The Book of Mormon is a conundrum.

[stemelbow]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I think it does matter a great deal whether there was physical writing either on the stone(s) or in front of the stones or that arise in some other fashion into his brain. The analogy would be visual musing (like dreaming but creating visual scenes in ones mind) which can be difficult if you're receiving clear visual stimuli. If (as I suspect) the stone is a focus aid then that matters a great deal. Now from a cognitive science perspective it may still be represented in the parts of the brain mapping visual stimuli just like dreams are. But it does matter a great deal in figuring things out.

I"m still not seeing the issue here.  If Joseph sees the words in a dark hat that can be nothing more than seeing them in his brain.  It's not as if other eyes are peeking in to see if the words really appear in the darkness or if they just appear to be there for Joseph.  

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Not quite sure what you're saying here. I think you're arguing that Joseph had a contemporary use of the term "translate" but then expanded it's use only later when working on the JST? Could you clarify that a bit?

Did Joseph call the JST a translation?  If so what was the context?  Maybe we should start with that?  

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Well we know he couldn't read Egyptian and that he was ignorant enough of the plates to assume it was Egyptian when the characters don't appear to be Egyptian. (At least in the various "character" documents) We know he wasn't using the plates in the translation. So what else is there he knew?

One could argue that he wasn't reading characters at all but had impressions come to mind, but I think Skousen is right that doesn't fit the evidence.

I agree here.  Not sure what disagreement arose from this.  

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Except that when he and others say he was reading text off the spectacles then that is dictating an already translated text.

How do you know that?  It might be getting translated at the very moment he's reading off the words.  

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It implies what he means by translation is using that device. Much like someone not speaking French but using Google Translate to translate a French text might describe it as their translating the document. When we use tools to do something we still consider ourselves doing it in terms of common speech.

 

Good. So if Joseph read off English words, then he didn't do the translation at all.  He was just reading words that someone, or something else was or had translated.  So the question of why EModE is found in the results of whatever he was doing is still out there.

[Ryan Dahle]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You sure managed to completely misunderstand what I said, Ryan.  I just assumed that you understood that Jesus provided the wine at Cana, the loaves and fishes at the Sermon on the Mount, the direct healing of the blind man.  No one else was involved in those acts of power.  Moses got water from a rock by striking it with his staff, etc.  Nowhere did I ever suggest that some humans baked that bread or made that wine, or caught those fish.  My point was that God did not send an angel to make the wine at Cana.  He had a human (Jesus) do it.

I was attempting to apply the principle you outlined to similar situations. You seem willing to grant that the preparation of the bread which appeared in the baskets and the wine which appeared in the jars--both substances that humans are perfectly capable of producing--were created and multiplied via miraculous means. Yet when it comes to the words which miraculously appeared in Joseph Smith's translation instruments, you assume that some human had to be responsible for them. To me, suggesting that someone in the EModE period was actually responsible for the translation of the text is about as necessary as assuming that a human was responsible for baking the multiplied loaves and catching the multiplied fishes. As far as I can tell, the situations are similar in every essential way. 

I'm not saying angels, in particular, were responsible for the bread, wine, or English translation. I have no idea how those miracles were produced. I feel more confident in simply ascribing the processes to miraculous means. However, I suspect that angels may be involved in many miraculous activities (there is pretty good scriptural precedent for this) and therefore I don't rule that out as a possibility. There are also instances of an angel supplying specific words for humans to speak to others. So angels functioning in this specific capacity has a scriptural precedent. The leap (which I think is quite a small one) would be in assuming that an angel (or angels) could possibly translate a text before giving it to a prophet to read. 

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Why accept Joseph as a prophet, if you don't accept an unnamed prophet as the EModE translator?  A fortiori. 

I suppose that is like asking: Why accept Jesus as a prophet if you don't accept that an unnamed baker of loaves and an unnamed catcher of fishes provided the substance for his miracle? My answer: Because in no case is it necessary to assume that a prophet (or at least another human) was baking loaves, catching fishes, or translating a buried ancient record that was most likely across the ocean. 

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

"Cheeky"?  I'll say !!  and even silly.

Joseph did not need the plates to effect the translation/transmission.  He simply read the EModE translation from the surface of his stone, and his scribes copied it down. So why would you invent the need for an EModE man to go to the New World?  For example, Dr John Dee understood how to use a seerstone.  Why would he need the plates in front of him?  Indeed, Dr Dee's Book of Enoch (which he wrote) is in the British Library, as is his Aztec speculum and crystal ball. 

Okay, probably a little silly. And yes, the whole EModE translator scenario had a number of unnecessary suppositions.

I was trying to let the EModE fellow do as much as possible without divine intervention. After all, Joseph Smith technically didn't need the plates either, but God had him get them anyway for a number of what I think are important symbolic and (a few practical) reasons. God made Joseph do the "heavy lifting,"  making him responsible to protect and conceal plates that weren't strictly necessary for the translation process.

Edited March 21, 2019 by Ryan Dahle

[JarMan]

4 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

There is actually no evidence that Joseph was capable of the magic trick you described, there is no way to reliably replicate the circumstances of the translation because it lasted so long, and your theory actually relies upon an absence of eyewitness evidence and even goes against what the eyewitnesses themselves believed about what they saw. 

Joseph was capable. Virtually anybody is capable. Joseph used a hat and a table…but why? These were object that performers in his time were using (and are still using today) to perform illusions. Why do you suppose he had to have a hat or a box to place the stone in? The obvious answer is that he was concealing something. No eyewitnesses ever mention seeing anything written on the stone. None of them mention seeing something behind the table either because none of them claimed to have been behind the table. This trick is completely reproducible and consistent with witness statements despite your protests to the contrary.

[JarMan]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

In the piece I cited, I quote the original docs.  Your theory must comport with those immediate observations (by Emma, Elizabeth Ann Whitmer, Joseph Knight, et al.).  If not, your case fails.

I read through all of the accounts on the FairMormon website and did not find any that sink my theory. Emma’s recounting of the process (over fifty years later) in which she claims Joseph could not have concealed a manuscript from her is not proof that he didn’t conceal anything. It was simply her belief that he didn’t. For an eyewitness account to sink my theory we need someone who saw the writing on the stone or who investigated what was behind the table during dictation. We don’t have that. 

[Robert F. Smith]

8 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I was attempting to apply the principle you outlined to similar situations. You seem willing to grant that the preparation of the bread which appeared in the baskets and the wine which appeared in the jars--both substances that humans are perfectly capable of producing--were created and multiplied via miraculous means. Yet when it comes to the words which miraculously appeared in Joseph Smith's translation instruments, you assume that some human had to be responsible for them. To me, suggesting that someone in the EModE period was actually responsible for the translation of the text is about as necessary as assuming that a human was responsible for baking the multiplied loaves and catching the multiplied fishes. As far as I can tell, the situations are similar in every essential way. 

You apply the word "miracle" pretty freely here and elsewhere, even though LDS theology rejects miracles in favor of naturalistic means.  Just as a modern smart phone may seem miraculous to someone from the jungles of New Guinea 50 years ago, or even to Joseph Smith nearly 2 centuries ago, a smart phone is not miraculous -- except in the figurative sense. God can read your mind, can travel freely through space, and can do many amazing things, and none of it need be a miracle.  As Brigham Young said:

Quote

Yet I will say with regard to miracles, there is no such thing save to the ignorant -- that is, there never was a result wrought out by God or by any of His creatures without there being a cause for it. There may be results, the causes of which we do not see or understand, and what we call miracles are no more than this -- they are the results or effects of causes hidden from our understandings...It is hard to get the people to believe that God is a scientific character, that He lives by science or strict law, that by this He is, and by law he was made what He is; and will remain to all eternity because of His faithful adherence to law. It is a most difficult thing to make the people believe that every art and science and all wisdom comes from Him, and that He is their Author.   Journal of Discourses, 13:140, 306.

 

8 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I'm not saying angels, in particular, were responsible for the bread, wine, or English translation. I have no idea how those miracles were produced. I feel more confident in simply ascribing the processes to miraculous means. However, I suspect that angels may be involved in many miraculous activities (there is pretty good scriptural precedent for this) and therefore I don't rule that out as a possibility. There are also instances of an angel supplying specific words for humans to speak to others. So angels functioning in this specific capacity has a scriptural precedent. The leap (which I think is quite a small one) would be in assuming that an angel (or angels) could possibly translate a text before giving it to a prophet to read.

The only reason for the issue being raised at all is the presence of EModE.  You attribute it to God or an angel, instead of following the most common tradition, which is that God calls some poor human to do those things.  Indeed, if the plenary dictation theory is correct (dictated directly from God), it should be in 19th century English.  You are not confronting the actual problem.

8 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I suppose that is like asking: Why accept Jesus as a prophet if you don't accept an unnamed baker of loaves and catcher of fishes provided the substance for his miracle? My answer: Because in no case is it necessary to assume that a prophet (or at least another human) was baking loaves, catching fishes, or translating a buried ancient record that was most likely across the ocean. ...............................

Doing violence to the Scriptural texts is no help at all in covering these issues.  You should always play it straight.  The whole baking loaves and catching fish stuff is simply  a  red herring (ha,ha,ha).  The text doesn't have it and Jesus didn't need it.  No angels interceded like Santa's elves.

8 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I was trying to let the EModE fellow do as much as possible without divine intervention. After all, Joseph Smith technically didn't need the plates either, but God had him get them anyway for a number of what I think are important symbolic and (a few practical) reasons. God made Joseph do the "heavy lifting,"  making him responsible to protect and conceal plates that weren't strictly necessary for the translation process.

You're better than that, Ryan.  You are now carrying coals to Newcastle.  To no purpose.

[Robert F. Smith]

18 minutes ago, JarMan said:

I read through all of the accounts on the FairMormon website and did not find any that sink my theory. Emma’s recounting of the process (over fifty years later) in which she claims Joseph could not have concealed a manuscript from her is not proof that he didn’t conceal anything. It was simply her belief that he didn’t. For an eyewitness account to sink my theory we need someone who saw the writing on the stone or who investigated what was behind the table during dictation. We don’t have that. 

You are substituting stage magician tricks and parlor games for reality.  The accounts of those closest to Joseph are coherent and fundamental.  Joseph clearly told them what he was doing.  He may have lied to them, true, but there is no way he could have hidden legerdemain from them over an entire summer.  That's why application of Occam's Razor is so important.

[Ryan Dahle]

19 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You're better than that, Ryan.

Well, I can truly say I appreciate the discussion. I value your opinion and seeing that we disagreed, I thought I'd see how it withstood a little pushback on this topic. Thanks for your insights. And thanks again for some of the help you have given me on previous projects. It was much appreciated. 

[Gervin]

On 3/20/2019 at 8:53 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

People in Joseph's time did not consciously use biblical language.  

Incorrect.  Here's an example of a writing from Joseph's time that consciously used biblical language:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Late_War_between_the_United_States_and_Great_Britain

[JarMan]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You are substituting stage magician tricks and parlor games for reality.  The accounts of those closest to Joseph are coherent and fundamental.  Joseph clearly told them what he was doing.  He may have lied to them, true, but there is no way he could have hidden legerdemain from them over an entire summer.  That's why application of Occam's Razor is so important.

I’m not proposing any sleight of hand or tricks per se. You are just attempting to make a serious proposal sound silly by using words like “magic tricks” and “parlor games.” You’re glib attempts to dismiss my idea are noted. But you still haven’t offered anything of substance. 

[Robert F. Smith]

12 minutes ago, Gervin said:

Incorrect.  Here's an example of a writing from Joseph's time that consciously used biblical language:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Late_War_between_the_United_States_and_Great_Britain

Yes, that certainly was intentional, Gervin.  However, Hunt is the exception which proves the rule that most people did not do so consciously.  As J. K. Elliott (Leeds Univ) says in the preface to his edition of The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), xv, “the nature of many of these apocryphal documents is such that their authors were so steeped in Biblical or liturgical language that many echoes of scriptural passages occur throughout the writings without being conscious quotations.”  It was ingrained into their psyche, and that was the nature of biblical style on the frontier in America.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 minutes ago, JarMan said:

I’m not proposing any sleight of hand or tricks per se. You are just attempting to make a serious proposal sound silly by using words like “magic tricks” and “parlor games.” You’re glib attempts to dismiss my idea are noted. But you still haven’t offered anything of substance. 

While it is true that EModE does indeed pose a mystery for the Book of Mormon, I just don't see that a clever gimmick under or behind the table is adequate explanation.  I don't think that such a ruse could be sustained over time without discovery, nor that it explains the most difficult part:  where did the text come from?

[JarMan]

56 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

While it is true that EModE does indeed pose a mystery for the Book of Mormon, I just don't see that a clever gimmick under or behind the table is adequate explanation.  I don't think that such a ruse could be sustained over time without discovery, nor that it explains the most difficult part:  where did the text come from?

This isn’t supposed to explain where the text came from. As you know I already have a theory on that. This just explains how the early modern text got from Joseph to his scribe. Remember, he was adept at keeping things secret. Like the plates. By warning of divine punishment he was able to keep people from poking around too much.

[Calm]

8 minutes ago, JarMan said:

Like the plates. By warning of divine punishment he was able to keep people from poking around too much.

There are occasion where people saw the plates though, such as Emma lifting them and the old guy who saw a green corner off the top of my head.  And people knew at times where they were such as in a hollowed out log, iirc.

Is there any report on anything similar to your apparatus?  The plates were expected to be around, so no shocks.  Papers hiding the precomposition of the BoM on a scroll device were not supposed to be there for any reason I can think of and likely would have drawn a lot of attention if they were spotted.

Is there any evidence he demanded people stay on one side of the table or they would get divinely punished if they moved closer?

[Robert F. Smith]

26 minutes ago, JarMan said:

This isn’t supposed to explain where the text came from. As you know I already have a theory on that. This just explains how the early modern text got from Joseph to his scribe. Remember, he was adept at keeping things secret. Like the plates. By warning of divine punishment he was able to keep people from poking around too much.

The description I read from his wife and from teenage Elizabeth Ann Whitmer sound like things were pretty laidback, and that secrecy had no currency.  Joseph was never a rigid or strict disciplinarian.  He was too loose and easy going, if anything.

[JarMan]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

There are occasion where people saw the plates though, such as Emma lifting them and the old guy who saw a green corner off the top of my head.  And people knew at times where they were such as in a hollowed out log, iirc.

Is there any report on anything similar to your apparatus?  The plates were expected to be around, so no shocks.  Papers hiding the precomposition of the BoM on a scroll device were not supposed to be there for any reason I can think of and likely would have drawn a lot of attention if they were spotted.

Is there any evidence he demanded people stay on one side of the table or they would get divinely punished if they moved closer?

He told people if they saw the plates they would die. My theory is the plates he had during translation were actually a box with the manuscript. This helped people not get too curious. And we don’t have any accounts of people on Joseph’s side of the table. So it seems like a reasonable conjecture that he used the threat of divine punishment to keep people from getting too close. 

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The description I read from his wife and from teenage Elizabeth Ann Whitmer sound like things were pretty laidback, and that secrecy had no currency.  Joseph was never a rigid or strict disciplinarian.  He was too loose and easy going, if anything.

I’m not talking about discipline here. Just a little preventative maintenance. If anyone sees the plates they die. By the way, I need room to be able to work over here without distractions that will cause the spirit to abandon me while I do this translation. So it’s very important that you stay on that side of the table while you write. He may have even set up the room each day before inviting his scribe in. 

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, JarMan said:

He told people if they saw the plates they would die. My theory is the plates he had during translation were actually a box with the manuscript. This helped people not get too curious. And we don’t have any accounts of people on Joseph’s side of the table. So it seems like a reasonable conjecture that he used the threat of divine punishment to keep people from getting too close. 

I’m not talking about discipline here. Just a little preventative maintenance. If anyone sees the plates they die. By the way, I need room to be able to work over here without distractions that will cause the spirit to abandon me while I do this translation. So it’s very important that you stay on that side of the table while you write. He may have even set up the room each day before inviting his scribe in. 

If any of that had been the case, we would have heard about it.  No such suggestion from the primary parties.  The description of the plates inside cloth on the table included Emma running her thumb along pages:

Quote

The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth, which I had given him to fold them in.  I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape.  They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edge of a book.

I have suggested before that you must control your assertions by bringing them into alignment with the actual descriptions, and you have yet to do so.  I long ago assembled most of those primary descriptions, and I think Dan Vogel has come up with even more.  They need to be taken seriously.

[Storm Rider]

1 hour ago, JarMan said:

He told people if they saw the plates they would die. My theory is the plates he had during translation were actually a box with the manuscript. This helped people not get too curious. And we don’t have any accounts of people on Joseph’s side of the table. So it seems like a reasonable conjecture that he used the threat of divine punishment to keep people from getting too close. 

I’m not talking about discipline here. Just a little preventative maintenance. If anyone sees the plates they die. By the way, I need room to be able to work over here without distractions that will cause the spirit to abandon me while I do this translation. So it’s very important that you stay on that side of the table while you write. He may have even set up the room each day before inviting his scribe in. 

You are bending over so far to create your proposal that it strains credulity. There are just so many accounts on these topics and none of them support your position being possible. I am one of the first that will admit that the accounts of the translation process are not significant, but you seem to ignore the accounts we do have in order to build your hypothesis out of whole cloth. 

[clarkgoble]

20 hours ago, stemelbow said:

I"m still not seeing the issue here.  If Joseph sees the words in a dark hat that can be nothing more than seeing them in his brain.  It's not as if other eyes are peeking in to see if the words really appear in the darkness or if they just appear to be there for Joseph.  

It gets at how passive Joseph is in the process. i.e. is it like reading data off an iPad or more like thinking about something difficult.

20 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Did Joseph call the JST a translation?  If so what was the context?  Maybe we should start with that?  

Lots of places, D&C 76:15 being one of the more obvious. "For while we were doing the work of translation, which the Lord had appointed unto us, we came to the twenty-ninth verse of the fifth chapter of John, which was given unto us as follows..." But it's discussed in several places in the D&C as well as statements by Joseph.

20 hours ago, stemelbow said:

How do you know that?  It might be getting translated at the very moment he's reading off the words.  

Good. So if Joseph read off English words, then he didn't do the translation at all.  He was just reading words that someone, or something else was or had translated.  So the question of why EModE is found in the results of whatever he was doing is still out there.

Not sure how that invalidates my point. If I use an AI based translation program it's getting translated within milliseconds of when I read it. And again, if I use such a service in practical day to day language we say we're doing the translation just like when I use a shovel I'm shoveling. Using tools counts as what the tool does. That language use may change as AI advances of course. But given Joseph is using a tool I see this as primarily a linguistic usage and Joseph's use corresponds to how people use language when translation tools arise.

[Exiled]

11 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

It gets at how passive Joseph is in the process. i.e. is it like reading data off an iPad or more like thinking about something difficult.

Lots of places, D&C 76:15 being one of the more obvious. "For while we were doing the work of translation, which the Lord had appointed unto us, we came to the twenty-ninth verse of the fifth chapter of John, which was given unto us as follows..." But it's discussed in several places in the D&C as well as statements by Joseph.

Not sure how that invalidates my point. If I use an AI based translation program it's getting translated within milliseconds of when I read it. And again, if I use such a service in practical day to day language we say we're doing the translation just like when I use a shovel I'm shoveling. Using tools counts as what the tool does. That language use may change as AI advances of course. But given Joseph is using a tool I see this as primarily a linguistic usage and Joseph's use corresponds to how people use language when translation tools arise.

Clark:

I think the main issue I have with the EmodE hypothesis and tight translation is that the supposed revealed words of God grow as Joseph Smith grows in knowledge.  The revealed word starts out in need of punctuation and correction then gets better along the way as Joseph Smith gets more sophisticated.  Clearly, the words are coming from Joseph's mind.  God could still be inspiring him but the words are Joseph's.  He also felt free to edit God's and Jesus' words in the D&C when it suited his theological changes and added "son" into the book of mormon in several places as a theological change as well.  Then, one is confronted with the fact that God is a bad communicator.  He could have simply written the words down himself and we would have had no reason to speculate as to the translations or if they were correct.  That tells me that this business is really man-made, with speculative claims of divine inspiration, but not more than that.

[clarkgoble]

11 hours ago, JarMan said:

He told people if they saw the plates they would die. My theory is the plates he had during translation were actually a box with the manuscript. This helped people not get too curious. And we don’t have any accounts of people on Joseph’s side of the table. So it seems like a reasonable conjecture that he used the threat of divine punishment to keep people from getting too close. 

Except people did feel the leafs of the plates and some people got peeks at it while it was being moved. You have to account for those descriptions. The theory that it wasn't plates at all but a box with a manuscript doesn't line up with what people saw. Emma, for instance, while leaving the plates covered, picked them up and moved them as she cleaned. They also could lift up the leaves through the cloth.  Stowell's account is the most interesting since he testified under oath in court that he saw them when Joseph first brought them home. He described them as gold leaves with characters and a corner "resembled a stone of a greenish caste" likely describing oxidization of the alloy that may have included copper.

19 hours ago, JarMan said:

Why do you suppose he had to have a hat or a box to place the stone in? The obvious answer is that he was concealing something. No eyewitnesses ever mention seeing anything written on the stone. None of them mention seeing something behind the table either because none of them claimed to have been behind the table. This trick is completely reproducible and consistent with witness statements despite your protests to the contrary.

There are good explanations since scryers often had to shut out light. But I certainly agree the hat provides opportunities for fraud. The table less so given the confined area and the fact the table was in use for other things during translation.

19 hours ago, JarMan said:

I read through all of the accounts on the FairMormon website and did not find any that sink my theory. Emma’s recounting of the process (over fifty years later) in which she claims Joseph could not have concealed a manuscript from her is not proof that he didn’t conceal anything. It was simply her belief that he didn’t. For an eyewitness account to sink my theory we need someone who saw the writing on the stone or who investigated what was behind the table during dictation. We don’t have that. 

I agree that it doesn't eliminate fraud, although given the length of time and the confined area I do think it reduces its likelihood. But clearly fraud remains the most plausible model for non-believers. I think it important to note the difference of a magician or illusionist who depends upon short time for the trick and slight of hand to work. A process of months in a confined area makes that much more difficult albeit not impossible.

19 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The only reason for the issue being raised at all is the presence of EModE.  You attribute it to God or an angel, instead of following the most common tradition, which is that God calls some poor human to do those things.  Indeed, if the plenary dictation theory is correct (dictated directly from God), it should be in 19th century English.  You are not confronting the actual problem.

This is the traditional problem of divine origin. If it was God rather than some intermediary, why isn't it as ideal of a translation as possible aping only a minimal amount of KJV language so as to "appear scriptural" in the terms of the 19th century. Translations of pseudopigrapha or related texts tended to do that - say Richard Laurence's translation of 1 Enoch in the 1820's. However instead what we have is an obvious loose translation that uses KJV language to translate things that almost certainly aren't on the unknown source text.

Some sort of flawed intermediary seems necessary, whether that's some person doing the translation and giving it to Joseph or some process that makes use of Joseph's mind and familial phrases to translate similar ideas in a loose way.

 

 

[Robert F. Smith]

4 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

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

This is the traditional problem of divine origin. If it was God rather than some intermediary, why isn't it as ideal of a translation as possible aping only a minimal amount of KJV language so as to "appear scriptural" in the terms of the 19th century. Translations of pseudopigrapha or related texts tended to do that - say Richard Laurence's translation of 1 Enoch in the 1820's. However instead what we have is an obvious loose translation that uses KJV language to translate things that almost certainly aren't on the unknown source text...................

Most translations of ancient works (including pseudepigrapha) were rendered in the 19th century in KJV style language, and this continued to be the common practice in the early 20th century.  Even an Egyptian textbook such as Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar made the translations from Egyptian read like a biblical text.

[clarkgoble]

55 minutes ago, Exiled said:

I think the main issue I have with the EmodE hypothesis and tight translation is that the supposed revealed words of God grow as Joseph Smith grows in knowledge.  The revealed word starts out in need of punctuation and correction then gets better along the way as Joseph Smith gets more sophisticated.  Clearly, the words are coming from Joseph's mind.  God could still be inspiring him but the words are Joseph's.  He also felt free to edit God's and Jesus' words in the D&C when it suited his theological changes and added "son" into the book of mormon in several places as a theological change as well.  Then, one is confronted with the fact that God is a bad communicator.  He could have simply written the words down himself and we would have had no reason to speculate as to the translations or if they were correct.  That tells me that this business is really man-made, with speculative claims of divine inspiration, but not more than that.

Just to keep things straight we should distinguish between a tight/loose translation product and tight/loose translation control.

I think that ultimately EmodE is orthogonal to most of the debates over the Book of Mormon people have. Some suggest it implies tight control but I'm skeptical of that, depending upon how one defines control. That is if the translation process is dependent upon Joseph's brain as he does mental work he may not have conscious control to pick one word over an other yet it's still dependent in a way in which there is unconscious control. 

My personal feeling is that because language does change somewhat. Most of the analysis of this I've seen is done with largely synonymous words like "whoso" and "whosoever" or "therefore" and "wherefor." I don't know of any grammatical analysis from Mosiah - Moroni + 1 Nephi - Omni. Although I wouldn't be surprised to find there is some I'm ignorant of. (Would love links if people have them)

I agree on the "God as bad communicator" problem. Although I think that simply entails human fallibilism in the process. So I definitely dismiss the idea of total tight control with no "humans" involved in the process. 

[churchistrue]

I'm going to call this the  "16c loose translation, 18c direct dictation theory". Do I have the nomenclature right? or is it 17c/19c or 16c/19c?

What I like about the 16c loose translation, 18c direct dictation theory is that it answers the main theological question I have that makes BOM historicity so difficult for me.

The theological question is that in order for Joseph to produce the BOM, and for it to even be quasi-historical, God needs to be directly involved. Very, very directly involved. Much more so, than in the way that RMN describes revelation. Much more so, than in the way we understand other scripture to have been produced. We have a pattern for understanding that, as a human-God combined effort with the human element seemingly being the driving force. But with the BOM, God had to do it in a way that was much more directly involved.

But then you have so much messiness that makes one question how or why God would do that. Modern formation of some of the stories, modern incorporation of KJV, Deutero-Isaiah, modern doctrinal exposition using logical building blocks that didn't exist in ancient times, anachronisms, word games to make LGT fit, misunderstanding of Tower Babel, likely embellished or inaccurate history reported, only pre-Nauvoo doctrine included, and so on. The Apologetic answers for these are compelling in some cases, but they almost all point to heavy human involvement.

This narrative only seems to work if the BOM translation process is a heavily humanistic process which included an intensive study/brainstorming/preparation effort during the translation to incorporate all the new/expanded work with the original Gold Plates text. It doesn't fit the dictation/seerstone concept. So this 16c loose translation, 18c direct dictation theory fits quite nicely with the theological question of how could it be both humanistic while being very God breathed at the same time. I like it for this reason.

I ultimately see other evidences that for me, cause me not to believe in this theory, but it resolves some major issues.

Also, theologically, if we're going to have a human element that is the driver for the modern doctrinal exposition and the KJV intertextuality, I like that to be the prophet of the restoration, Joseph Smith. It fits with our purpose as a restored church better I think.

 

 

 

[clarkgoble]

19 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Most translations of ancient works (including pseudepigrapha) were rendered in the 19th century in KJV style language, and this continued to be the common practice in the early 20th century.  Even an Egyptian textbook such as Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar made the translations from Egyptian read like a biblical text.

Yes, but how they use the language is limited and tends to be consistent. So you have say 2cd person singular words translated with "thou" to deal with the underlying language's use of 2cd person singular. Often in KJV aping without an underlying text these get done more stylistically rather than functional, which is what often happens with the Book of Mormon text where "you/ye" and "you/thou" are done inconsistently. This has long been a critic's charge. (e.g. 2 Nephi 1:30–32) This feature is understandable if the underlying text is highly compressed and not simply representing words with symbols or Hebrew done phonetically. Further if the translation is loose and therefore error bound we should also expect this. (i.e. no tight control of text)

So there is a big difference between how translators pick certain words or word combinations and how a preacher in a tent revival uses pseudo-KJV language which is likely closer to the Book of Mormon except for those odd language features Carmack has found.

12 minutes ago, churchistrue said:

The theological question is that in order for Joseph to produce the BOM, and for it to even be quasi-historical, God needs to be directly involved. Very, very directly involved.

Isn't that what we're debating? I think both my and Robert's view is that he only need be indirectly involved due to his power. That is there is a strong human element in it - something many frequently attribute to the angel Moroni since he's explicitly involved in many other places in the coming forth narrative.

12 minutes ago, churchistrue said:

The Apologetic answers for these are compelling in some cases, but they almost all point to heavy human involvement.

There's not an unary "apologetic answer." However I definitely think the strongest arguments are for semi-loose control in the process that produces the final words for Joseph and loose fidelity to the underlying text. i.e. the translation is more a paraphrase and expansion to what was on the original text. I also think the evidence, given typical assumptions by believers, entails some sort of two way communication between two human or quasi-humans doing the translation.

Why that was done rather than a more straightforward translation is of course the big question which is why this is ultimately a fruitful avenue for those skeptical of historicity.

12 minutes ago, churchistrue said:

This narrative only seems to work if the BOM translation process is a heavily humanistic process which included an intensive study/brainstorming/preparation effort during the translation to incorporate all the new/expanded work with the original Gold Plates text. It doesn't fit the dictation/seerstone concept.

I'd be careful here since we don't really know the function of the seer stone or spectacles. My personal guess is that they're ultimately aids for focus and not quasi-mechanistic devices ala an iPhone. The problem is that most people and even many apologists try to treat it as a quasi-mechanical process. I agree with you that doesn't work.

 

 

Edited March 22, 2019 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

1 minute ago, clarkgoble said:

Yes, but how they use the language is limited and tends to be consistent. So you have say 2cd person singular words translated with "thou" to deal with the underlying language's use of 2cd person singular. Often in KJV aping without an underlying text these get done more stylistically rather than functional, which is what often happens with the Book of Mormon text where "you/ye" and "you/thou" are done inconsistently. This has long been a critic's charge. (e.g. 2 Nephi 1:30–32) This feature is understandable if the underlying text is highly compressed and not simply representing words with symbols or Hebrew done phonetically. Further if the translation is loose and therefore error bound we should also expect this. (i.e. no tight control of text)

So there is a big difference between how translators pick certain words or word combinations and how a preacher in a tent revival uses pseudo-KJV language which is likely closer to the Book of Mormon except for those odd language features Carmack has found.

The opposite is true.

The problem is that the BofM usage of pronouns has more in common with EModE, and that applies to other assumptions about "bad grammar."  EModE in the BofM is way out of line with the KJV rates of usage of many such features, so that the KJV is obviously not the standard being followed.