Book of Mormon text analysis -- computer study idea

[Robert F. Smith]

15 hours ago, champatsch said:

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

...................................................part of the divinely prepared English-language text (i.e. not cases of dialectal overlay by either Smith or his scribes).

So we see that the BofM is an eclectic text, one that apparently borrowed from many diverse sources. ..........................................

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

Tight control describes the English-language text of the BofM as eclectic, but principally Early Modern English in form and structure.

Loose control requires that many anomalous forms like "did molten" and "it supposeth me" were in Joseph's dialect, along with much other systematic usage, of which hath been spoken.

Since the boldface seems to describe your conclusion that the Book of Mormon English language text was eclectic, as well as primarily EME in form and structure, does that require that that English text was divinely prepared?  Or was the translation in loose control in some places, but under tight control elsewhere?  In order to explain the eclecticism?  Since no human could presumably bring those disparate elements together into one coherent whole?

[champatsch]

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Or was the translation in loose control in some places, but under tight control elsewhere?  In order to explain the eclecticism?  Since no human could presumably bring those disparate elements together into one coherent whole?

Late Middle English usage should certainly be viewed as tight control. Obscure Early Modern English usage should almost certainly be viewed as tight control. Modern English could be either, in isolation. "Bad" grammar could be either. Consider this passage:

(1 Nephi 15:3)
For he truly spake many great things unto them
which was hard to be understood
save a man should inquire of the Lord.
And they being hard in their hearts,
therefore they did not look unto the Lord as they had ought.

Here we see "things . . . which was", "save NP should + infinitive", "they being . . . therefore they", and "as they had ought".

The first one is bad modern grammar that we also find somewhat frequently in eModE.  EEBO Phase 1 has 72 instances of "things that was" and 41 of "things which was". This probably includes some false positives, but I screened out punctuation, and the raw number of 113 tells us the language wasn't rare in eModE writings.

The second one is rare eModE (see OED def. 2 for save), but common in the BofM. The third one is plain, redundant language more typical of eModE than modE. The fourth one is nonstandard modern usage ("to have done" ellipted).

I think the best characterization is tightly controlled language throughout the passage, mostly eModE with a bit of American dialectal usage at the end. Of course, tight control also works better with a relatively fast rate of dictation.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, champatsch said:

Late Middle English usage should certainly be viewed as tight control. Obscure Early Modern English usage should almost certainly be viewed as tight control. Modern English could be either, in isolation. "Bad" grammar could be either. Consider this passage:

(1 Nephi 15:3)
For he truly spake many great things unto them
which was hard to be understood
save a man should inquire of the Lord.
And they being hard in their hearts,
therefore they did not look unto the Lord as they had ought.

Whether we consider the original plates engraved in Egyptian -- or in Hebrew, such as Hirsch Miller's 1922 translation (below) -- we still have to consider whether the translation is tight or loose, i.e., whether it is literal (word-for-word), or a dynamic metaphrase:  

kî beʼĕmet dĕbārîm rabbîm waˁămūqîm qāšîm lišmōˁa dibber lāhem

wĕhamĕbaqēš YHWH yābînam

wĕyaˁan kî hēm kĕbôdê lĕbābôt

loʼ biqšû ʼet YHWH kārāʼûî

Certainly it could be rendered in the grammar, syntax, and style of whatever language or era the translator shared.

3 hours ago, champatsch said:

Here we see "things . . . which was", "save NP should + infinitive", "they being . . . therefore they", and "as they had ought".

The first one is bad modern grammar that we also find somewhat frequently in eModE.  EEBO Phase 1 has 72 instances of "things that was" and 41 of "things which was". This probably includes some false positives, but I screened out punctuation, and the raw number of 113 tells us the language wasn't rare in eModE writings.

The second one is rare eModE (see OED def. 2 for save), but common in the BofM. The third one is plain, redundant language more typical of eModE than modE. The fourth one is nonstandard modern usage ("to have done" ellipted).

I think the best characterization is tightly controlled language throughout the passage, mostly eModE with a bit of American dialectal usage at the end. Of course, tight control also works better with a relatively fast rate of dictation.

Perhaps, but that still doesn't address the issue you raise when you say that this was "part of the divinely prepared English-language text (i.e. not cases of dialectal overlay by either Smith or his scribes).  So we see that the BofM is an eclectic text, one that apparently borrowed from many diverse sources."   That is, Joseph was not the source of the diversity, and merely read the text from the stone while the scribes fluidly wrote it down.  So, was this a heavenly generated, diachronic translation text, not done in a particular time or place, by any particular human?  Is this what you are suggesting?

[Brant Gardner]

4 hours ago, champatsch said:

Late Middle English usage should certainly be viewed as tight control. Obscure Early Modern English usage should almost certainly be viewed as tight control.

Yes, but it is entirely dependent upon "tight control" meaning that what was already translated was transmitted correctly. It cannot say anything about the nature of the translation--only the time of the translation.

However Early Modern English appeared in the translation, it was not on the plates, and the relationship of the Early Modern English translation to the plates might still run the gamut from word for word to completely free. I don't think the evidence supports either of those extremes, but using "tight control" to talk about translation when the evidence for tight control has little to do with the nature of the translation simply makes it more difficult to discuss questions of translation.

As for transmission, I think the evidence is good that when the English left Joseph's mouth and was copied on paper, that we had tight control--and error or two here and there, but certainly the intent, and typically the practice, to reproduce what Joseph said.

Moving back from what Joseph dictated, we have an English text that had to have been translated from reformed Egyptian. Early Modern English does not describe the type of translation, but the type of target language involved in the translation.

Quote

I think the best characterization is tightly controlled language throughout the passage, mostly eModE with a bit of American dialectal usage at the end. Of course, tight control also works better with a relatively fast rate of dictation.

I can easily agree with everything here--noting that this is descriptive of the result of translation into a form of English that was tightly controlled in the dictation and recording. 

Since the original language wasn't any form of English, describing the qualities of the English text doesn't suggest the relationship to the source text.

Edited October 22, 2016 by Brant Gardner

[champatsch]

I sense we're not on the same page in terms of definitions. When I mention tight control and loose control, I simply mean the following:

Quote

“Tight control: Joseph saw specific words written out in English and read them off to the scribe—the accuracy of the resulting text depending on the carefulness of Joseph and his scribe”

“Loose control: Ideas were revealed to Joseph Smith, and he put those ideas into his own language (a theory advocated by many Book of Mormon scholars over the years)”

Royal Skousen, “How Joseph Smith Translated the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript”, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7.1 (1998): 22–31, 24.

So these terms have to do with what exactly was revealed to Joseph Smith: words or ideas (and proper nouns). Tight control doesn't have to do with what kind of translation -- functional, literal, or conceptual -- we might encounter in a passage, nor does it have to do with the time of the translation.  For example, I don't think we can definitively say that the Lord didn't insert things that weren't on the plates, that are true, into the BofM text.  If that is the case (which I don't think we can easily or confidently know in this life), I'm happy with anything God chose to include in the English-language text, including something that wasn't on the plates.  Such a state of affairs would be consonant with a relatively free translation, which the BofM appears to be.

As for the time of the translation, I don't think we can know whether the BofM was translated into English once, close in time to delivery, or more than once, with an initial English translation being modified multiple times.  This is from our limited perspective.  Because this is a speculative subject, although it is conceivable that it might have been a "heavenly generated, diachronic translation text, not done in a particular time or place, by any particular human", for now I leave these matters aside.  These musings suggest to me that we may not ever be able to discover the translation process by scholarly means.  It is a complex question since so many details and items need to be considered, and the conclusions naturally drawn from one or more items can be at odds with the conclusions naturally drawn from other items.

From all the English linguistic evidence I've considered, what I confidently reject is Joseph acting as the English-language translator, rendering received ideas into his own words, mulling over potential renderings numerous times before proceeding to dictate. I accept that the Lord was the English-language translator, and that he may have directed others in the task, which would not be at odds with how the Lord operates.

[Brant Gardner]

2 hours ago, champatsch said:

I sense we're not on the same page in terms of definitions. When I mention tight control and loose control, I simply mean the following:

So these terms have to do with what exactly was revealed to Joseph Smith: words or ideas (and proper nouns). Tight control doesn't have to do with what kind of translation -- functional, literal, or conceptual -- we might encounter in a passage, nor does it have to do with the time of the translation.  For example, I don't think we can definitively say that the Lord didn't insert things that weren't on the plates, that are true, into the BofM text.  If that is the case (which I don't think we can easily or confidently know in this life), I'm happy with anything God chose to include in the English-language text, including something that wasn't on the plates.  Such a state of affairs would be consonant with a relatively free translation, which the BofM appears to be.

As for the time of the translation, I don't think we can know whether the BofM was translated into English once, close in time to delivery, or more than once, with an initial English translation being modified multiple times.  This is from our limited perspective.  Because this is a speculative subject, although it is conceivable that it might have been a "heavenly generated, diachronic translation text, not done in a particular time or place, by any particular human", for now I leave these matters aside.  These musings suggest to me that we may not ever be able to discover the translation process by scholarly means.  It is a complex question since so many details and items need to be considered, and the conclusions naturally drawn from one or more items can be at odds with the conclusions naturally drawn from other items.

From all the English linguistic evidence I've considered, what I confidently reject is Joseph acting as the English-language translator, rendering received ideas into his own words, mulling over potential renderings numerous times before proceeding to dictate. I accept that the Lord was the English-language translator, and that he may have directed others in the task, which would not be at odds with how the Lord operates.

And we agree. None of these terms deal with the nature of translation. Unfortunately, they have been applied that way--and therefore the conversation gets confused. We can certainly discuss Joseph's role in the process and separate that role from translation. However, if we are to speak of translation, then the terms that Skousen has defined are inadequate--they don't deal with translation but with transmission.

While I do think the Joseph was the translator, I am willing to set aside that possibility and entertain someone else--or possibly others as well--though I think there would be much less data to support that. My particular point is that regardless of the identification of the person/persons who translated, the resulting English translation must be, largely, a functional translation from the plate language. It appears that we agree more than it might have appeared.

Quote

Tight control doesn't have to do with what kind of translation -- functional, literal, or conceptual -- we might encounter in a passage, nor does it have to do with the time of the translation. 

The time of the translation is inherent in your suggestion that Early Modern English is important in the translation--and was not available to Joseph. That requires a time period prior to Joseph, hence you are declaring a general time--a terminus ante quem.

Quote

For example, I don't think we can definitively say that the Lord didn't insert things that weren't on the plates, that are true, into the BofM text.  If that is the case (which I don't think we can easily or confidently know in this life), I'm happy with anything God chose to include in the English-language text, including something that wasn't on the plates.  Such a state of affairs would be consonant with a relatively free translation, which the BofM appears to be.

If you are going for what we cannot definitively say, we can't even definitively say that the Lord was involved--though I agree that it is a pretty solid assumption. It raises the question of why Joseph was inadequate and some other English speaker was required--or failing that, why the Lord selected the "wrong" English dialect if the Lord is the direct translator. We have a very limited pick of possible candidates since I am unaware of any English speaker who was even partially fluent in Reformed Egyptian. If we try to pick a translator where the tight control is pushed back to a translation that existed prior to Joseph reading it to his scribes, we have arguments that approach the numbers of angels dancing on the heads of pins.

Given that we cannot say anything about the translation without deduction, the deductions should be based on reasonable assumptions. One of those would be that as scripture has been given, so the general writing of the original Nephite text might have been. In that case, I think that there are only two occasions where there is a reasonable place for a divinely inspired addition into the Book of Mormon. I believe that we can make a very good case for a functional translation of an authentically ancient document. However, those two places where there is good reason to believe that there was the addition of material that was not only the plates both related to events within, say, two years of the time the Book of Mormon was published, and are demonstrably relevant to Joseph Smith's history. So, if we do have two insertions of something not on the plates, the best evidence would be that they came though Joseph rather than a pre-existing document. The alternative is that the divine translation occurred very soon before Joseph dictated the text, and for inexplicable reasons, was in an obsolete version of English.

[strappinglad]

It is conceivable that one or more of the three Nephites had a hand in transmission of the BoM. They had plenty of time to wander the country and would have had opportunity to learn the language of the new " invaders " . They would have had encounters with speakers of 16th and 17th Century English. Ther I go speculatin' agin ! 

On a personal note, my father claims a couple of times that he interacted with a man who he was convinced was one of the three. This was in the early 20th century near the time when the Saints put down roots and built the Cardston Temple.

[Glenn101]

8 minutes ago, Brant Gardner said:

The alternative is that the divine translation occurred very soon before Joseph dictated the text, and for inexplicable reasons, was in an obsolete version of English.

Since we are speaking about a translation by the gift and power of God with very little else to go on, there is nothing precluding the translation being done on the fly, concurrent to the transmission of the text to Joseph Smith.

Unless we are able to find evidence that Joseph Smith had a heavy concentration of Early Modern English in his dialect, which champatsch feels is unlikely from his own research and the research of other linguists, we are left with something inexplicable to all of us, both believers and critics. We already had some other inexplicable puzzles, such as why the Book of Mormon quotes some passages from the Bible, notably Isaiah, verbatim, while it quotes other passages differently. John  Tvedtnes'  research on the Isaiah variants has noted quite a bit of support from other texts.

This has been the most interesting and informative discussion of the subject I can recall on this board.

Glenn

 

 

[Brant Gardner]

8 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

Since we are speaking about a translation by the gift and power of God with very little else to go on, there is nothing precluding the translation being done on the fly, concurrent to the transmission of the text to Joseph Smith.

Unless we are able to find evidence that Joseph Smith had a heavy concentration of Early Modern English in his dialect, which champatsch feels is unlikely from his own research and the research of other linguists, we are left with something inexplicable to all of us, both believers and critics. We already had some other inexplicable puzzles, such as why the Book of Mormon quotes some passages from the Bible, notably Isaiah, verbatim, while it quotes other passages differently. John  Tvedtnes'  research on the Isaiah variants has noted quite a bit of support from other texts.

This has been the most interesting and informative discussion of the subject I can recall on this board.

The translation that resulted in the Isaiah chapters (as a simple example) is also problematic because the evidence is pretty clear that it required a visual interaction with a printed text because of the concentration of many changes around italicized words. If Joseph is the translator, that is difficult to explain because no one has indicated that a Bible was present--and I sincerely doubt that normal memorization techniques would have memorized which words were italicized. However, we have Joseph's translation of the Bible showing the very same characteristics--so either Joseph learned it from the Book of Mormon translation, or he was the translator. The problem with him learning it from the Book of Mormon is that it would have required that he do a study of the Book of Mormon text compared to the Bible and then been able to discern what was happening. I think that since Book of Mormon scholars have only dealt with that question in the last 30 or so years, it seems less likely that Joseph did it--and never mentioned that study.

We have more data than we have ever had about the Book of Mormon--and there are still important things left to learn.

[Calm]

6 hours ago, strappinglad said:

It is conceivable that one or more of the three Nephites had a hand in transmission of the BoM. They had plenty of time to wander the country and would have had opportunity to learn the language of the new " invaders " . They would have had encounters with speakers of 16th and 17th Century English. Ther I go speculatin' agin ! 

On a personal note, my father claims a couple of times that he interacted with a man who he was convinced was one of the three. This was in the early 20th century near the time when the Saints put down roots and built the Cardston Temple.

I would think that those who are resurrected and become one with Christ, if they are already celestial beings and we are not waiting for the Final Judgment in order to be fully one...that it is really easy to pick up language or perhaps they now converse in a more perfect language.  I think it would be so cool if each writer,who of course knows best what he meant, learned English through perhaps being taught by Shakespeare or translators of the various Bibles and then the record keepers translated their language into the English they were taught.  All speculation, though it would be so satisfying to be able to 'finish' the project, I would think.  God might have them do it that way as a gifted them.

[champatsch]

20 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

The translation that resulted in the Isaiah chapters (as a simple example) is also problematic because the evidence is pretty clear that it required a visual interaction with a printed text because of the concentration of many changes around italicized words.

Here are numbers I ran on biblical changes in the BofM. These are reliable, as far as I can tell.  There are 816 constituent/word differences, 171 involve italics: 21% of changes involved italics. 171 of 438 italics are changed = 39%. It is clear that italics were changed at a higher rate than other items could have been, but that there are more than 600 non-italics changes.

If the Lord had a hand in it, I'm not sure how it was done, or that the above in bold is pretty clear.

[champatsch]

22 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

We have a very limited pick of possible candidates since I am unaware of any English speaker who was even partially fluent in Reformed Egyptian. If we try to pick a translator where the tight control is pushed back to a translation that existed prior to Joseph reading it to his scribes, we have arguments that approach the numbers of angels dancing on the heads of pins.

How can we assert with confidence that there was a need for an English speaker fluent in reformed Egyptian?  How can we know how the translation might have occurred in heaven?  I think it's very difficult for us and speculative.  For example, I could assert the following, but would not be confident that it was close to the actual process:

The Lord had the plate text translated into Latin and Greek soon after Moroni's death.

The Lord had the Latin and Greek translations translated into English in 1590.

The Lord had the English translation modified in 1750.

The Lord had final changes made to it in 1827.

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

Here are numbers I ran on biblical changes in the BofM. These are reliable, as far as I can tell.  There are 816 constituent/word differences, 171 involve italics: 21% of changes involved italics. 171 of 438 italics are changed = 39%. It is clear that italics were changed at a higher rate than other items could have been, but that there are more than 600 non-italics changes.

Does this include the "New Testament quotes"?  What happens when you only have the OT.

Edited October 24, 2016 by cdowis

[Glenn101]

3 hours ago, champatsch said:

How can we assert with confidence that there was a need for an English speaker fluent in reformed Egyptian?  How can we know how the translation might have occurred in heaven?  I think it's very difficult for us and speculative.  For example, I could assert the following, but would not be confident that it was close to the actual process:

The Lord had the plate text translated into Latin and Greek soon after Moroni's death.

The Lord had the Latin and Greek translations translated into English in 1590.

The Lord had the English translation modified in 1750.

The Lord had final changes made to it in 1827.

Is there a requirement for an intermediate translation to English? What is there to preclude the translation from being done concurrent to transmission to Joseph? After all, it was done by the gift and power of God.

Glenn

[champatsch]

10 hours ago, cdowis said:

Does this include the "New Testament quotes"?  What happens when you only have the OT.

It includes both OT and NT quotes in the BofM.  This comes from some painstaking comparative work Skousen has done and which will appear shortly in volume 3 of the critical text project.  Based on a pdf he gave me of his work, I made the counts.

[champatsch]

7 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Is there a requirement for an intermediate translation to English? What is there to preclude the translation from being done concurrent to transmission to Joseph? After all, it was done by the gift and power of God.

Glenn

No, there is no such requirement, and I am ambivalent on this whole matter.  If I'm not mistaken (assuming tight control for argument's sake), Gardner maintains that in the step before a tightly controlled delivery of the BofM text to Joseph Smith, there was a need for a translator who knew English natively and Nephite Egyptian non-natively.  I regard that as a speculative view, and show, with my own speculation above (which I do not hold to), how that may not have been so.

It seems to me that Brant requires things not in evidence in order to weaken the possibility of tight control.  However, there is so much evidence of wording that was unlikely for Joseph to have produced, that it overwhelms the substantive evidence for loose control, rendering that position highly unlikely, to put it conservatively.

[Brant Gardner]

12 hours ago, champatsch said:

How can we assert with confidence that there was a need for an English speaker fluent in reformed Egyptian?  How can we know how the translation might have occurred in heaven?  I think it's very difficult for us and speculative.  For example, I could assert the following, but would not be confident that it was close to the actual process:

The Lord had the plate text translated into Latin and Greek soon after Moroni's death.

The Lord had the Latin and Greek translations translated into English in 1590.

The Lord had the English translation modified in 1750.

The Lord had final changes made to it in 1827.

Right. As soon as we remove Joseph as part of the translation, we make it impossible to understand much of anything about the translation. We could toss in an Icelandic version into the process and not know any more or less.

So I return to the problem that everything about the presence of Early Modern English in the text is descriptive of the text. It does not tell us anything about the nature of the translation, nor of the person of the translator. As long as mystery is involved, we could have the Lord typing English on the surface of the seer stone in time for Joseph to see it and repeat it.

As long as we speak of the description of the text, Early Modern English is helpful. The use of the presence of that version of English to say anything about how it got there is speculation on the unknowable, and when it is couched in language that makes it appear that it has anything to do with translation, it is misleading.

[stemelbow]

28 minutes ago, Brant Gardner said:

Right. As soon as we remove Joseph as part of the translation, we make it impossible to understand much of anything about the translation. We could toss in an Icelandic version into the process and not know any more or less.

So I return to the problem that everything about the presence of Early Modern English in the text is descriptive of the text. It does not tell us anything about the nature of the translation, nor of the person of the translator. As long as mystery is involved, we could have the Lord typing English on the surface of the seer stone in time for Joseph to see it and repeat it.

As long as we speak of the description of the text, Early Modern English is helpful. The use of the presence of that version of English to say anything about how it got there is speculation on the unknowable, and when it is couched in language that makes it appear that it has anything to do with translation, it is misleading.

I'm agreeing with this perspective, Brant.  I'm not sure what EmodE has to do with anything.  It's as likely Joseph, and/or his partners, picked up a book or some books or writings from an earlier time period and tried to mimick it, as it is Joseph simply tried to mimick the KJV style and ended up with some neat EmodE phrases, mixed with non EmodE phrases.  Okay, I'm probably using "likely" rather loosely when I say that, but I can't figure out how pointing out EmodE says anything about the translation process.  It is eerily fascinating that EmodE is found in the original text, though.  It totally confuses the simple explanation of It was done by the power of God stuff.  If there is God, he has no interest whatsoever in doing anything that makes sense to us, it seems.  His ways seem to do nothing but confuse us.  His ways aren't our ways. 

I can't wait to look back and totally mock myself some day.  It's completely amazing to me as this stuff gets hashed out that any one of us believes any of this. 

[champatsch]

As Calm has pointed out, language in heaven might be different in important ways from what we experience now. And therefore what do we know or what can we know now about the interface between language in heaven and earthly language? That's where BofM translation lies, in the realm of speculating about this interface.

[stemelbow]

7 minutes ago, champatsch said:

As Calm has pointed out, language in heaven might be different in important ways from what we experience now. And therefore what do we know or what can we know now about the interface between language in heaven and earthly language? That's where BofM translation lies, in the realm of speculating about this interface.

Inserting EmodE language into a 19th century text seems to indicate there's not much different at all.  God might have just let older English people tell Joseph what to say. 
HF: "eh...just let Frank do it.  He learned that silly Nephite language good enough."

Right Hand man at time:  "but he died in 1742.  He'll confuse the modern English speakers.  And think, when that modern society gets so bored with what they have they end up trying to figure out what these weird scriptural phrases are, and they learn that the Book has tons of EModE in it?  My goodness we're going to be leading them in all sort of crazy directions, running around like chickens with their heads cut off."

One of the other three mutters:  "good enough? Isn't that bad English?" which elicits a condemning look from the main Man.

HF back to the Right Hand man:  "yep.  that's been the intent all along.  Believe me it's best for them.  But if they don't believe in me I'm going to scorch them nicely".

Right Hand man:  "you're the boss.  Frank...."

 

[champatsch]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

It's as likely Joseph, and/or his partners, picked up a book or some books or writings from an earlier time period and tried to mimick it, as it is Joseph simply tried to mimick the KJV style and ended up with some neat EmodE phrases, mixed with non EmodE phrases.  Okay, I'm probably using "likely" rather loosely when I say that, but I can't figure out how pointing out EmodE says anything about the translation process.

There are concrete details to consider in this domain that show the BofM could not have been fashioned in either way. As mentioned before, even an English philologist would have had difficulty crafting its language.  Let me give you an example in the area where I first began to study BofM usage systematically: verbal complementation after the verb command.  I recently looked at 600+ instances in Holinshed's Chronicles.  Like the BofM, it has many cases of the auxiliary should being used in the finite clause after the verb, and much less often shall.  The only time no auxiliary is used appreciably in this Tudor history (1577) is when the subject of the complementary clause is second person, thou or ye or you.  We see the same thing in the BofM.  That's an arcane match.  There are many such matches between the BofM and eModE usage.  It's possible now to find the matching.  In the 1820s it would have been extremely difficult for a philologist to know about these esoteric matches and even more difficult to implement them in a text with complex content.

The presence of eModE in the text doesn't tell us about the translation process, but it does tell us it is extremely likely that it was a divinely prepared text transmitted to Joseph Smith, who relayed it to his scribes.  The translation process is a different area, and for those interested, worthy of study.  We can study about translation generally, and apply it to the BofM, but in this case we attempt to determine what might have happened in heaven from a limited, earthly perspective.  That must be borne in mind.  However, to argue from translation process that tight control is unlikely is a doubtful enterprise, because of the extensive, strong evidence for tight control.  If the evidence for tight control were weak, then translation process evidence might point to an earthly translation.  But the evidence for tight control is strong.  It is determined from concrete earthly evidence: dictation witnesses, manuscript details, early editions, the textual record.   Because of this, translation process determinations will be somewhat speculative because of where the translation almost certainly took place: heaven.

Edited October 24, 2016 by champatsch

[cdowis]

3 hours ago, champatsch said:

It includes both OT and NT quotes in the BofM.  This comes from some painstaking comparative work Skousen has done and which will appear shortly in volume 3 of the critical text project.  Based on a pdf he gave me of his work, I made the counts.

The problem is that you are assuming that these are quotes from the NT.  You should compare these scriptures with their original source, which is obviously not the NT for the believing LDS.  At best, the NT is quoting the original and may have contain  errors == viz both the BOM and the NT are independently quoting the same source.  

Finally, the OT quotes are the Bible which is the record of Judah compared with the Brass Plates, the record of Joseph.

Edited October 24, 2016 by cdowis

[Brant Gardner]

2 hours ago, stemelbow said:

I'm agreeing with this perspective, Brant.  I'm not sure what EmodE has to do with anything.  It's as likely Joseph, and/or his partners, picked up a book or some books or writings from an earlier time period and tried to mimick it, as it is Joseph simply tried to mimick the KJV style and ended up with some neat EmodE phrases, mixed with non EmodE phrases. 

Please don't confuse discussions about the nature of the translation with whether or not there was a translation. That is a different issue, and responds to different arguments.

We cannot use language-based issues to suggest that there couldn't have been a translation. In the case you mention, possible similarities in Book of Mormon language to language available to Joseph Smith is descriptive--but doesn't say anything about whether it was a translation. It can only speak to the result of the translation.

We will all believe as we learn to, and we should all improve our understanding as go along. Perhaps we will think our earlier selves more naive, but that should only be in ephemera, and not in the essentials of the divine provenance of the text. That information responds to different evidence than that we have been discussing.

[Brant Gardner]

2 hours ago, champatsch said:

As Calm has pointed out, language in heaven might be different in important ways from what we experience now. And therefore what do we know or what can we know now about the interface between language in heaven and earthly language? That's where BofM translation lies, in the realm of speculating about this interface.

It depends upon the question being asked. If we ask who translated to create the English text, then we have some differences of opinion and perhaps an impossible task to pin down.

However, if we ask what the relationship of the English source must be to the original Nephite text, there are profitable deductions that can be made, and the nature of what that relationship must have been can be posited with a degree of reasonableness.

Critical to all of this is that our definitions clearly describe what we are talking about, and that his been an issue for decades--precisely because Skousen's rightful preeminence has pulled his definitions into the wrong semantic field. What you and he describe is a text after translation, not a translation process. Therefore, when "tight control" is applied to translation, it muddies the water because that isn't what Skousen intended to describe.

[stemelbow]

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

There are concrete details to consider in this domain that show the BofM could not have been fashioned in either way. As mentioned before, even an English philologist would have had difficulty crafting its language.  Let me give you an example in the area where I first began to study BofM usage systematically: verbal complementation after the verb command.  I recently looked at 600+ instances in Holinshed's Chronicles.  Like the BofM, it has many cases of the auxiliary should being used in the finite clause after the verb, and much less often shall.

I'll admit, I shouldn't be chiming in because these explanations confuse the garbage out of me.  She'd go to the store, should she paint her nails.  Hardly seems noticeable to me when compared to:  Should she paint her nails, she'd go to the store. 

 

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

  The only time no auxiliary is used appreciably in this Tudor history (1577) is when the subject of the complementary clause is second person, thou or ye or you.  We see the same thing in the BofM.  That's an arcane match.  There are many such matches between the BofM and eModE usage.  It's possible now to find the matching.  In the 1820s it would have been extremely difficult for a philologist to know about these esoteric matches and even more difficult to implement them in a text with complex content.

Fair enough point.  It's likely that Joseph would have been able to notice the differences in what(?) syntax (?) if he had read it, I guess. 

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

The presence of eModE in the text doesn't tell us about the translation process, but it does tell us it is extremely likely that it was a divinely prepared text transmitted to Joseph Smith, who relayed it to his scribes. 

It does?  If it tells us it's extremely likely that the divine was involved then there's really little reason for people to reject the notion.  Is that what you're saying?  Based on this eModE stuff it is far more likely the divine was involved than not? 

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

The translation process is a different area, and for those interested, worthy of study.  We can study about translation generally, and apply it to the BofM, but in this case we attempt to determine what might have happened in heaven from a limited, earthly perspective.  That must be borne in mind.  However, to argue from translation process that tight control is unlikely is a doubtful enterprise, because of the extensive, strong evidence for tight control.  If the evidence for tight control were weak, then translation process evidence might point to an earthly translation.  But the evidence for tight control is strong.  It is determined from concrete earthly evidence: dictation witnesses, manuscript details, early editions, the textual record.   Because of this, translation process determinations will be somewhat speculative because of where the translation almost certainly took place: heaven.

I'm at a loss as to what this tight vs loose control has to do with this as well.  The only control we can assume is what Joseph spoke vs what was written.  We simply can't confirm whether the resulting English text was a good representative of the original text, though.  Or can we?  Joseph could have been told phrases while his head was buried in a hat, rather than seeing actual words, though.  Or any words that magically appeared could have been a good representative of what was in his head, I suppose. 

Overall I'd guess the resultant text in English is a pretty loose representation of what Nephi and Mormon etched on plates.