Brian Hales latest BOM presentation -- dictation vs loose translation

[champatsch]

Quote

Therefore, what Joseph saw may have reproduced the page with the italics, but did not reproduce the chapter divisions. It is at this point that we invoke the divine. The Lord provides the stimulus of the appropriate neural nets, and the brain creates the appropriate visual image. The mechanism was available, but the impetus was external.

Can you clarify for us what you think the process of biblical quotation was in the Book of Mormon during the dictation?  What precisely did the Lord do and what precisely did Joseph Smith do?

[Brant Gardner]

5 hours ago, champatsch said:

I have considered your 2011 book on this matter, and find that you favor some unclear idiosyncratic version of eidetic imagery:

Quote

Therefore, what Joseph saw may have reproduced the page with the italics, but did not reproduce the chapter divisions. It is at this point that we invoke the divine. The Lord provides the stimulus of the appropriate neural nets, and the brain creates the appropriate visual image. The mechanism was available, but the impetus was external.

The reality is simple: the Lord transmitted a modified biblical text to Joseph in 1829, who then relayed that to his scribes.

There are two processes are work. One is what evidence we have for the way Joseph translated (or a different translator translated) and the second is how he saw what he saw. Although idiosyncratic certainly explains how Joseph saw a page with italics and interacted with it, it is only slightly less unusual than positing that about 20-30 words appeared on a rock. Joseph saw--something. What it was, and how it got there, is a question. However, neither of those are questions of translation.

The fact of the emphasis on italics is an important indication of the process. That the process did not change when Joseph shifted to translating the Bible is evidence that must be accounted.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 8/22/2019 at 4:40 PM, clarkgoble said:

That'd be an extremely inefficient way of doing it. A better way would be to think of a taxonomy. So you might ask, "object or action." You feel object is right. You narrow it down further. "person, animal or other." You get person. You then keep narrowing it down until you get a pronoun, a name, or a category (like man). 

Again, not suggesting that's how it happened. The few descriptions we have don't suggest a long enough time between words for that to be going on. 

Maybe I just play 20 questions while driving with my kids too much but that's how I'd approach it if I had to studying it out in my head and converge on sentences. Now it'd probably be easier for you and I since we are educated enough to know the structure of language a fair bit. If Joseph did it in that manner and was relatively uneducated about grammar and taxonomies then I'm sure it'd still be extremely difficult. 

It's worth noting that the process for the early part of the 116 pages may have been quite different from what happens by the time he gets to Mosiah. You'd imagine that if it is a conceptual translation that he'd get much faster. So one obvious test that might get at certain elements is simply to ask how much was translated originally. Unfortunately since he lost the 116 pages we really can't say that for sure. It'd be a fascinating question to ask though and might give us some information had we Harris' original sheets what was going on. Probably not enough to fully decide between tight control and loose control, but at least some info.

Since all of our witnesses agree that Joseph merely read the words directly from the surface of the stone inside the darkness of his hat, there is no time to consider grammar, taxonomy, structure, loose or tight control, etc.  We draw the same conclusion from Skousen and Carmack in that a coherent set of words and phrases is read, the scribe writes them, and then they go on to the next group -- a fast process, as you indicate.

On 8/22/2019 at 4:40 PM, clarkgoble said:

My guess of "study it out in your mind" relative to the Spectacles or seer stone is some mental effort required to get the reception working, not that it's akin to 20 questions.

The point may be a degree of mindfulness, a kind of meditative discipline or focus, same as you might expect when attempting to receive inspiration from the Holy Spirit.  Oliver may have thought that it would come without effort, much as young Luke Skywalker wrongly thought the Force was easy to use.  Joseph had already been using stones for years, and may have learned something in the process of treasure hunting and finding lost objects.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 8/22/2019 at 4:57 PM, clarkgoble said:

I'm skeptical of a lot of Hebraisms. I suspect some are linguistic artifacts (perhaps of EModE if that pans out) while others can be explained by the KJV. Even ones not in the KJV. An anology would be a neural network trained on the relationship between Hebrew texts and the KJV. It'd learn patterns that would be broader than what actually appear in the KJV text since it's extrapolating patterns. ....................

The only valid Hebraisms would be those which are definitely not found in the KJV.  Otherwise they might just be KJVisms.  One could model the analysis by studying the way in which the NT Greek text can sometimes be shown to make sense only if it is a translation from Aramaic or Hebrew.  Indeed, there are specific instances in the NT in which Jesus' uses Aramaic from Jewish Targums.  In such instances, the LXX Greek is not followed -- even though it is normative throughout the NT.

The Book of Mormon can be and has been analyzed as containing many Egyptianisms which do not appear in Hebrew or Aramaic -- both linguistically and conceptually.

[Gervin]

30 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Joseph had already been using stones for years, and may have learned something in the process of treasure hunting and finding lost objects.

I think he learned many things.  What was the most impressive object he found?

[Robert F. Smith]

On 8/21/2019 at 4:47 PM, clarkgoble said:

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

Without making a narrow claim as to what the methodology behind the Book of Mormon translation was, I've long thought of this example as a very fruitful one. Note that for those who dispute the tight control by Joseph that Carmack is ably defending, this allows a conscious reworking of an intermediate text other than the gold plate original. That idea of middle steps resolves I think some of the arguments in this thread. I'm definitely not saying that's the way it happend, but thinking through examples like this where a translator doesn't know the original language and produces a loose translation is quite helpful. Typically critiques of translation always think in terms of a model of a single person who has to know both languages. Even ignoring AI techniques of the last thirty years there's a lot of alternatives.

This whole discussion needs to be taken out of the 19th century context of Joseph, and transferred to the 16th century, where the same questions can be more meaningfully applied.

When I do a translation from a language I know into another language I know, my mind searches for equivalencies.  For familiar, constant patterns or repeated phrases, that can  be nearly effortless.  At other times, it can take some careful thought, sometimes even leading to consulting a lexicon.  One can then go back and edit the whole for continuity, congruence, and style.  United Nations translators don't have that convenience, and must make simultaneous, verbatim translations on the fly.

[Robert F. Smith]

5 minutes ago, Gervin said:

I think he learned many things.  What was the most impressive object he found?

Not sure, but perhaps a needle in a haystack?  Do you have an item in mind, Gervin?

[Robert F. Smith]

On 8/22/2019 at 4:09 PM, clarkgoble said:

........................ Mormon when compiling the plates is working off of documents that might be in some variant of Hebrew or an indigenous language. He then reproduces it on the plates using a short hand. What is translated? The original texts that in some sense were in Mormon's known languages or the short hand he encodes in into?

While I know some favor the glyphs on the plates are hieratic, the characters that were reproduced simply don't appear to be hieratic. (See @cinepro 's photo of one of the character documents above) So we don't know what type of writing was used at all nor whether it is a word like set of glyphs representing phonemes in some sense like hieratic (when it encodes either Egyptian or other languages such as Hebrew). Further my understanding is that most hieratic is simply a shortened form of hieroglyphics and thus includes both phonetically represented words but also a certain set of ideograms. While some ideograms are obviously word-like, others are much more vague with a much wider semantic meaning than words typically have.

My guess is that the plates simply aren't hieratic at all but are an unique type of shorthand. I think we have to recognize they might be hieratic-like and have hieratic influence, but clearly what one would emphasize relative to hieroglyphics when doing impressions is quite different from a sylized glyph painted with a brush. Hieratic is clearly optimized for quick writing with a brush not impressions on metal or plaster. While again acknowledging that something hieratic-like is possible, I think it's also possible that we have a kind of shorthand that utilizes ideograms.

If we're dealing with ideograms, then syntactic structure need not be followed at all. That in turn means that any translation that doesn't directly know the text  the short hand is representing will be very much a loose paraphrase and have lots of errors. I bring this up since it seems clear that Joseph and his associates clearly thought that was the case with both the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham possibly following Kircher's writings. However it's also possible that Joseph thought this because the Book of Mormon actually was a shorthand of that style and he used that knowledge to try and read what really was hieratic......................

Not sure what all this means (what you are trying to say), but it makes no sense for Nephi to ignore standard Egyptian in his Small Plates -- the same Egyptian used in the Brass Plates by his predecessors.  What would be the point of having the Brass Plates, if they could not be read?  Brant has published in detail why Nephi had to be a professional, trained scribe.  Naturally, the Reformed Egyptian used by Mormon & Moroni would be more highly developed, the same way Demotic became more highly developed through time.  That is why both William W. Phelps and E. D. Howe equated it with "shorthand" Egyptian (literally Champollion's tachygraphie).  The use of ideograms in Egyptian shorthand, as well as in ancient Maya, does not mean that syntax is not applied.  It simply means that one needs fewer characters to spell a word, which uses less space.

Since early Demotic and late Hieratic are indistinguishable -- contemporary with Lehi & Nephi -- it is worth noting that non-LDS Egyptologists such as W. C. Hayes and Richard Parker thought that the Caractors Document was in fact either Hieratic or Demotic.  To say that the Caractors Document does not look like Hieratic is just not so, and it is worthy of note that the Hieratic characters in that document all face the proper direction to be read Right to Left.  Moreover, although Hieratic can be written with a brush, it is also used to engrave metal, stone, and ivory ( https://books.google.com/books?id=khR0apPid8gC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=hieratic+egyptian+engraved+on+metal+and+stone&source=bl&ots=wnQiPRPF7D&sig=ACfU3U2T7OAWK_ldES9XMgJtdkfoQss0nQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiO0f-LqJ_kAhUfGDQIHYuBDTQQ6AEwFnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=hieratic egyptian engraved on metal and stone&f=false).

In a letter to James Arlington Bennet in 1843, Joseph Smith explained that "By the power of God, I translated the Book of Mormon from hieroglyphics."  (Roberts, ed., History of the Church VI:74)  Since Hieratic is merely cursive Hieroglyphic, that may tell us something important.

 

[Robert F. Smith]

On 8/21/2019 at 3:47 PM, champatsch said:

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

As a revelation of words, Joseph’s translation was a conveyance of the book’s words from one condition to another—in this case, from the divine to the temporal. The general sense of ‘conveyance’ is set forth as the first definition of the noun translation and the verb translate in the OED. Thus, even though ‘conveyance’ is not the default meaning for us today, it is nevertheless a primary meaning of the term translation. In addition, Joseph acted as a retransmitter of revealed words, and retransmitter is another relevant definition of translator found in dictionaries, including the OED.................

Yes, the 1828 Websters has "transmission" as a meaning for translate.  "Conveyance" is just as good.

[blueglass]

On 8/20/2019 at 7:09 PM, cinepro said:

Ah, seems like only yesterday we were discussing this.  Or 5,384 yesterdays.

While I'm fascinated by the 16th century flavor of the theory, I still need someone to explain something to me.

How do you get names of people and cities with anything other than a tight translation?

Take, for example, this (an example of a real unknown script):

If I told you this represented a name and asked you to translate it phonetically into the English alphabet using a loose translation, how would you do it?

Now, suppose you had access to a computer called the Great Onicular Decipherer Computer, and it could decipher unknown scripts and show you the phonetic translation on a screen (and then you read it off the screen to a secretary).  So the computer shows you the name as "Puntoalow", and you dictate "Puntoalow" to the secretary.  Again, how would such a thing be possible with a "loose" translation method?

Now, imagine a series of 400 pages of such characters, similarly unknown, for which you rely on the Great Onicular Decipherer Computer to tell you what the symbols mean.  Explain to me how a loose translation would work in this scenario.

 

Bonus question:  Suppose you had a friend, Olly, who was impressed by you being able use the Great Onicular Decipherer Computer to decipher the text, so he asks to try.  You let him, but when he looks into the viewfinder, he sees a message that says "First, you need to study the symbols to try to figure it out, then I'll help you."

How long do you think Olly would need to stare at the symbols before he could figure it out himself?  A week?  A year?  How long does someone need to look at an unknown script before it suddenly becomes intelligible?

Terryl Givens suggests the source of the many deep anachronisms intertextual time wormholes (i.e. nephi, Alma, Mormon, Ether and others quoting and expanding upon ideas from Micah, deteuro-Isaiah, John, Paul's letters Corinthians, Romans, from a bungalow in ancient Copan) by invoking Arrival movie nonlinear logogram orthography.  In the same way in which Joseph viewed the Hieratic and demotic of the physical papyrus of sheshonk, he viewed in his mind ancient personalities arguing universalist and Aminian theology. 

Edited August 26, 2019 by blueglass

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, blueglass said:

Terryl Givens suggests the source of the many deep anachronisms intertextual time wormholes (i.e. nephi, Alma, Mormon, Ether and others quoting and expanding upon ideas from Micah, deteuro-Isaiah, John, Paul's letters Corinthians, Romans, from a bungalow in ancient Copan) by invoking Arrival movie nonlinear logogram orthography.  In the same way in which Joseph viewed the Hieratic and demotic of the physical papyrus of sheshonk, he viewed in his mind ancient personalities arguing universalist and Aminian theology. 

Joseph may be a Renaissance Magus, but he is centuries late (just as the American Renaissance is late), and entirely derivative.  The true source must be someone like Dr John Dee, Hugo Grotius, or the like.  God has plenty of resources to call upon.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 8/23/2019 at 10:00 AM, clarkgoble said:

I've not really followed all the Hebrewism debates, but unless I'm mistaken isn't there a debate between Skousen and others over whether it's a pleading bar or a pleasing bar? ....................

I'll confess that the way I've always read the variants of this was more in terms of the rod and staff of ancient rulers. So to me rod, staff, and bar are all loosely synonymous in the Book of Mormon. I don't read the iron rod as a bannister leading the way to the tree of life but rather a shepherd's rod that people grab onto in order to be led through rough terrain. Likewise whether one is pleading to the bar or seeing it as pleasing (because one is just) the idea is more of divine justice. If one allies oneself to the divine king the rod/bar leads one through danger. If one opposes the divine king then it is a weapon of judgment against them. So I confess that to me the iron rod and the bar of God are synonyms.

In this interpretation the bar of God and all it's BoM variants seems pretty standard pre-Hellenistic ANE stuff. But I can also see it as a loose translation of something like judgment seat in terms of 19th century court practice. Except that the Book of Mormon regularly uses judgement seat so that would seem an odd choice.

The question is how to distiguish between the two. ...........................

Actually, you were on the right track, Clark:  It is an Egyptianism, not a Hebraism, and Skousen's conjectural emendation was correct.

Ancient Egyptian mdw “staff, rod,” is also used to mean “legal-plea, pleading” (mdw, mdt),[1] cognate with Hebrew maṭṭē “rod, staff; tribe” (Genesis 38:18, 25) = Ugaritic mṭ. 

Given the Egyptian-Hebrew cognate words displayed here, Matt Bowen found it remarkable that “the rod of iron” is interpreted in the Book of Mormon as “the word of God”(1 Nephi 11:25, 15:23-24),[2] since Egyptian mdw “rod” is a homonym or homograph of Egyptian mdw “word; speech,”[3] which is not only frequently part of a phrase meaning “spell, recitation, liturgy” (dd mdw > Coptic demtau),[4] but is also regularly used as part of the phrase mdw ntr “word of God, divine decree; sacred writings (hieroglyphic or hieratic); written characters, script”[5] (Demotic mtw ntr), for Nephi exhorts his brethren to “give heed to the word of God and remember to keep his commandments”(1 Nephi 15:25) – suggesting that one must give heed to the commandments given in Holy Scripture – a not very subtle reference to the Brass Plates which were specifically incised or engraved in Egyptian script (literally mdw ntr).

[1] Faulkner, Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, 122, citing JEA, 17:59 (32); Eloquent Peasant B1, 234; Urkunden IV, 1114,12; 1115,11.

[2] Matthew L. Bowen, “What Meaneth the Rod of Iron?” Insights, 25/2 (2005):2-3.

[3] Faulkner, CDME, 122, citing Shipwrecked Sailor 18; Sinuhe B, 183; Eloquent Peasant B1, 75; Papyrus Prisse 5, 3; rdi mdw drp “interpret writings” in Urkunden IV, 165, 15.

[4] Westendorf, KHw, 105, 521, citing Spiegelberg, ZÄS, 59:160; Zyhlarz, WZKM, 32:173.

[5] Faulkner, CDME, 122, citing Pyramid Text 333; Peasant B1, 311; Bersheh I, plate 8; II, 45; Louvre C 14, 7; Urkunden IV, 121, 2; 151, 5; 860, 7; cf. A. Piankoff, The Litany of Re, Bollingen Series XL/4 (Pantheon, 1964), 9; A. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1957), 1; Diringer, Alphabet, 2 vols. (N.Y.: Funk & Wagnall, 1968), I:29; E. A. W. Budge, The Mummy, 2nd ed. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1925), 353-354.

[clarkgoble]

9 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Given the Egyptian-Hebrew cognate words displayed here, Matt Bowen found it remarkable that “the rod of iron” is interpreted in the Book of Mormon as “the word of God”(1 Nephi 11:25, 15:23-24),[2] since Egyptian mdw “rod” is a homonym or homograph of Egyptian mdw “word; speech,”[3] which is not only frequently part of a phrase meaning “spell, recitation, liturgy” (dd mdw > Coptic demtau),[4] but is also regularly used as part of the phrase mdw ntr “word of God, divine decree; sacred writings (hieroglyphic or hieratic); written characters, script”[5] (Demotic mtw ntr), for Nephi exhorts his brethren to “give heed to the word of God and remember to keep his commandments”(1 Nephi 15:25) – suggesting that one must give heed to the commandments given in Holy Scripture – a not very subtle reference to the Brass Plates which were specifically incised or engraved in Egyptian script (literally mdw ntr).

That's fascinating. I didn't know any of that. Always nice when ones guess turns out to have a basis. 

The question Carmack raised remains. Why does the text switch between bar and rod rather than just using a single term? My speculation was that the common protestant theological use of "bar of God" for the court meant that a more courtroom like setting used bar even though it's a somewhat misleading term. It's very common in the 19th century. Not sure about the early modern era.

11 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Joseph may be a Renaissance Magus, but he is centuries late (just as the American Renaissance is late), and entirely derivative.  The true source must be someone like Dr John Dee, Hugo Grotius, or the like.  God has plenty of resources to call upon.

I think the Magus or even Kabbalist terms are a bit misleading. There are traces of such in his thought, and of course folk magic perfused his culture. But it seems to me most interesting that he leaves those behind fairly quickly and they become quite transformed. It's also worth noting that most of these late medieval and renaissance ideas were themselves largely traces of late antiquity that were lost or kept more esoteric. Particularly during the era when Aristotle again was king intellectually.

I've been reading The Documentary History of the Book of Mormon this weekend and it has a particularly good treatment of all this. (IMO)

The overall relation of Joseph to broader platonic ideas - whether Renaissance or the neoplatonic traditions of late antiquity - remains to be written. There's people doing interesting work on it - particularly based upon texts available to Joseph. But at the moment it's still in the period of loose parallels and terminology similarities. It also becomes difficult given how quickly Joseph moves to a materialistic conception.

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Not sure what all this means (what you are trying to say), but it makes no sense for Nephi to ignore standard Egyptian in his Small Plates -- the same Egyptian used in the Brass Plates by his predecessors.  What would be the point of having the Brass Plates, if they could not be read?

The main problem with assuming it's hieratic always is the transcriptions of the characters. Even assuming errors in copying them, they just don't seem like hieratic. (see next comment for Hayes & Parker)

So I agree that it'd make total sense for Nephi to use hieratic. It's just that the evidence doesn't seem to suggest it or is at best somewhat mixed. There's also the question of the difference between painting on papyri - what hieratic was optimized for as I understand it - and etching on metal. I'd add that we don't know the brass plates were in hieratic either. The discussion of Jewish colonies in India having the torah on brass may mean the brass plates were in paleo-Hebrew. That's why I'd love to know if anyone ever investigated those brass torahs.

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

it is worth noting that non-LDS Egyptologists such as W. C. Hayes and Richard Parker thought that the Caractors Document was in fact either Hieratic or Demotic.  To say that the Caractors Document does not look like Hieratic is just not so, and it is worthy of note that the Hieratic characters in that document all face the proper direction to be read Right to Left.

I know that was the comment. I think we've discussed that in the past. However so far as I know, no more recent Egyptologist sees them that way. We don't have any discussion as to why Parker and Hayes thought it looked like hieratic. Not knowing much Egyptian I can't have much of an opinion here beyond just noting the significance of other Egyptologists not agreeing with them.

15 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

This whole discussion needs to be taken out of the 19th century context of Joseph, and transferred to the 16th century, where the same questions can be more meaningfully applied.

I'm not convinced that even if there are EModE elements in the text that there are no 19th century elements. While I'm constantly surprised at what was available in the 16th century I think it pays to keep ones mind open and look at multiple contexts.

15 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

When I do a translation from a language I know into another language I know, my mind searches for equivalencies.  For familiar, constant patterns or repeated phrases, that can  be nearly effortless.  At other times, it can take some careful thought, sometimes even leading to consulting a lexicon.  One can then go back and edit the whole for continuity, congruence, and style.  United Nations translators don't have that convenience, and must make simultaneous, verbatim translations on the fly.

Right, but my example of Pound was designed to show the other processes that can affect a translation. While Pound didn't know Chinese, he did understand poetic meter and imagery and so transformed one translation based upon his better knowledge of the target language.

Again recognizing that we've not a clue how the translation was done, one could easily imagine a 16th century proto-translation that was then transfigured in the 19th century - either by the original translator or someone else. And that ignores more "mechanical" processes of translation as a method. As I mentioned with statistical translation methods in AI, there really is no need to have a person who understands both languages so long as there are dual texts with both languages. (Like say the KJV and a Hebrew Bible although that doesn't explain NT use)

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Since all of our witnesses agree that Joseph merely read the words directly from the surface of the stone inside the darkness of his hat, there is no time to consider grammar, taxonomy, structure, loose or tight control, etc. 

I think here we have to be far more careful. We should be careful extrapolating from some descriptions to the whole process. Further this assumes that the only person involved in a loose translation would be Joseph. I'm not sure that's the case. I'm just suggesting that we should be very careful with the descriptions, especially since the most detailed descriptions are quite late.

Edited August 26, 2019 by clarkgoble

[CA Steve]

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Since early Demotic and late Hieratic are indistinguishable -- contemporary with Lehi & Nephi -- it is worth noting that non-LDS Egyptologists such as W. C. Hayes and Richard Parker thought that the Caractors Document was in fact either Hieratic or Demotic.  To say that the Caractors Document does not look like Hieratic is just not so, and it is worthy of note that the Hieratic characters in that document all face the proper direction to be read Right to Left. 

Robert,

If these are actual Hieratic characters, have they been translated? What do they say?

Thanks

[Robert F. Smith]

25 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

..............If these are actual Hieratic characters, have they been translated? What do they say?................

The late W. C. Hayes translated part of the first line of the Caractors Document for the late Ed Kimball.  I am not skilled enough to do a successful translation.  Others more skilled than I have made a serious effort, but haven't succeeded.  What is clear is that the Caractors Document is not part of the current English Book of Mormon -- so is likely part of the lost 116 pages.  For his part, John Gee has complained that the Caractors Document isn't long enough to provide material for decipherment.  See Gee, “Some Notes on the Anthon Transcript,” FARMS Review of Books 12/1 (2000):5–8, online at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol12/iss1/4/ .

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

............................The question Carmack raised remains. Why does the text switch between bar and rod rather than just using a single term? My speculation was that the common protestant theological use of "bar of God" for the court meant that a more courtroom like setting used bar even though it's a somewhat misleading term. It's very common in the 19th century...................

I think that's the point.  I would have it as "pleading-bar."

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

I think the Magus or even Kabbalist terms are a bit misleading. There are traces of such in his thought, and of course folk magic perfused his culture. But it seems to me most interesting that he leaves those behind fairly quickly and they become quite transformed. It's also worth noting that most of these late medieval and renaissance ideas were themselves largely traces of late antiquity that were lost or kept more esoteric. Particularly during the era when Aristotle again was king intellectually.

Actually, it can be argued that Hermetic esoterism goes back to the New Kingdom in Egypt -- in the form of proto-Mithraism.  The Mysteries of Reʿ, as recorded at Ashmunein (Hermopolis Magna) from at least as early as the reign of Ramesses III (ca. 1198-1167 B.C.), followed the same dramatic sequence as that of Mithraism a millennium later:  Birth, struggle, triumph, and final journey to completion.  This is doubly interesting since Mithraism and Christianity have much symbology and ritual in common (the blood, the cross, descent of souls to the netherworld, resurrection, and the 7-day week) – a fact which made official acceptance of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine and the Roman Legions so rapid and so complete, if syncretic.
Both Jesus and Mithra (Deo Soli Invicto Mithrae) were supposedly born the same day as Reʿ, on the Winter Solstice.  It thus makes sense to note that Mithra/Mitra was a solar deity in both Persian and Hindu religion.  Roman Mithraic ritual included the seven-day week ending on Sunday, baptism, a cult-meal of bread and water, and the tauroctony – the divine sacrifice of the Bull (Taurus) by Mithra-Perseus (the Gorgon slayer), shedding the blood which gives eternal life, but which also has cosmic implications based on precession of the equinoxes – recalling not only the demise of Taurus the Bull as leader of the Zodiac, but also the dawning of the age of Aries the Ram – the saving symbol of a new age.  Mithra is thus the Savior, as well as the Mediator between eras, and between Persian light & darkness.

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

.................................The main problem with assuming it's hieratic always is the transcriptions of the characters. Even assuming errors in copying them, they just don't seem like hieratic. (see next comment for Hayes & Parker)

So I agree that it'd make total sense for Nephi to use hieratic. It's just that the evidence doesn't seem to suggest it or is at best somewhat mixed. There's also the question of the difference between painting on papyri - what hieratic was optimized for as I understand it - and etching on metal. I'd add that we don't know the brass plates were in hieratic either. ....................

We already know archeologically that the Jews in the time of Lehi & Nephi were using Hieratic in Palestine.  The Bronze Plates were not some private phenomenon, but must have been produced by a formal group at great expense, and maintained over time.  It would make no sense at all to have them and then to suddenly switch languages.  The plethora of Egyptianisms in the English BofM (which cannot be Hebraisms) demonstrates the likelihood that the book was written in Egyptian script and language.

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

.............. my example of Pound was designed to show the other processes that can affect a translation. While Pound didn't know Chinese, he did understand poetic meter and imagery and so transformed one translation based upon his better knowledge of the target language.

Joseph had neither the leisure nor the knowledge to have done likewise.

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Again recognizing that we've not a clue how the translation was done, one could easily imagine a 16th century proto-translation that was then transfigured in the 19th century - either by the original translator or someone else. And that ignores more "mechanical" processes of translation as a method. As I mentioned with statistical translation methods in AI, there really is no need to have a person who understands both languages so long as there are dual texts with both languages. (Like say the KJV and a Hebrew Bible although that doesn't explain NT use)

I think here we have to be far more careful. We should be careful extrapolating from some descriptions to the whole process. Further this assumes that the only person involved in a loose translation would be Joseph. I'm not sure that's the case. I'm just suggesting that we should be very careful with the descriptions, especially since the most detailed descriptions are quite late.

There is definitely a mystery here.  We need to keep open minds.

[clarkgoble]

22 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Joseph had neither the leisure nor the knowledge to have done likewise.

Yes, but I'm trying to be as open as possible. While I think it highly implausible Joseph wrote all this, that tells us nothing about the nature of the text he received. The old question of critics, if it was a divine translation, why is it so bad and (IMO) clearly a loose translation. Why does it quote post-exilic texts including much of the NT? Why does it follow the NT when it'd be far more plausible that there would be significant differences (say the version of the Sermon on the Mount given in Bountiful)? All of these suggest a very flawed idiocyncratic translation that often uses loose modern phrases or terms rather than a more literalistic word based translation.

To me that suggests either an unintelligent flawed AI type of process or a very flawed idiocyncratic translator. We also have to grapple with the Taves like ghost writer or the idea of a copy of an existing text prepared by Joseph as fraud. (If only to be able to dismiss that theory)

Given that the easiest postulate is some translator and/or author Joseph copied from. The reason I bring up the modification thesis ala Pound's loose translation is that it's very plausible that could be going on reorganizing texts somewhat.

22 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We already know archeologically that the Jews in the time of Lehi & Nephi were using Hieratic in Palestine.  The Bronze Plates were not some private phenomenon, but must have been produced by a formal group at great expense, and maintained over time.  It would make no sense at all to have them and then to suddenly switch languages.  The plethora of Egyptianisms in the English BofM (which cannot be Hebraisms) demonstrates the likelihood that the book was written in Egyptian script and language.

The possibility of Egyptianisms might suggest that of the small plates of Nephi. It tells us nothing about the brass plates. After all while there was hieratic use of Hebrew in Palestine pre-exile there also was proto-Hebrew. Indeed with have a 10th century example in the Zayit Stone which also is an engraving as the brass plates would have had to. That there are existant traditions of brass Torahs, presumably written in Hebrew rather than Egyptian given the date of the Rabbinical era, I don't think we can dismiss it.

While it's plausible that Mormon could have used some variant of hieratic, there's really no positive evidence for it that I can see. We don't even necessarily know if the small plates were in the same script as Mormon's work.

I'd also be cautious with Egyptianisms much like one is with Hebrewisms. While some, particularly dealing with imagery rather than grammar, are plausible. Others might well be coincidental artifacts of odd English - as Carmack's work suggests. 

22 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Actually, it can be argued that Hermetic esoterism goes back to the New Kingdom in Egypt -- in the form of proto-Mithraism.

Oh there's no doubt that neo-platonism, particularly the theurgical type at the time of Iamblichus and the last gasp of paganism, heavily appropriated Egyptian ideas. Even Christian variants of neoplatonism within gnosticism tended to make heavy use of Egyptian. 1 & 2 Jeu relationship to well known Egyptian texts is one example. While it's usually wise to separate neoplatonism from gnosticism, clearly there's also many similarities both in terms of the relationship to Egyptian ritual and texts, but also in the more abstract cosmology. The main differences were more how rigorous philosophically the ideas were. But of course hermeticism as opposed to the more formal theological traditions wasn't as focused on rigor.

22 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I think that's the point.  I would have it as "pleading-bar."

That works for the single example debating the adjective. However there's numerous examples of bar in a courtroom setting throughout the text - often without modifying adjectives. I think Carmack's question is a good one. Why bar rather than rod when we have rod used elsewhere. If the iron rod is this rod for instance. 

Part of the issue is the KJV which, particularly in Isaiah, uses rod. e.g. Isaiah 10 = 2 Ne 20 although there are numerous examples.  The exception is Nephi's and Lehi's vision. While I pushed for a kingship judgment rod, I'll fully admit there are passages that make this difficult. i.e. "...a rod of iron, and it extended along the bank of the river, and led to the tree..." (1 Ne 8:19) The idea of it extending certainly makes the bannister like reading very plausible. On the other hand other passages suggest a moving rod. i.e. 8:30 "...they came and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they did press their way forward, continually holding fast to the rod of iron..." While one could read that as a fixed end, it also seems to fit a moving rod they hold tight to.

In any case one reasonable view is that it's only "bar" that is the judgement rod while the other rod is a bannister, even if that's harder to reconcile (IMO) to the ANE. (I know others disagree)

 

Edited August 26, 2019 by clarkgoble

[CA Steve]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The late W. C. Hayes translated part of the first line of the Caractors Document for the late Ed Kimball.  I am not skilled enough to do a successful translation.  Others more skilled than I have made a serious effort, but haven't succeeded.  What is clear is that the Caractors Document is not part of the current English Book of Mormon -- so is likely part of the lost 116 pages.  For his part, John Gee has complained that the Caractors Document isn't long enough to provide material for decipherment.  See Gee, “Some Notes on the Anthon Transcript,” FARMS Review of Books 12/1 (2000):5–8, online at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol12/iss1/4/ .

Robert,

How do we know for certain they are Hieratic if they cannot be translated? Shouldn't we have some idea of what they (may) mean if we recognize them as Hieratic?

Thanks

[clarkgoble]

23 hours ago, champatsch said:

Can you clarify for us what you think the process of biblical quotation was in the Book of Mormon during the dictation?  What precisely did the Lord do and what precisely did Joseph Smith do?

Just to raise a pedantic point, but if Joseph's subconscious is involved in the produced text, Joseph can be involved but still have the experience of seeing it come word for word. My own critique is that we should be cautious from a few witnesses saying it was word by word to assuming it always followed that pattern. I think it worth wondering if the process changed somewhat with the switch from the Spectacles to the brown seer stone for instance.

I also think we have to be very cautious with late accounts, such as Emma's. The only early account saying it was word by word is, I believe, in Mormonism Unvailed in 1834. "Through the stone he could then discover a single word at a time, which he repeated aloud to his amanuensis, who committed it to paper, when another word would immediately appear, and thus the performance continued to the end of the book." (See FAIR's 1829-1835 accounts) This appears to have been quoted or paraphrased by later hostile accounts. Given that all the hostile accounts after Mormonism Unvailed picked up the word by word claim, it's worth questioning if that thereafter affect late sympathetic accounts.

The first sympathetic account that relates the word claim is possibly Elizabeth Cowdery. "...and then [read] to his scribe the words as they appeared before him." That's pretty vague though and it's not really a claim that they were word by word. All the rest are very late - decades after the events.

I'd feel much more confident about the word by word claim if we had a single positive sympathetic claim in the first decade. It's just too likely that the late claims all are affected by Mormonism Unvailed.

Edited August 26, 2019 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

21 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Yes, but I'm trying to be as open as possible. While I think it highly implausible Joseph wrote all this, that tells us nothing about the nature of the text he received. The old question of critics, if it was a divine translation, why is it so bad and (IMO) clearly a loose translation. Why does it quote post-exilic texts including much of the NT? Why does it follow the NT when it'd be far more plausible that there would be significant differences (say the version of the Sermon on the Mount given in Bountiful)? All of these suggest a very flawed idiocyncratic translation that often uses loose modern phrases or terms rather than a more literalistic word based translation.

First, it is not a divine translation.  God has humans do his translations.  They are always human.  EModE looks bad even to Joseph, who has no English skills.  If John Dee did it in the 16th century, it would be a good, coherent English translation for its time.  Second, the KJV NT (and its predecessors, which the KJV followed) influence the way in which any translator will express similar events, leaving one thinking that even a dynamic equivalence is merely a slavish copy of the KJV NT.

21 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

To me that suggests either an unintelligent flawed AI type of process or a very flawed idiocyncratic translator. We also have to grapple with the Taves like ghost writer or the idea of a copy of an existing text prepared by Joseph as fraud. (If only to be able to dismiss that theory)

Given that the easiest postulate is some translator and/or author Joseph copied from. The reason I bring up the modification thesis ala Pound's loose translation is that it's very plausible that could be going on reorganizing texts somewhat.

Yes, someone certainly could.  Fraud must, however, be shown in some systematic way.  Not merely assumed, as so often happens.

21 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

The possibility of Egyptianisms might suggest that of the small plates of Nephi. It tells us nothing about the brass plates. After all while there was hieratic use of Hebrew in Palestine pre-exile there also was proto-Hebrew. Indeed with have a 10th century example in the Zayit Stone which also is an engraving as the brass plates would have had to. That there are existant traditions of brass Torahs, presumably written in Hebrew rather than Egyptian given the date of the Rabbinical era, I don't think we can dismiss it.

While it's plausible that Mormon could have used some variant of hieratic, there's really no positive evidence for it that I can see. We don't even necessarily know if the small plates were in the same script as Mormon's work.

Of course, Moroni is explicit that the script has changed through time.  We would be very surprised if it had not changed in the course of a millennium.  However, it would be equally silly to suggest that there was no relationship whatsoever, or that Moroni and Mormon could not read the Bronze Plates or the Small Plates.  They needed full command of the sources in order to edit.  Paleo-Hebrew is an unrelated phenomenon.

21 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I'd also be cautious with Egyptianisms much like one is with Hebrewisms. While some, particularly dealing with imagery rather than grammar, are plausible. Others might well be coincidental artifacts of odd English -- as Carmack's work suggests. 

Egyptianisms are present in the BofM as words, phrases, tropes, concepts, and imagery.  There are too many such features to be accidental.  Even the great William F. Albright saw BofM Pahoran and Paanchi as authentic Egyptian names.  EModE is not involved.

21 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

........That works for the single example debating the adjective. However there's numerous examples of bar in a courtroom setting throughout the text - often without modifying adjectives. I think Carmack's question is a good one. Why bar rather than rod when we have rod used elsewhere. If the iron rod is this rod for instance. 

Part of the issue is the KJV which, particularly in Isaiah, uses rod. e.g. Isaiah 10 = 2 Ne 20 although there are numerous examples.  The exception is Nephi's and Lehi's vision. While I pushed for a kingship judgment rod, I'll fully admit there are passages that make this difficult. i.e. "...a rod of iron, and it extended along the bank of the river, and led to the tree..." (1 Ne 8:19) The idea of it extending certainly makes the bannister like reading very plausible. On the other hand other passages suggest a moving rod. i.e. 8:30 "...they came and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they did press their way forward, continually holding fast to the rod of iron..." While one could read that as a fixed end, it also seems to fit a moving rod they hold tight to.

In any case one reasonable view is that it's only "bar" that is the judgement rod while the other rod is a bannister, even if that's harder to reconcile (IMO) to the ANE. (I know others disagree)

Dynamic equivalent translation doesn't require such literalness.  Pleading-bar is simply a better fit for English than Legal-rod or Pleading-rod.  The word need not be translated the same in different contexts.

[Robert F. Smith]

23 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

.................How do we know for certain they are Hieratic if they cannot be translated? Shouldn't we have some idea of what they (may) mean if we recognize them as Hieratic?.................

See my “Martin Harris’ Visit With Charles Anthon: Collected Documents on Short-Hand Egyptian,” FARMS Preliminary Report STF-85a (Provo: FARMS, 1985); 73pp; in BYU Library, Americana Collection, BX 8608 .A1a no.6012a  (Quarto).  A version was available online at the Maxwell Institute, but no longer, as they make a transition to BYU Library.  I tried hard to make plenty of examples of Hieratic available.  Translation of such a small document is not a piece of cake, Steve.  Better men than me have tried. 

See also my “Chiasmus in Ancient Egyptian & in the So-called ‘Anthon Transcript’,” Scribd.org, June 2017, online at https://www.scribd.com/document/352354579/Chiasmus-in-Ancient-Egyptian-in-the-So-called-Anthon-Transcript . 

[champatsch]

Some thoughts on biblical quoting in the Book of Mormon:

focusing on a small subset of biblical quoting in the Book of Mormon is a recipe for coming to faulty conclusions

• there are sections where italics clearly plays a role in textual changes; there are sections where italics plays hardly any role
• because less than one-quarter of the changes are related to italics, much more is going on than mere italics modification
• the complexity of the paraphrastic verse with functional shift in wherefore (2n0951) is an example of the need to posit JS preparing carefully in advance of the dictation, if the goal is to make him the editor of biblical quotation in the Book of Mormon

there are many phrases (more than 30) where the italicized word or phrase is left unchanged but there is another immediate difference

some subconscious syntactic evidence argues against JS being responsible for altering biblical quotations

• unlikely personal relative pronoun changes (against JS's native preference),  that  →  which:

he that → they which (Isa 50:9; 2n0709)
man that → man which (Isa 51:12; 2n0812)
every one that → every one which (Isa 2:12; 2n1212)

• unlikely personal relative pronoun choices (against JS's native preference),  ø  →  which:

man ø → man which (Isa 29:8; 2n2703; twice in the same verse)
the poor in spirit ø → the poor in spirit which (Matt 5:3; 3n1203)
ø → he which ([Mic 4:3]; 3n2019; nonbiblical sentence)
ø → people which ([Mic 5:8]; 3n2112; nonbiblical phrase; jsLetters have "people that")

• unlikely future auxiliary switch (against JS's native preference)

will → shall (Isa 52:12; 3n2042)

there are many changes (dozens) that show intrusive and careful editing (e.g. 2n1214, 2n1216, 2n1309, 2n1311, etc.)

positing JS as the modifier of biblical quotations requires a creative explanation for the surprising Septuagint phrase "upon all the ships of the sea" (2n1216)

[champatsch]

42 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Just to raise a pedantic point, but if Joseph's subconscious is involved in the produced text, Joseph can be involved but still have the experience of seeing it come word for word. My own critique is that we should be cautious from a few witnesses saying it was word by word to assuming it always followed that pattern. I think it worth wondering if the process changed somewhat with the switch from the Spectacles to the brown seer stone for instance.

Yes, we must not put too much stock in what the dictation witnesses said on this point, we must pay attention to the syntax and lexis.

[champatsch]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

I think it worth wondering if the process changed somewhat with the switch from the Spectacles to the brown seer stone for instance.

You know the wherefore ~ therefore switch, and the whoso ~ whosoever switch? The latter is noticeable between 3n08 and 3n09, where whoso starts to be used much more heavily.

So, if we cut the dictation in two, at that cusp, we notice that there are other features that shift dramatically, not all lexical. One important one is the shift to heavy use of subordinate that. To see this you have to look at GV or the Yale edition in something like WordCruncher.

Specifically, all or almost all the archaic, biblical "after that S" usage is in dictation 2 (115 of them); the same goes for the other subordinate that usage. Dictation 1 has "after S", "before S", etc. Crucially, 24 pseudo-biblical texts show that Book of Mormon usage in this regard is extraordinary, in quality and quantity.

Also, almost all instances of the rhetorical hypothetical "if it so be" (categorically nonbiblical) are in dictation 2 (39 of 42). (I found two instances of biblical "if so be" in 24 pseudo-biblical texts.)

So, either we believe that JS made a dramatic jump in controlling all these archaisms at 3n09, or we accept that the text given to him makes a dramatic shift in character at that point, with some exceptional sections.

[churchistrue]

9 minutes ago, champatsch said:

You know the wherefore ~ therefore switch, and the whoso ~ whosoever switch? The latter is noticeable between 3n08 and 3n09, where whoso starts to be used much more heavily.

So, if we cut the dictation in two, at that cusp, we notice that there are other features that shift dramatically, not all lexical. One important one is the shift to heavy use of subordinate that. To see this you have to look at GV or the Yale edition in something like WordCruncher.

Specifically, all or almost all the archaic, biblical "after that S" usage is in dictation 2 (115 of them); the same goes for the other subordinate that usage. Dictation 1 has "after S", "before S", etc. Crucially, 24 pseudo-biblical texts show that Book of Mormon usage in this regard is extraordinary, in quality and quantity.

Also, almost all instances of the rhetorical hypothetical "if it so be" (categorically nonbiblical) are in dictation 2 (39 of 42). (I found two instances of biblical "if so be" in 24 pseudo-biblical texts.)

So, either we believe that JS made a dramatic jump in controlling all these archaisms at 3n09, or we accept that the text given to him makes a dramatic shift in character at that point, with some exceptional sections.

Relevant to this switch. https://www.churchistrue.com/blog/book-of-mormon-stylometry-l-voice/