Did Joseph Smith Really Draw on Adam Clarke's Commentary for the Joseph Smith Translation?

[Ahab]

Just now, InCognitus said:

Church history library has proof:

Yeah but was that Joseph Jr, or Joseph Sr, or Joseph the 3rd... or maybe just someone who really liked Joseph?

[mfbukowski]

13 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

Church history library has proof:

LOL!!!!!!   

[InCognitus]

14 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Yeah but was that Joseph Jr, or Joseph Sr, or Joseph the 3rd... or maybe just someone who really liked Joseph?

It's in the handwriting of W.W. Phelps.  They don't know if Joseph was dictating or not.

[InCognitus]

Incidentally, some critics have claimed that this doodle is the source for the idea of the beheading of Shiz when Joseph was writing the Book of Mormon:

[CA Steve]

If the quotations from Clarke were from a book and or time that was not available to Joseph, they would be touted as evidence for divine intercession.

[mfbukowski]

14 hours ago, InCognitus said:

Incidentally, some critics have claimed that this doodle is the source for the idea of the beheading of Shiz when Joseph was writing the Book of Mormon:

Critics? That shows their lack of acumen. 

It's evidence of another coded revelation proving the historicity of the event! This is clearly important evidence!

I wonder who will be the first to publish it !!?

[CA Steve]

18 hours ago, InCognitus said:

Church history library has proof:

Will Schryver has established irrefutably that this is in Rigdon's handwriting and is clearly an attempt to create a Masonic cipher.

[InCognitus]

38 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Critics? That shows their lack of acumen. 

It's evidence of another coded revelation proving the historicity of the event! This is clearly important evidence!

I wonder who will be the first to publish it !!?

Who knows, we may find this on some "Mormonism" opposition website some day.  

[InCognitus]

28 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Will Schryver has established irrefutably that this is in Rigdon's handwriting and is clearly an attempt to create a Masonic cipher.

Some have considered it to be by the hand of Reuben Hedlock from when he was just starting out in his engraving business.  The stick figure was an early attempt at drawing the head of the idolatrous priest of Elkenah for Facsimile No. 1 for the Book of Abraham.

[alter idem]

On 8/23/2020 at 1:51 PM, rockpond said:

I believe the concern is that if the JST was God revealing plain and precious truths that had been lost from the Bible, than Joseph Smith shouldn't be lifting them from another guy's book.

I'd argue that the Prophet can find and discern plain and precious truths from any source.

But, I've found that revelation comes not when I'm doing nothing, but when I am pondering and reading, often secular books. It's seems completely natural that if it was available to him, he would have read the commentary and as working on his own unique sort of commentary on the Bible, with a prayer for guidance, received revelation about what he was studying. 

[InCognitus]

 

Ok, back to getting serious in this thread (for me).  

10 minutes ago, alter idem said:

But, I've found that revelation comes not when I'm doing nothing, but when I am pondering and reading, often secular books. It's seems completely natural that if it was available to him, he would have read the commentary and as working on his own unique sort of commentary on the Bible, with a prayer for guidance, received revelation about what he was studying. 

In his LDS Perspectives podcast (Producing Ancient Scripture: Thomas Wayment on Joseph Smith's Use of Adam Clarke in the JST), Thomas Wayment pretty much says the same thing:

Quote

[Joseph Smith] talks about: “Seek ye out learning from the best books,” and Adam Clarke is literally, of his day, one of the top two, three, or four commentaries out there. It’s still quite good. He’s saying, “I went to these sources, I looked at them, I deliberated with those, and I made changes to the Bible based on what they said,” which is a very natural human process. I’m hesitant to say one part of the JST is revelatory, and one is not. That would be too simplistic. But I would say that Genesis is very revelatory, and that there are revelations like Matthew 24 in the other part as well.

Another thing I wanted to comment about was in the quote from Radio Free Mormon in the post from Tacenda:

On 8/31/2020 at 8:21 AM, Tacenda said:

C/P'd from intro:

Radio Free Mormon: 190: The Adam Clarke Connection

Now that new research has established the dependency of Joseph Smith’s Bible translation on the Adam Clarke Bible Commentary, RFM launches into a spate of new and additional ideas and inferences that can be drawn from this conclusion.  RFM shows how the Adam Clarke Bible Commentary may not only have influenced the JST, but also the Book of Mormon and even the Book of Abraham!  That’s the sign post up ahead!  Your next stop, The Adam Clarke Connection!

The claim that a "dependency"on the Adam Clarke Bible Commentary has been established is highly overblown and misconstrued, since the JST has huge sections that clearly did not come from the Adam Clarke Commentary (like Genesis and Matthew 24).  But if Joseph used the commentary for other changes and included them in the JST, then what's wrong with knowing that a prophet of God approved of those specific changes and included them in an inspired translation?  What about all the Adam Clarke Commentary stuff that Joseph didn't include in the translation?

This isn't a hard thing for people to figure out on their own.  Both the Adam Clarke Commentary and the Joseph Smith Translation are online for people to compare.  I like this one best for the Adam Clarke Commentary (there are some versions that show scanned images of the book pages like this one of volume 1, but they are harder to use), and this one for the Joseph Smith Translation since it shows only the verses that were changed comparing it to the KJV, and there's a combined KJV/JST full version online as well, here, but you have to sift out where the changes are in that one.  

 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, InCognitus said:

But if Joseph used the commentary for other changes and included them in the JST, then what's wrong with knowing that a prophet of God approved of those specific changes and included them in an inspired translation? 

It boils down imo to how people define a prophet.  If they (whether they realize it or not) require a prophet to only be directly communicating with God for infallible inspiration without being influenced or impacted by others who are most definitely fallible...in essence to exist in a separate, purely spiritual world in the presence of God unlike normal human beings, then seeing any influence outside of what amounts to a 'thus saith the Lord' may be understandably disconcerting.  

Anyone has access to what other humans say, there is nothing special about being inspired or taught by another human, so such is often seen as not special enough or spiritual by those with rigid views of what being a prophet is and how they should act.

I think they misinterpret scriptures like relying on the arm of flesh or mixing with the philosophies of men or forget that God has taught us that we can learn truths from even the simple things and that anyone can seek wisdom and receive answers, so nothing in scripture excludes learning inspired truths from other fallible mortals.  Our responsibility is to always seek confirmation of teachings by the Spirit, whether those teachings are from our neighbours, scholars, or a prophet.  If we don't dump the task of determining what is inspired on to others, I think we can be less concerned about where inspiration is found and more concerned about what we should be concerned about imo, which is what is inspired and how we are to use such inspired truths, ideas, and directions in our lives.

[InCognitus]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

It boils down imo to how people define a prophet.  If they (whether they realize it or not) require a prophet to only be directly communicating with God for infallible inspiration without being influenced or impacted by others who are most definitely fallible...in essence to exist in a separate, purely spiritual world in the presence of God unlike normal human beings, then seeing any influence outside of what amounts to a 'thus saith the Lord' may be understandably disconcerting.  

I agree, and in this case I think it also depends on how you view the purpose of the Joseph Smith translation.  If we view the intent of the project to be producing a complete book of scripture comparable to the Book of Mormon, then it may be more troubling to know that Joseph used other sources to produce it.  But if we view it (as I see it) as a project designed to teach Joseph Smith and to get him thinking and asking questions, questions leading to other revelations such as Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants (and many others), then using other sources isn't a concern at all.  The fact that the Church has canonized only portions of the JST should give us some indication on how it should be used and understood as well.

[mfbukowski]

On 8/27/2020 at 11:20 AM, Scott Lloyd said:

That would not have to be the “apologetic” if, as Jackson is claiming, the instances of resemblance between the Joseph Smith Translation and the Clarke commentary are “superficial” and “coincidental.”  I look forward to seeing Jackson’s analysis on this. 
 

But, as Jackson is pointing out, there would be nothing wrong with a scholar, through his own reasoning, arriving at truth and Joseph Smith subsequently being alerted to that truth through exposure to the scholar’s work and then having it confirmed through divine revelation — if indeed that is what happened. Your remark reflects inordinate and uncalled for cynicism and sneering disdain on your part. 

We also know that God assembled the universe from previously existing matter by "recycling" it, and that the commandments are eternal etc., no reason what worked in previous eternities as natural laws would not work here.

I have also thought that that might make an apologetic argument for evolution for some people.  The process itself might be seen as being repeated, and honed to perfection experimentally through an infinity of iterations.

That would not even be "intelligent design", just observations of what works environmentally to achieve the desired results

If God himself has a human body it had to come from somewhere.

That's not a view I accept but I can see that it is could be a coherent paradigm.

[InCognitus]

While I was out on my walk today in beautiful Provo (it's my last day here on this trip so I was soaking up the scenery), I was listening to this talk by Elder Quentin L. Cook from the April General Conference:  The Blessing of Continuing Revelation to Prophets and Personal Revelation to Guide Our Lives.  And one part of his talk really hit me, and made me think of this topic:

Quote

Today I will speak on continuing revelation to prophets and continuing personal revelation to guide our lives.

Sometimes we receive revelation even when we do not know the Lord’s purposes. Shortly before Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was called to be an Apostle in June of 1994, I had a beautiful revelatory experience that he would be called. I was a regional representative and could see no reason I would be given that knowledge. But we were companions as young missionaries in England in the early 1960s, and I had a great love for him. I considered the experience a tender mercy for me. In recent years, I have wondered if the Lord was preparing me to be junior in the Twelve to an incredible missionary companion who was my junior companion when we were young missionaries.  I sometimes warn young missionaries to be kind to their junior companions because they never know when they might be their senior companion.

I have a firm testimony that this restored Church is led by our Savior, Jesus Christ. He knows whom to call as His Apostles and in what order to call them. He also knows how to prepare His senior Apostle to be the prophet and President of the Church.

This made me think about the early restored church and what preparation that Joseph Smith received for him to be the prophet.  Joseph didn't have the opportunity to serve in the church for decades and learn how to be led by the Spirit and to follow in the example of others before him like the General Authorities of today.  He had to be trained in other ways, and I firmly understand the translation of the Bible project to be an essential part of that training process.