending was a common ending in all their prayers, a tradition started by who knows. The common man did not say the prayer at all but only added an "Amen" after the prayer was said.

The doxology of the prayer is not contained in Luke's version, nor is it present in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew, representative of the Alexandrian text, but is present in the manuscripts representative of the Byzantine text.^[29] It is thus absent in the oldest and best manuscripts of Matthew,^[30] and most scholars do not consider it part of the original text of Matthew.^[31][32] Modern translations generally omit it.^[33] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Prayer

[cdowis]

It all depends on whether you adhere to the theory of plenary dictation by God, or go with the alternate notion that Joseph puts it into his own words and understanding. And I am not even including the other notion (Royal Skousen's) that the translation was already made in the 16th century, and that Joseph simply read it off verbatim.

"verbatim"

Uhhh....... You might want to check your facts. I think you forgot that there are many differences in the two texts. And some of those differences are found in other textual traditions. Also, the Lord declared that it was translated correctly, so those differences are not just random items that he threw into the text, regardless of the exact method of translation.

[cdowis]

Hi, cdowis. A few thoughts:

First, I don't claim that the entire translation is based on the KJV.

I was responding to the narow point in your post, not to your particular theories and other posts on the subject.

snip

Second, I do think that the differences between the KJV text and the BoM translations are minor. And in this I'm simply following the lead of most LDS scholars. If you want to lay out a case for substantial differences that indicate disparate sources and challenges the conclusions of some of our best LDS minds, I'd love to see it.

Why are you putting words in my mouth? Please read what I actually said -- these differences indicate that the KJV and BOM are independent textual traditions.

Please do not misrepresent my views.

Third, I still think you are misrepresenting Royal's argument.

Sigh. What you call "misrepresentation" of Skousen (are you on a first name basis with him? How clever you are) is my own view INDEPENDENT of Skousen. He presented a fact, and I gave my own interpretation.

I suggest reading his article again before trying to apply the conclusions here.

I suggest that you stop putting words in my mouth and creating strawman arguments.

Regards,

Edited May 29, 2013 by cdowis

[ERayR]

We go round in circles... He wasn't I agree with you. So now explain how the KJV was identical. If Joseph was translating Mormon's words, how did he manage to deliver an exact match to the KJV in the relevant sections. Why weren't those subject to the same issues?

It is too bad that we have so many reports of the translation process by those who did not know how it was done and none from Joseph who did. An understanding that translation, except on the most basic level, is not a word for word but rather a transferal of concepts from one language to another. See D & C 9:8 describes the process. 8 But, behold, I say unto you, that you must ^astudy it out in your ^bmind; then you must ^cask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your ^dbosom shall ^eburn within you; therefore, you shall ^ffeel that it is right.

Unlike some I think Joseph knew the Bible quite well and when what he was translating was covered in the Bible he used those words. It is not a problem for me.

I also think that in as much as he was not a well schooled and skilled translator that he translated by whatever method needed to get the job done.

[Vance]

Regardless whether Johnnie Cake got it completely right, the issue still stands. Matthew and Luke did not contain the "doxology" in the original writings.

This, of course, can NOT be verified because none of "the original writings" are extant.

[CV75]

Yes you and I are in agreement...he did write the BoM without regard for the future...and that is exactly why we've run into difficulties...the witnesses claim of a tight translation didn't stand the test of time

The witnesses to the BoM translation process describe a tight translation process...the Loose translation theory is an apologetic invention to resolve difficulties in the tight translation process described by those witnesses

You seem to still forget that neither the witnesses nor the apologists have anything to do with how Joseph actually translated. They can only tell of what they see or understand. The problem is that people unreasonably expect them to see and tell more than what they actually saw (or understand), when all the witnesses and apologists can reasonably do is relate their best understanding of what went on, in good faith.

[canard78]

I'd be more concerned if the BoM had parts identical to the Koran.

No problem there:

"In 1978, under the direction of President Spencer W. Kimball, the first presidency made the statement that: “The great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God’s light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals."

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1988/01/i-have-a-question?lang=eng

[Johnnie Cake]

You know full well that credibility like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The word credible is not removable because it is anything you would accept must be credible to you.

I have no desire to try to make a fool of you. That is one job you are much better at than I.

I'm disappointed that you wouldn't take a stab at it... but it is what it is…perhaps there is no good answer for those questions from an LDS apologetic side.

To answer your statement, I often make a fool of myself and I'm the first to admit it. ERayR, I'm not your nemesis nor do I wish to be your MD&D foil...But you and I seem to consistently find ourselves arguing opposite talking points. You’ve accused me of merely seeking "Points"...nothing could be further from the truth...but what I do seek is understanding, the testing of my personal beliefs and when shown to be false the jettisoning of those false beliefs all with the long term goal of truth discovery.

Nothing in my personal belief system is sacred to me...Nothing....I am willing to throw off any false understanding or belief when given additional insight and knowledge that some perceived knowledge is in fact false. That is why I am a firm believer in evoluation rather than traditional biblical creation....I opened myself up to ahve my former beliefs tested and had to accept the overwhelming evidence in support of evolution...which unfortuanatly caused me to jettison Biblical creationism.

I honestly wish we could just have conversations on this board where ideas could be tested and scrutinized with mutual respect for all participants without the vitriol of personal venom being spewed like confetti falling from a Mexican piñata.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Johnnie Cake

[guerreiro9]

Regardless whether Johnnie Cake got it completely right, the issue still stands. Matthew and Luke did not contain the "doxology" in the original writings. It was added later, by someone or someones that felt it was needed. In prayers offered by priests in the Eastern Orthodox church, that ending was a common ending in all their prayers, a tradition started by who knows. The common man did not say the prayer at all but only added an "Amen" after the prayer was said.

The doxology of the prayer is not contained in Luke's version, nor is it present in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew, representative of the Alexandrian text, but is present in the manuscripts representative of the Byzantine text.^[29] It is thus absent in the oldest and best manuscripts of Matthew,^[30] and most scholars do not consider it part of the original text of Matthew.^[31][32] Modern translations generally omit it.^[33]http://en.wikipedia....rd's_Prayer

Well it's a good thing that Joseph Smith didn't claim to be making a translation from the earliest Greek versions of Luke or Matthew or you would have a valid point. What he did claim is that he translated some ancient writings that contained the teachings of Jesus into English. This translation contained a phrase that while not extant in the earliest Greek versions of Luke and Matthew is part of the earliest Christian tradition and is extant in some of the earliest "non-biblical" Christian writings.

So what conclusions can we draw definitively? Not a whole lot. We can say for sure that the earliest extant versions of Matthew and Luke do not contain the phrase, but that does not mean that Christ did not use the phrase in his teachings. We can say that the phrase is contained in the earliest Christian writings and traditions, but that does not tell us whether Christ actually used the phrase. It would not have been out of place for Christ to teach this phrase to the Nephites even if he didn't teach it while in Jerusalem. Really I don't see much of an issue here. We can't really say much of anything.

-guerreiro9

[canard78]

It is too bad that we have so many reports of the translation process by those who did not know how it was done and none from Joseph who did. An understanding that translation, except on the most basic level, is not a word for word but rather a transferal of concepts from one language to another. See D & C 9:8 describes the process. 8 But, behold, I say unto you, that you must ^astudy it out in your ^bmind; then you must ^cask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your ^dbosom shall ^eburn within you; therefore, you shall ^ffeel that it is right.

Unlike some I think Joseph knew the Bible quite well and when what he was translating was covered in the Bible he used those words. It is not a problem for me.

I also think that in as much as he was not a well schooled and skilled translator that he translated by whatever method needed to get the job done.

Fair enough. You're essentially supporting the points of the 1977 article which is to say that where the BoM & KJV it essentially was a case of Joseph, while translating thinking "how about I use a similar wording to Mark 16 for this bit," getting the burning in the bosom and then dictating it. An over-simplification perhaps.

Whether he got it from memory or copied the book doesn't matter as the "gift and power" confirmed it was right? Is that about right?

[Johnnie Cake]

Though I am not ERayR I will answer you questions.

1) I assume you are referring to "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." from your previous post. While the earliest known manuscript of Matthew does not contain this phrase it is preposterous to claim this as an addition from the 1700s. This phrase is known as the doxology and is found in the Didache (estimated written between 70-140 AD) in the same form. It is also found in the Apostolic Constitutions (250-380 AD) and was used from the very earliest times in the Byzantine tradition. All we know from the Greek manuscripts is that on the earliest manuscript of Matthew that has survived the phrase is not included. That does not mean that this phrase was never spoken by Jesus, and it certainly was not an addition made in the 1700s.

2) I'm not sure what you mean by this. To the best of our knowledge Christ never spoke Greek during his earthly ministry (although I am assuming it is well within his abilities). What we have in the King James Version of the Bible and in the English translation of the Book of Mormon is not a word for word translation of what Christ said. When you translate from one language to another, you do not translate word for word. Let me repeat that when you translate from one language to another you do not translate word for word. Even if you did translate word for word, there are numerous ways in which the words could be translated, each equally valid. I do not find it surprising that the same teachings by the same person could be translated to the same language in nearly identical form, even though those were not his exact words in either instance.

3) I'm not sure what the difficulty here is. I guess it all depends upon what assumptions you are making. This is how I see the situation.

Jesus taught in Palestine most likely in Aramaic. Someone wrote down his teachings, perhaps many years later. It is very unlikely that the actual spoken words were recorded. Christ's teachings (not his words) were more easily preserved and at some point were written by people who spoke Greek. At some later time the remaining Greek manuscripts (and others) were translated into English.

Jesus taught in the Americas in an unknown language. Someone wrote down his teachings, though probably not word for word. Hundreds of years later Mormon abridged these teachings and engraved them on plates using modified Egyptian characters. The actual spoken language these characters represented is unknown, and Mormon may have had to translate from one language to another in his abridgment. At some later time this abridgment was translated into English.

If the meaning of the teachings was the same in both cases, it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to be translated into the same language in the same way, even though they may not have been word for word the same when given.

-guerreiro9

I appreciate your insight...thank you

[Johnnie Cake]

I don't have time for more tonight but I definitely wanted to put this above lie to rest now, before I retired for the night. Below is a photo of the very page from the 1611 KJV containing Matthew 6:13, original layout and all. Note carefully the contents of verse 13.

And, here is what the precursor to the King James Bible, the earlier version from which the KJV derives and of which the KJV is a revision, the Bishop's Bible of 1568 says:

And, here is what the Geneva Bible of 1599 has to say:

And, here is what the Miles Coverdale Bible of 1535 has to say:

And, finally, here is the Greek Majority Text version of Matthew 6:13, which also contains in bold the very text that Johnnie cake claims did not exist in any earlier text than the later revision of the KJV:

You will note that the line claimed not to exist in the original 1611 KJV or in any other earlier version of the Lord's prayer" actually is right there--and in a number of earlier versions as well.

There is more to say about this, including textual criticism, and so forth, about the contents of this verse but that will have to wait for later. For now, enjoy the light of truth.

Thank you I stand corrected...