"As Far as It Is Translated Correctly": Bible Translation and the Church

[champatsch]

20 hours ago, pogi said:

It could be argued however that the language used in the Book of Mormon was heavily influenced by language familiar to Joseph Smith and not necessarily dictated verbatim in the language intended by God.

You mean to say that the following was Joseph's language, what he was familiar with:

Quote

1 Nephi 17:46       he can cause the earth that it shall pass away
3 Nephi 29:4         he will cause it that it shall soon overtake you
3 Nephi 26:14       And it came to pass that he did teach and minister unto the children of the multitude, of whom hath been spoken, and he did loose their tongues.
Ether 2:25             for howbeit ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea
Alma 43:21           therefore they were exceeding fraid of the armies of the Nephites
1 Nephi 17:13       And I will prepare the way before you if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments.
1 Nephi 19:19       Wherefore I speak unto all the house of Israel, if it so be that they should obtain these things.
2 Nephi 1:7           if it so be that they shall serve him
Helaman 6:32      a more part of it had come unto them in the sixty and seventh year
Helaman 6:21        Satan did stir up the hearts of the more parts of the Nephites
4 Nephi 1:27         and yet they did deny the more parts of his gospel

Etc.

 

[pogi]

6 minutes ago, champatsch said:

You mean to say that the following was Joseph's language, what he was familiar with:

 

Yes, I think he was very familiar with King James English.  “Howbeit”, etc. are fairly common in the Bible.

[champatsch]

4 minutes ago, pogi said:

Yes, I think he was very familiar with King James English.  “Howbeit”, etc. are fairly common in the Bible.

The howbeit of Ether 2:25 is not the howbeit of the King James Bible, which occurs more than 60 times. This is the only howbeit in the Book of Mormon outside of a biblical quote, and it conveys an archaic, nonbiblical meaning of 'however it may be', which is not found in the Bible or in 25 pseudobiblical texts that I've checked. That's why the adverb was deleted for the 1920 edition.

Please, I would ask you to refrain from spreading bad information on this topic.

[pogi]

43 minutes ago, champatsch said:

The howbeit of Ether 2:25 is not the howbeit of the King James Bible, which occurs more than 60 times. This is the only howbeit in the Book of Mormon outside of a biblical quote, and it conveys an archaic, nonbiblical meaning of 'however it may be', which is not found in the Bible or in 25 pseudobiblical texts that I've checked. That's why the adverb was deleted for the 1920 edition.

Please, I would ask you to refrain from spreading bad information on this topic.

Why was it deleted if we believe it came from God and not Joseph’s own language?  My point was that some believe the language is Joseph’s and not necessarily dictated verbatim by God.

And I would ask you to not be so condescending and consider that there are more perspectives than your own.

Edited March 7, 2020 by pogi

[champatsch]

In case it's not obvious, I presented a brief list of language that was probably unfamiliar to Joseph in 1829. Pogi ignored most of the examples, zeroing in on what he thought was a weak case. He was wrong about it, not knowing the particulars of the case, appearing to care more about what non-experts believe about Book of Mormon language. The text deserves better. It deserves serious, professional treatment.

[pogi]

36 minutes ago, champatsch said:

In case it's not obvious, I presented a brief list of language that was probably unfamiliar to Joseph in 1829. Pogi ignored most of the examples, zeroing in on what he thought was a weak case. He was wrong about it, not knowing the particulars of the case, appearing to care more about what non-experts believe about Book of Mormon language. The text deserves better. It deserves serious, professional treatment.

Have I insulted you in some way?  Why are you being such a jerk about this?

I was simply suggesting that some (not necessarily myself) argue that the text could have been partly influenced by Joseph’s language.  Others, like champ, disagree. 

You haven’t proven if Joseph was familiar with that term or not.  This is all pointless guess work.  You can’t prove anything.  You can speak in “probabilities”, but even that is guess work to a large degree.

In case it wasn’t obvious, champ has failed to address why, if all believe that the text was dictated by God,  anyone would feel it appropriate to alter what God himself dictated and intended. 

Do you disagree with the choice to remove the term from the 1920 BOM?  
 

 

 

[Dan McClellan]

On 3/6/2020 at 9:23 AM, caspianrex said:

if the Church were ever to really embrace modern Bible translations, would there eventually be a greater push among Latter-day Saints to update the language of the BOM? 

Thanks for the kind words! This is certainly a discussion that is happening on some levels, but needs to be taken more seriously. 

[champatsch]

18 hours ago, Dan McClellan said:

On 3/6/2020 at 11:23 AM, caspianrex said:

if the Church were ever to really embrace modern Bible translations, would there eventually be a greater push among Latter-day Saints to update the language of the BOM? 

Thanks for the kind words! This is certainly a discussion that is happening on some levels, but needs to be taken more seriously. 

A specific modern biblical version would need to be adopted, and then all the biblical quotations and Book of Mormon differences and biblical blending would need to be altered and integrated according to that version.

[champatsch]

22 hours ago, pogi said:

In case it wasn’t obvious, champ has failed to address why, if all believe that the text was dictated by God,  anyone would feel it appropriate to alter what God himself dictated and intended.

Why questions are quite subjective and can be answered in many ways depending on the desired conclusion. They're much less interesting than the textual evidence, which indicates that Joseph didn't word the text.

[champatsch]

22 hours ago, pogi said:

You haven’t proven if Joseph was familiar with that term or not.  This is all pointless guess work.  You can’t prove anything.  You can speak in “probabilities”, but even that is guess work to a large degree.

It's not a matter of proving, which can be reserved for mathematics and the like. What we have in the Book of Mormon's English usage is a constellation of low probabilities of varying degrees that together multiply into something exceedingly improbable for Joseph to have produced out of his own language in a presumed pseudobiblical effort. Overall, his 1829 dictation language doesn't present as a pseudobiblical text.

In the case of howbeit, it's a salient lexical term in the King James Bible, and 12 of 25 pseudobiblical texts consulted have the term, used in the biblical way. The Book of Mormon does have a quote of Isaiah with the adverb, but before that instance was dictated, Joseph dictated it where it conveys a less common, more archaic, nonbiblical meaning. So while it doesn't prove he chose the word, it's unlikely he did, and there are scores of lexical items and syntactic items and syntactic patterns that support the conclusion.

[pogi]

11 minutes ago, champatsch said:

Why questions are quite subjective and can be answered in many ways depending on the desired conclusion. They're much less interesting than the textual evidence, which indicates that Joseph didn't word the text.

I think the interpretation of said evidence is equally subjective - hence the lack of unanimous agreement and conversion among scholars.  Like you said, I think the answer depends on the desired conclusion.

Do you agree or disagree with the altering of the text?

[champatsch]

I don't care whether the text was altered in 1920. The text's undergone thousands of modifications since 1829.

Virtually no scholar has studied the textual evidence systematically and comparatively, so conclusions of scholars who haven't aren't going to give us anything interesting.

 

[pogi]

2 minutes ago, champatsch said:

In the case of howbeit, it's a salient lexical term in the King James Bible, and 12 of 25 pseudobiblical texts consulted have the term, used in the biblical way. The Book of Mormon does have a quote of Isaiah with the adverb, but before that instance was dictated, Joseph dictated it where it conveys a less common, more archaic, nonbiblical meaning. So while it doesn't prove he chose the word, it's unlikely he did, and there are scores of lexical items and syntactic items and syntactic patterns that support the conclusion.

Thank you for the improved tone, genuinely.

I don’t understand this argument however.  It seems to me that the fact that the term was not used in the same way the King James Bible used the term (especially considering the obvious intent to use King James language) is evidence to the contrary.  It suggest a fallible human attempt to use king James sounding language in the wrong way.  It seems less probable to be a term dictated by God who wanted it to sound King James like, but who failed.

[pogi]

5 minutes ago, champatsch said:

I don't care whether the text was altered in 1920. The text's undergone thousands of modifications since 1829.

If it is your position that the text was dictated verbatim by God, as God intended it, it seems you should care.  If however you believe the text was brought forth by God through the use of Joseph’s own language choice, then it is easier to justify textual modifications.

[champatsch]

5 minutes ago, pogi said:

I don’t understand this argument however.  It seems to me that the fact that the term was not used in the same way the King James Bible used the term (especially considering the obvious intent to use King James language) is evidence to the contrary.  It suggest a fallible human attempt to use king James sounding language in the wrong way.  It seems less probable to be a term dictated by God who wanted it to sound King James like, but who failed.

What about supporting evidence? In isolation, as a one-off occurrence you can get this. But that's not what we have in the Book of Mormon.

[champatsch]

3 minutes ago, pogi said:

11 minutes ago, champatsch said:

I don't care whether the text was altered in 1920. The text's undergone thousands of modifications since 1829.

If it is your position that the text was dictated verbatim by God, as God intended it, it seems you should care.  If however you believe the text was brought forth by God through the use of Joseph’s own language choice, then it is easier to justify textual modifications.

Look, in one sense I don't care, in another I do. Specifically, I don't care about the 1920 editors deleting howbeit in Ether 2. In a general sense, I care that we're not using something closer to the 1829 in devotional practice. This is a complex issue. Essays can be written about it.

[pogi]

4 minutes ago, champatsch said:

What about supporting evidence? In isolation, as a one-off occurrence you can get this. But that's not what we have in the Book of Mormon.

I still don’t understand how your argument stands as evidence that this word choice didn’t come from Joseph. 

[champatsch]

1 minute ago, pogi said:

I still don’t understand how your argument stands as evidence that this word choice didn’t come from Joseph. 

I've explained this further above:

Quote

there are scores of lexical items and syntactic items and syntactic patterns that support the conclusion.

This evidence works whether you're approaching this from the perspective that God had a hand in it or not.

[pogi]

2 minutes ago, champatsch said:

I've explained this further above:

This evidence works whether you're approaching this from the perspective that God had a hand in it or not.

This evidence is unstudied by scholars according to you. No peer review.  Are those of us who are not scholars to assess the accuracy and methodology of said findings simply supposed to take your word for it?

[champatsch]

As long as you have sound judgment and sufficient knowledge of English and access to the internet, you can go to NOL, go through the lexical entries, look at the OED, search the digital databases, and determine for yourself which lexical items might have been in obsolescence by Joseph's time. Then you can come to your own determination whether you think there are enough improbable coincidences with archaic lexis in the text to rule out Joseph choosing those words. The syntax is more difficult, but the same thing can be done with that. NOL has a small amount of material on Book of Mormon syntax. I continue to do this, trying to determine what of the text is not pseudobiblical, biblical, Joseph, modern.

I don't see this investigation as something that secular academics is interested in. In that domain, the only acceptable conclusion in this matter is predetermined. So, if you want to rely on that, then you already have your answer.

[pogi]

3 hours ago, champatsch said:

As long as you have sound judgment and sufficient knowledge of English and access to the internet, you can go to NOL, go through the lexical entries, look at the OED, search the digital databases, and determine for yourself which lexical items might have been in obsolescence by Joseph's time. Then you can come to your own determination whether you think there are enough improbable coincidences with archaic lexis in the text to rule out Joseph choosing those words. The syntax is more difficult, but the same thing can be done with that. NOL has a small amount of material on Book of Mormon syntax. I continue to do this, trying to determine what of the text is not pseudobiblical, biblical, Joseph, modern.

I don't see this investigation as something that secular academics is interested in. In that domain, the only acceptable conclusion in this matter is predetermined. So, if you want to rely on that, then you already have your answer.

What is your methodology for determining if a phrase was from Joseph or not?  It kind of complicates matters when the text was trying to sound old.   It seems highly likely that you are going to see patterns of obsolete terms being used in the text to match King James language.  Of course he is going to get a lot of it right - he was very familiar with King James language; and of course he is going to use terms that don’t fit the intended time period either - he is human.  I would expect to see both from Joseph - not necessarily from God.

Your argument in part is that Joseph wouldn’t have been familiar with certain terms.  But, if God did indeed dictate every word verbatim, it seems highly unlikely that he would use language unfamiliar to Joseph. It was supposed to be “plain and simple”.  Either way you look at it, it seems highly likely that Joseph was familiar with the language.

 Obsolete language can still be known and understood, so I don’t see how it is possible to figure probabilities in determining if Joseph was the source of the language or not if he was trying to sound old.  What methods are you using to calculate probabilities?  I certainly couldn’t figure it out by the methods you have listed so far.

Also, how are you checking for bias?  If you can’t trust scholars with this material because of bias - how can you trust yourself?  If we could check our own bias at the door, we wouldn’t see this problem.  Bias seems to be a common blind spot and not one-sided.  That’s why peer review from both member and non-member scholars would be helpful.  If you aren’t going to convince anyone to see anything different from what they already believe -  that to me is weak evidence.  Strong evidence would at least convince some - but you seem doubtful that it could.  

I can understand pursuing it as a matter of hobby and personal interest, but if it requires someone to put as much effort into it as you have done only to confirm what they already believe (on both sides), I have a hard time seeing the point of putting in the effort, except for personal interest.  My personal interest in the text is more spiritual, so I don’t see myself going there.  

Edited March 8, 2020 by pogi

[Rain]

On 7/4/2019 at 1:47 PM, The Nehor said:

Nice.

It will have to happen eventually but I did not think it would be so soon. No language is timeless and the King James Bible is getting harder and harder to read for many people. I know they have changed it in other languages. A companion told me the church used to use an early Lutheran translation for the German (possibly because Joseph Smith said it was the best translation he had ever seen) but that my companion found it very hard reading. It has changed to a more modern version used by the Roman Catholics since then.

According to one of my past Sunday School teachers who worked in the scripture department they were discussing it prior to 7 years ago at minimum.  (That's about when we moved and I don't know how many years he said this before we moved.)  

This is just another one of those things that shows me that things are often planned in the church for longer than we assume.

[champatsch]

14 hours ago, pogi said:

What is your methodology for determining if a phrase was from Joseph or not?  It kind of complicates matters when the text was trying to sound old.   It seems highly likely that you are going to see patterns of obsolete terms being used in the text to match King James language.  Of course he is going to get a lot of it right - he was very familiar with King James language; and of course he is going to use terms that don’t fit the intended time period either - he is human.  I would expect to see both from Joseph - not necessarily from God.

Your argument in part is that Joseph wouldn’t have been familiar with certain terms.  But, if God did indeed dictate every word verbatim, it seems highly unlikely that he would use language unfamiliar to Joseph. It was supposed to be “plain and simple”.  Either way you look at it, it seems highly likely that Joseph was familiar with the language.

 Obsolete language can still be known and understood, so I don’t see how it is possible to figure probabilities in determining if Joseph was the source of the language or not if he was trying to sound old.  What methods are you using to calculate probabilities?  I certainly couldn’t figure it out by the methods you have listed so far.

Also, how are you checking for bias?  If you can’t trust scholars with this material because of bias - how can you trust yourself?  If we could check our own bias at the door, we wouldn’t see this problem.  Bias seems to be a common blind spot and not one-sided.  That’s why peer review from both member and non-member scholars would be helpful.  If you aren’t going to convince anyone to see anything different from what they already believe -  that to me is weak evidence.  Strong evidence would at least convince some - but you seem doubtful that it could.  

I can understand pursuing it as a matter of hobby and personal interest, but if it requires someone to put as much effort into it as you have done only to confirm what they already believe (on both sides), I have a hard time seeing the point of putting in the effort, except for personal interest.  My personal interest in the text is more spiritual, so I don’t see myself going there.  

I don't see from your comments that you know very much about this field of inquiry. So . . . . . . I don't think I'll spend more time on this as part of this limited interaction beyond the following. And I see little point in writing in specifics, since you show little regard for them.

In various aspects of the Book of Mormon's syntax we can compare its patterns with those in the late modern period, in Joseph's writings, in pseudobiblical texts, in the King James Bible, and in the early modern period. I've published some limited findings. Scanning hundreds of thousands of texts, from 1475 to 1800, we can see that the Book of Mormon has patterns that are old and that only fit some early modern patterns and not the other patterns. This tends to rule out 19c authorship and supports viewing some of the lexical usage as obsolete. And the OED and the textual record support viewing some of the lexical usage as obsolete as well. About half of the lexical items proposed and discussed in NOL currently hold up as obsolete.

You cast doubt on the notion that language unfamiliar to Joseph might have been given to him in 1829. Here you again show no knowledge of the subject matter. We can see from the manuscript that he was unfamiliar with rare biblical terms; we can see that Joseph and Oliver had trouble with some less common lexical usage in nonbiblical sections of the text.

There is less bias on the believing side than on the other. The other admits one outcome. The believing side allows that Joseph worded the text or that he didn't. This shows me that you haven't thought about this issue very much.

The syntactic evidence is the most objective and there's a lot of nonpseudobiblical archaic usage in the Book of Mormon as well as plenty of usage that is slightly pseudobiblical but is used well above pseudobiblical baselines. Here are two things I see happening in the future with independent academic treatment of these textual realities: cherrypicking weak points and ignoring strong points, as you seemed to unsuccessfully attempt to do with howbeit; being impressed with nonpseudobiblical and extrapseudobiblical archaic usage but remaining silent.

Your last ¶ . . . pretty condescending — when you're not in the position to condescend. Rather obviously, the point about whether Joseph worded the text or didn't is inherently important, going to the nature of this revelation, and that touches on our view of many later revelations. A host of textual evidence indicates that the view entertained by many Book of Mormon scholars has been wrong. Some things not touched on here — including some straightforward evidence as well as things these scholars have known about for 25 years — show that they have conveniently ignored many textual points in favor of the view that Joseph didn't word the text.

[pogi]

6 hours ago, champatsch said:

I don't see from your comments that you know very much about this field of inquiry. So . . . . . . 

I fully admit that I don't.  Most probably don't.  Without peer review, that is the dilemma you are going to have in convincing the lay person who has taken no interest in this field of inquiry (probably most).  Otherwise we simply have to take your word for it, or put in a crazy amount of effort to educate ourselves in this field and put in hours of research.  You suggest that anyone with reasonably sound judgment and good English should be able to make the same conclusions you have made, but apparently that is not the case, we also have to know "very much about this field of inquiry" too.  This is also assuming that even if we were well educated in this field of study that we wouldn't use different methodology than you, or not see things from a different perspective with different conclusions.  We simply have to take your word for it that we would all come to the same conclusion, even though you admit that BoM scholars don't even agree with you..well then, why do you assume I, or anyone else, would agree with you and not the scholars? 

6 hours ago, champatsch said:

In various aspects of the Book of Mormon's syntax we can compare its patterns with those in the late modern period, in Joseph's writings, in pseudobiblical texts, in the King James Bible, and in the early modern period. I've published some limited findings. Scanning hundreds of thousands of texts, from 1475 to 1800, we can see that the Book of Mormon has patterns that are old and that only fit some early modern patterns and not the other patterns. This tends to rule out 19c authorship and supports viewing some of the lexical usage as obsolete...

Again, I don't understand (I am probably a good representative of most lay people) how you can say it suggests that this rules out 19c authorship if he was intentionally not trying to use 19c language.  Another question I would want to research before taking your word for it, is the syntax in the BoM consistent with one specific time period only?  Have you compared to see if syntax is used in one way in one verse and another way in another verse?  To use one of your previous examples, is the text consistent in using "a more part", or does it use different syntax in other locations to say the same thing?  The fact that he used obsolete syntax is not impressive to me - if he was consistent with one time period however, I would be more impressed.  Is there literally zero 19c or even 18c (pre Joseph post King James) syntax in the BoM?   Is there some syntax and language that is older than King Jamaes period (you suggest there is)?  Unless the language and syntax is consistent to one time period, I don't see how you can rule out 19c authorship where an author was trying to sound like a specific time period, but failed to be consistent, and in fact does have more modern language.  To do that kind of analysis would require a HUGE knowledge of the history of language and syntax use that the lay person simply isn't going to know - again, we have to take your word for it.  

If not 19c, what century would you place authoriship of the BoM in based on your research of the language?

6 hours ago, champatsch said:

we can see that Joseph and Oliver had trouble with some less common lexical usage in nonbiblical sections of the text.

Can you share some examples.  I don't doubt that some words were given to him, like names, and "liahona" etc.  so I don't doubt that there might be some exceptions, but that doesn't prove a rule.

6 hours ago, champatsch said:

There is less bias on the believing side than on the other. The other admits one outcome. The believing side allows that Joseph worded the text or that he didn't. This shows me that you haven't thought about this issue very much.

I refuse to accept that if the evidence is as strong as you suggest it is that at least some nonmember scholars would acknowledge the strength of the evidence.  Strong evidence tends to break through at least some bias.  I agree with you about believing members though.  I guess we will have to wait and see how it pans out with the believers.

6 hours ago, champatsch said:

The syntactic evidence is the most objective and there's a lot of nonpseudobiblical archaic usage in the Book of Mormon as well as plenty of usage that is slightly pseudobiblical but is used well above pseudobiblical baselines. 

Why would plenty of "slightly pseudobiblical" syntax (whatever that means), used above baselines be evidence that it is not pseudobiblical?  You can accuse me of being a simple minded in this, but to the lay person, more evidence of pseudobiblical language would appear to be stronger -not weaker- evidence that it is a pseudobiblical text.  If I am wrong, then this is just evidence of how difficult it is going to be to get the lay person to just take your word for it.  It seems obvious that pseudobiblical authors are not going to use syntax in the exact same ways and to the exact same degree.  Their knowledge and use of ancient Biblical language is going to vary based on various factors. 

6 hours ago, champatsch said:

Your last ¶ . . . pretty condescending — when you're not in the position to condescend. Rather obviously, the point about whether Joseph worded the text or didn't is inherently important, going to the nature of this revelation, and that touches on our view of many later revelations. A host of textual evidence indicates that the view entertained by many Book of Mormon scholars has been wrong. Some things not touched on here — including some straightforward evidence as well as things these scholars have known about for 25 years — show that they have conveniently ignored many textual points in favor of the view that Joseph didn't word the text.

I didn't intend for it to be condescending.  I apologize if it came off that way.  I simply don't see it as "inherently important" in the same way you do.  It is the spiritual effect that the words have on you that is inherently important.  If the text is verbatim from God or from Joseph's tongue wouldn't really make a single bit of difference for me in how it affects me spiritually.  The only possible pragmatic benefit I can see from this research is that it can better guide us in how to treat the text in the future.  If it is verbatim from God, then modernizing the language should be frowned upon, if it cam from Joseph's tongue, then there is more wiggle room to modernize the text.

Edited March 9, 2020 by pogi

[Ryan Dahle]

33 minutes ago, pogi said:

I fully admit that I don't.  Most probably don't.  Without peer review, that is the dilemma you are going to have in convincing the lay person who has taken no interest in this field of inquiry (probably most).  Otherwise we simply have to take your word for it, or put in a crazy amount of effort to educate our self in this field and put in hours of research.  You suggest that anyone with reasonably sound judgment and good English should be able to make the same conclusions you have made, but apparently that is not the case, we also have to know "very much about this field of inquiry" too.

I don't consider myself to be linguist. I don't have any specialized training in the field, other than a BA in English education, which really doesn't mean much. However, when I came across Carmack's research on this topic back in 2014 I was intrigued, and started very carefully combing through each of his successive publications, and watching the debates play out online about the matter. I don't have the same grasp of the details of many issues as he does, but one can certainly capture the important fundamentals of his research without being an expert. 

I find that his and Skousen's findings on this issue continue to be misrepresented, partially because they are so misunderstood. And I think they are misunderstood because people immediately begin to push back. Skousen and Carmack are constantly facing a "well, you can't prove that" mantra instead of a "that is interesting and unexpected and I should look more into this before reaching any firm conclusions" type of a response. 

Here is an incomplete but substantial list of their research:

• Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack, The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon, Part Three: The Nature of the Original Language (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2018).
• Stanford Carmack, “Is the Book of Mormon a Pseudo-Archaic Text?” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 28 (2018): 177–232.
• Stanford Carmack, “Barlow on Book of Mormon Language: An Examination of Some Strained Grammar” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 27 (2017): 185–196. 
• Stanford Carmack, “How Joseph Smith’s Grammar Differed from Book of Mormon Grammar: Evidence from the 1832 History” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 25 (2017): 239–259. 
• Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack, “Editing Out the ‘Bad Grammar’ in the Book of Mormon,” The Interpreter Foundation, 2016. 
• Stanford Carmack, “The Case of the {-th} Plural in the Earliest Text,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 18 (2016): 79–108. 
• Stanford Carmack, “The Case of Plural Was in the Earliest Text,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 18 (2016): 109–137. 
• Stanford Carmack, “Joseph Smith Read the Words,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 18 (2016): 41–61. 
• Stanford Carmack, “The More Part of the Book of Mormon is Early Modern English,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 18 (2016): 33–40. 
• Stanford Carmack, “Exploding the Myth of Unruly Book of Mormon Grammar: A Look at the Excellent Match with Early Modern English,” The Interpreter Foundation/BYU Studies, 2015. 
• Royal Skousen, “‘A theory! A theory! We have already got a theory, and there cannot be any more theories!’” The Interpreter Foundation/BYU Studies, 2015.
• Stanford Carmack, “Why the Oxford English Dictionary (and not Webster’s 1828),” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 15 (2015): 65–77. 
• Stanford Carmack, “The Implications of Past-Tense Syntax in the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 14 (2015): 119–186. 
• Stanford Carmack, “What Command Syntax Tells Us About Book of Mormon Authorship,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 13 (2015): 175–217.
• Stanford Carmack, “A Look at Some ‘Nonstandard’ Book of Mormon Grammar,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 11 (2014): 209–262.

Note: All Interpreter Articles should now be Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship (I created the above list before the name change). 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Ryan Dahle