"...as far as it is translated correctly."

[Leaf474]

Can one use the little voice to correctly translate the Bible?

 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/2015/09/to-the-point/what-does-the-eighth-article-of-faith-mean-when-it-says-we-believe-the-bible-to-be-the-word-of-god-as-far-as-it-is-translated-correctly?lang=eng

[manol]

6 hours ago, Leaf474 said:

Can one use the little voice to correctly translate the Bible?

The following is just my opinion.  For context, I'm no longer LDS.

I assume you're talking about the "still, small voice" that speaks peace to your soul, sometimes called the Holy Spirit.  Imo one can definitely listen to the still, small voice when studying the Bible (or any other book), but I wouldn't use the term "translate" in the scholarly sense.  

Assuming that one's intention is to draw closer to God, the accuracy of the translation isn't necessarily the most important thing.  A bad teaching or useless information translated correctly does no one any good.  The truth and usefulness of the teaching is far more important, and there are many true and useful teachings in the Bible.  Those parts qualify as "the word of God". 

I don't think it's a good idea to label the Bible (or any other book) as "the word of God".  While there are teachings in the Bible that the still, small voice will confirm as being effectively the word of God, most of the Bible is the word of whoever wrote that part.  The problem with labeling the entirety of the Bible as "the word of God" is that doing so falsely elevates those parts which are not "the word of God" to equal status with those parts which are.  And then we feel compelled to contort our paradigms to incorporate the unsavory parts of the Bible right alongside those parts which taste sweet to our souls.  The still, small voice will tell you which teachings in the Bible (or any other book) can and do align your soul to God, and the rest of the content doesn't really matter. 

The still, small voice is connection with God. 

In my opinion.

 

Edited March 18 by manol

[ksfisher]

6 hours ago, Leaf474 said:

Can one use the little voice to correctly translate the Bible?

Who do you mean by one?

As far as personal meaning you and I can receive inspiration as to how scriptures apply in our lives.

If we're talking about interpreting the bible as a church then that would be something at would come through the First Presidency.

[Leaf474]

2 hours ago, manol said:

The following is just my opinion.  For context, I'm no longer LDS.

I assume you're talking about the "still, small voice" that speaks peace to your soul, sometimes called the Holy Spirit.  Imo one can definitely listen to the still, small voice when studying the Bible (or any other book), but I wouldn't use the term "translate" in the scholarly sense.  

Assuming that one's intention is to draw closer to God, the accuracy of the translation isn't necessarily the most important thing.  A bad teaching or useless information translated correctly does no one any good.  The truth and usefulness of the teaching is far more important, and there are many true and useful teachings in the Bible.  Those parts qualify as "the word of God". 

I don't think it's a good idea to label the Bible (or any other book) as "the word of God".  While there are teachings in the Bible that the still, small voice will confirm as being effectively the word of God, most of the Bible is the word of whoever wrote that part.  The problem with labeling the entirety of the Bible as "the word of God" is that doing so falsely elevates those parts which are not "the word of God" to equal status with those parts which are.  And then we feel compelled to contort our paradigms to incorporate the unsavory parts of the Bible right alongside those parts which taste sweet to our souls.  The still, small voice will tell you which teachings in the Bible (or any other book) can and do align your soul to God, and the rest of the content doesn't really matter. 

The still, small voice is connection with God. 

In my opinion.

 

Interesting way of putting it ❤️👍 I think I see it much the same way.

[Leaf474]

24 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Who do you mean by one?

An individual, a person.

 

24 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

As far as personal meaning you and I can receive inspiration as to how scriptures apply in our lives.

Would that be what the church means by "translate"?

 

24 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

If we're talking about interpreting the bible as a church then that would be something at would come through the First Presidency.

 

[Stargazer]

As far as the "translated correctly" thing, I believe that one needs to add "transmitted correctly" to the occasion. 

Prominent scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman changed from being a believing evangelical Christian to an agnostic atheist after discovering that, contrary to his belief in biblical inerrancy, "...we had over 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament, and no two of them are exactly alike. The scribes were changing them, sometimes in big ways, but lots of times in little ways. And it finally occurred to me that if I really thought that God had inspired this text [...] If he went to the trouble of inspiring the text, why didn't he go to the trouble of preserving the text? Why did he allow scribes to change it?" (from an article HERE).

The point here is that if a false text is transmitted, no amount of correct translation is going to produce true scripture.

The most egregious example of additional text that appears to be added much later than the original text is the Johannine Comma, which occurs in 1 John 5:7–8. 

7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

The comma is the part in red above. It is absent from almost all Greek manuscripts of the New Testament along with being totally absent in the Ethiopic, Aramaic, Syriac, Slavic, Armenian, Georgian, and Arabic translations of the Greek New Testament. The passage first appears in Old Latin and Vulgate manuscripts of the Scriptures, beginning in the sixth century. Some modern translations of the scriptures do not include the comma, due to its apparent spurious nature. It seems clear that someone added these words in order to reinforce an apostate doctrine of the Trinity. <- I am sorry if that offends anyone.

And the question then leaps out: What else has been changed in order to promote false doctrines? Or removed in order to eliminate truths that were uncomfortable?

Personally, I feel that the New Testament we have today is largely correctly transmitted. And where there are errors, modern revelation does address them. Dr. Ehrman's concerns notwithstanding, we have a more sure word of prophecy.

 

 

[manol]

46 minutes ago, Leaf474 said:

Interesting way of putting it ❤️👍 I think I see it much the same way.

Thanks.  How would you put it, if you don't mind? 

[Leaf474]

23 hours ago, manol said:

Thanks.  How would you put it, if you don't mind? 

Well, let's see...

 

I wouldn't think to look first and foremost to a supernatural communication of information to translate in a scholarly sense; I would look to a scholar for that: a person who has studied the original language for decades.

 

As a trinitarian Christian, I think the still small voice comes from the Holy Spirit, but that's probably not the most common way the Spirit communicates. The more common way, imo, is by pricking our conscience - the sense that something isn't right about what we're doing.

 

About the Bible, I'd say it contains the word of God. But it isn't synonymous with that. What percentage isn't? I don't know 😀

 

So I think my answer to the question in the OP is: Yes, I think so (in the non-scholarly interpretation since that the Church uses it in the link in the OP).

 

Did I answer your question? 🙂❤️

[Leaf474]

23 hours ago, Stargazer said:

As far as the "translated correctly" thing, I believe that one needs to add "transmitted correctly" to the occasion.

Right, I think that's talked about in the link in the OP 🙂

 

So... Can one use the little voice to do that?

 

23 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Prominent scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman changed from being a believing evangelical Christian to an agnostic atheist after discovering that, contrary to his belief in biblical inerrancy, "...we had over 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament, and no two of them are exactly alike. The scribes were changing them, sometimes in big ways, but lots of times in little ways. And it finally occurred to me that if I really thought that God had inspired this text [...] If he went to the trouble of inspiring the text, why didn't he go to the trouble of preserving the text? Why did he allow scribes to change it?" (from an article HERE).

The point here is that if a false text is transmitted, no amount of correct translation is going to produce true scripture.

The most egregious example of additional text that appears to be added much later than the original text is the Johannine Comma, which occurs in 1 John 5:7–8. 

7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

The comma is the part in red above. It is absent from almost all Greek manuscripts of the New Testament along with being totally absent in the Ethiopic, Aramaic, Syriac, Slavic, Armenian, Georgian, and Arabic translations of the Greek New Testament. The passage first appears in Old Latin and Vulgate manuscripts of the Scriptures, beginning in the sixth century. Some modern translations of the scriptures do not include the comma, due to its apparent spurious nature. It seems clear that someone added these words in order to reinforce an apostate doctrine of the Trinity. <- I am sorry if that offends anyone.

And the question then leaps out: What else has been changed in order to promote false doctrines? Or removed in order to eliminate truths that were uncomfortable?

Personally, I feel that the New Testament we have today is largely correctly transmitted. And where there are errors, modern revelation does address them. Dr. Ehrman's concerns notwithstanding, we have a more sure word of prophecy.

 

 

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 3/18/2024 at 9:56 AM, Leaf474 said:

Can one use the little voice to correctly translate the Bible?

Brigham Young, in a sermon in 1862 said this:

Quote

When God speaks to the people, he does it in a manner to suit their circumstances and capacities. … Should the Lord Almighty send an angel to rewrite the Bible, it would in many places be very different from what it now is. And I will even venture to say that if the Book of Mormon were now to be rewritten, in many instances it would materially differ from the present translation.

I have a fairly nuanced view of the idea of translation. I think these are hard questions to ask without setting out the necessary assumptions - who is the author of the Bible, what is the Bible's purpose, and so on. For us to talk about correctly translating the Bible means also that we have some sense about what it means to translate at all. For me, it is about reading a text in one context and trying to move that reading experience into another language with another context. But the moment that we start talking about it being read (the entire purpose of a translation really) we have already lost control of that meaning as a translator. In this sense, there is no "correct" translation of the Bible, there are only competing experiences, some of which may be better than others.

For us to talk about the role of the "little voice," that role is far more important when we read, than it is when we translate it. And let's face it, once a text is a few thousand years old, our ability to read it correctly - and so to translate it correctly - in any meaningful way isn't really possible. And this is true no matter how we define the word 'correctly'. @Stargazer's concerns about transmission may be true, but ultimately are unhelpful, since we have no way of discovering what we do not know. To call the Johanine Comma the most egregious problem of transmission is really to accept the idea that the text is largely intact. David Clines tells us that:

Quote

My claim is that, all things considered, it is likely that at least one word in every 4.1 in the Hebrew Bible is open to doubt text-critically speaking. ... In the end, the argument of this lecture does not turn on the resultant figure; for it is much the same situation whether it is one word in two or one word in four that we can reasonably estimate is a variant in our Hebrew texts. For the overriding consideration is that (except for the cases where variants are still extant)
we do not know which word it is that is the variant. For most practical purposes, it is as if every single word in the Hebrew Bible was a known variant, and as if we possessed an entirely uncertain text. The text of the Hebrew Bible is thus in a state of radical uncertainty.

The issue isn't really about our being able to find the unprovable original text, and place it in its unknowable original context. The question is, as Nephi tells us, can we liken the text unto ourselves, and with the 'little voice' come to some greater understanding of our own condition.

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, Leaf474 said:

Right, I think that's talked about in the link in the OP 🙂

Sorry, didn't read it.

2 hours ago, Leaf474 said:

So... Can one use the little voice to do that?

Not sure where you're going with this, but the "little voice" isn't there to translate the scriptures. That is something a bit more involved, as it were.

Here's some examples of the "little voice":

• An LDS US soldier in WW2 found a hand-cranked phonograph while clearing a building of enemy soldiers in France. He went back to it after making sure that the building was clear, and was about to crank the phonograph in order to hear the music record that was mounted. But as he reached for it, he "heard" a voice say "Don't!" He hesitated for a moment, and then reached out again. Again came the voice: "Don't!" He decided there was a reason for what he "heard" and so he carefully checked out the machine, discovering that it had been set with explosives that would go off when the crank was turned.
• A brother in a stake in Washington state received a strong impression that he was going to be called to be the next bishop of his ward. Since the stake president lived in his ward, he decided to see if he could be less visible by spending more Sundays over the summer with him and his family frequently attending another ward out on the coast where they owned a holiday cottage. It didn't matter, he was called anyway. The morning he was sustained, the ward clerk showed up late for bishopric meeting, and when he learned that the bishopric members had not discussed anything because they had learned they were to be released that day, the clerk headed to the chapel to get ready for the meeting. As he walked down the hallway, he saw that one of the classrooms had its light on. He thought to himself that he should turn the light off, when a "lilttle voice" said to him "The new bishop is in that room." When he poked his head in the doorway, he saw a man he knew, and they exchanged greetings. That man was sustained as the new bishop about a half-hour later.
• A brother and his wife woke up one morning having both had a dream that he was to be called to be the stake patriarch. A few days later they were called to visit with the stake president, who proceeded to issue the call, but for them to give it some thought before accepting it. They replied that they could already give their answer, citing what they had been told in their dreams.
• A brother was sitting with his wife in a joint Relief Society/Priesthood meeting during a ward conference. They were sitting in the overflow, with about 150 adults (or more) in the chapel alone, with more in the cultural hall. The brother suddenly got the distinct impression that the stake presidency counselor was going to call him up to speak to the matter that the counselor was then addressing. But the meeting finished without this happening. Chalking it up to his own imagination, he shrugged and went out to the foyer after the meeting. In amongst the rest of the crowd of people who were moving to leave the building, since the day's meetings were over, he happened to run into the stake presidency counselor. After shaking hands, the counselor said to the brother that he had thought to call him up to the stand to bear testimony of what he had been talking about, but had decided to spare him after all. The brother said "You should have! I was told you were going to do it, so I was marshalling my thoughts to speak in support of what you were telling us!" 
• Rather a long time ago, after the crucifixion of Christ, and the same day as his resurrection, Cleopas and another brother were walking towards Emmaus when they were joined by a man who upon inquiring what they had been discussing, told him of the rumor they had heard that the executed Jesus had been resurrected, and that they discounted the tale. This fellow rebuked them for their disbelief, explaining why the story was likely true. They invited him to eat with them, and when he broke the bread they recognized him as the risen Christ, whereupon he vanished from their sight. "And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" That burning is another form of the "little voice".
• Even more anciently this was the still, small voice that Elijah heard as documented in 1 Kings 19. 

It's possible that understanding the intent of a passage of scripture could be an instance of the "little voice." But the translation of the Book of Mormon, or the writings of Moses and Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, are more than just that still small voice. 

[Stargazer]

42 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

in any meaningful way isn't really possible. And this is true no matter how we define the word 'correctly'. @Stargazer's concerns about transmission may be true, but ultimately are unhelpful, since we have no way of discovering what we do not know. To call the Johanine Comma the most egregious problem of transmission is really to accept the idea that the text is largely intact.

With due respect, my mention of the Johannine Comma did not constitute an acceptance of the idea that the text is largely intact. I cited it as an obvious example. If you recall, I wrote about Bart Ehrman's loss of faith discovering that the New Testament was essentially a bucket of bolts flying in formation. LOL. You shouldn't try to put words in my mouth. Again.

It is not entirely true that knowledge of the unreliability of scriptural transmission is unhelpful. On the contrary, that knowledge is what leads me to seek better clarification by study of more reliable scripture, such as found in the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. And I'd add to that the clarification that I have received from time to time upon prayerfully seeking after inspiration via the Holy Spirit, as Peter urges in 2 Peter 1:

19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Edited March 20 by Stargazer

[Benjamin McGuire]

10 hours ago, Stargazer said:

With due respect, my mention of the Johannine Comma did not constitute an acceptance of the idea that the text is largely intact. I cited it as an obvious example. If you recall, I wrote about Bart Ehrman's loss of faith discovering that the New Testament was essentially a bucket of bolts flying in formation. LOL. You shouldn't try to put words in my mouth. Again.

I think that this is highly illustrative of part of the problem that we deal with when we talk about texts, reading and translation. Once you write something, and put it out there, it is out there. It has to be interpreted. This is as true of a statement made on a forum as it is of an ancient text. What Stargazer wrote was this:

On 3/18/2024 at 5:17 PM, Stargazer said:

The most egregious example of additional text that appears to be added much later than the original text is the Johannine Comma, which occurs in 1 John 5:7–8. 

Let's be clear that when I interpret this, I am not putting words in his mouth - I am simply interpreting the message that I read. And everything that I wrote above about the biblical text and reading that text applies just as much to a message written here. When Stargazer writes that this is "the most egregious example" what that means is that all other possible examples are less egregious. Yet, there is no evidence that this is remotely accurate. And as Clines would suggest, there is a lot of evidence that can be used to argue that this is in fact not true at all. For us to believe that this is as bad as it gets (the definition of egregious is: "outstandingly bad; shocking.") is to suggest that everything else is not so bad. And yet, as Clines would argue, this sort of claim bolsters the text that we have against the evidence that the text provides of its own inconsistency. Which is what I suggested in my post.

11 hours ago, Stargazer said:

It is not entirely true that knowledge of the unreliability of scriptural transmission is unhelpful. On the contrary, that knowledge is what leads me to seek better clarification by study of more reliable scripture, such as found in the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price.

And yet, the challenge here is that all scripture displays these same problems. The question is, on what basis would you argue that the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants or the Pearl of Great Price are somehow more reliable than the Bible? On the basis of Brigham Young's statement, we could clearly argue that if they were revealed again today, they would be substantially different. What do we do with the textual history of the D&C which shows a history of changes to the text that occur within a relatively short period of time? What do we think of the missing first two chapters of Mosiah? Or the question of whether or not the Words of Mormon contain parts from the end of that second chapter of Mosiah that didn't disappear with the rest of the first two chapters? How should we consider the idea that the "sticks of Ezekiel" is an interpolation in Section 27 of the D&C, added to the original revelation (provided in 1830), on the basis of a suggestion made by William Phelps in 1831 - a suggestion which we generally recognize as terribly flawed and based on a poor understanding provided by the King James text? One of the things that I am personally quite certain of is that if the Book of Mormon were to be retranslated today (as Brigham Young suggested), it would not be so tightly connected to the language of the King James version of the Bible.

On the issue of reading with the spirit, I don't have any major disagreements with you. But I will stand by my comments that that this push for what we might consider the original or authoritative text is ultimately meaningless - both in the impossibility of the task of trying to recover something to a standard we wouldn't be able to recognize in its entirety and by the problem of the gap between us as readers and the intended original audience of the texts. It is this gap that Brigham Young is referring to. Our only real alternative is what Nephi suggests in his likening strategy - and this is something he not only tells us, but also provides us with examples.

When you argue that you are seeking clarification of the Biblical text through modern scripture, it is this strategy of Nephi's that you are using. But we should never confuse this with returning to some original meaning of the text - which no application of modern scripture can ever give us.

[Stargazer]

12 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I think that this is highly illustrative of part of the problem that we deal with when we talk about texts, reading and translation. Once you write something, and put it out there, it is out there. It has to be interpreted. This is as true of a statement made on a forum as it is of an ancient text. What Stargazer wrote was this:

Let's be clear that when I interpret this, I am not putting words in his mouth - I am simply interpreting the message that I read. And everything that I wrote above about the biblical text and reading that text applies just as much to a message written here. When Stargazer writes that this is "the most egregious example" what that means is that all other possible examples are less egregious. Yet, there is no evidence that this is remotely accurate. And as Clines would suggest, there is a lot of evidence that can be used to argue that this is in fact not true at all. For us to believe that this is as bad as it gets (the definition of egregious is: "outstandingly bad; shocking.") is to suggest that everything else is not so bad. And yet, as Clines would argue, this sort of claim bolsters the text that we have against the evidence that the text provides of its own inconsistency. Which is what I suggested in my post.

It is my opinion that it is the "most egregious" in a sea of egregiosity. And it's entirely possible, I feel, that all other examples are, in fact, less egregious. But still egregious. Would you prefer that I had written "one of the most egregious" instead? But maybe the Johannine Comma is the most egregious -- simply because it is the most obvious (to me, at least). Your mileage may vary, as they say. 

By the way, the definition of egregious has changed over time. Archaically, it used to signify "remarkably good." And the way English goes, it may mean that again, if the evolution of "sick" teaches us anything.

12 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

And yet, the challenge here is that all scripture displays these same problems. The question is, on what basis would you argue that the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants or the Pearl of Great Price are somehow more reliable than the Bible? On the basis of Brigham Young's statement, we could clearly argue that if they were revealed again today, they would be substantially different.

I completely agree with Brother Brigham. This is because God addresses the concerns of His children in their time and their language, not someone else's. The Book of Mormon seems to have been given in a form that was consistent with the expectations of those who received it at the time. Would God have given the text today exactly the way He gave it then? I should think not.

I said the BoM, PoGP/Moses/Abraham, and D&C are more reliable than the Bible, not that they are perfect. 

On what basis do I argue that the modern-day revealed canon is more reliable than the Bible? I say so because of the method of their delivery -- which was through a modern-day prophet whom I believe was guided directly by God. They are not at all like the Old and New Testaments, which besides having been originally given in languages we may no longer fully understand, were then transmitted via potentially problematic routes prone to mistransmission, and finally translated by fallible men who may in many cases have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, but who were translating to be supportive of their belief in a number of apostate doctrines -- which is why we got the Johannine Comma, to hark back to my old point.

12 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

What do we do with the textual history of the D&C which shows a history of changes to the text that occur within a relatively short period of time? What do we think of the missing first two chapters of Mosiah? Or the question of whether or not the Words of Mormon contain parts from the end of that second chapter of Mosiah that didn't disappear with the rest of the first two chapters? How should we consider the idea that the "sticks of Ezekiel" is an interpolation in Section 27 of the D&C, added to the original revelation (provided in 1830), on the basis of a suggestion made by William Phelps in 1831 - a suggestion which we generally recognize as terribly flawed and based on a poor understanding provided by the King James text? One of the things that I am personally quite certain of is that if the Book of Mormon were to be retranslated today (as Brigham Young suggested), it would not be so tightly connected to the language of the King James version of the Bible.

Having read Don Bradley's "The Lost 116 Pages" I am unsurprised that Mosiah is missing its first two chapters. And am unconcerned "whether or not the Words of Mormon contain parts from the end of that second chapter of Mosiah that didn't disappear with the rest of the first two chapters".  As I said, due to entirely predicted contrary events, the text of the Book of Mormon has some issues, but these "mistakes of men" do not substantially detract from its reliability. In my opinion, at least, it's far more reliable than the Bible. The same applies to the rest of our modern canon of scripture. 

What is the Old Testament? It is said by some that the Pentateuch was a traditional story created and handed down orally until it was written down at some unknown time, by one or more unknown people. Who came up with it? Moses? And who was Moses? A real man, or a placeholder for an unknown man or group of men? When was it written down? Who wrote it? Nobody knows. Was what they wrote down exactly word for word what the oral tradition contained? How many versions of the thing existed (surely not everyone transmitting it orally over centuries got every single word absolutely correct, or failed to include some things, or added extras not in the original)? And then we have the histories. Who wrote those things down? And then we have the prophets. Probably more reliable, as they seem to me, at least, to have been written contemporaneously with the utterances of the prophets involved.. And may have survived mostly intact.

What is the New Testament? It is three synoptic and one non-synoptic stories of the ministry of Jesus, along with with a book of history (Acts), followed by several epistles and one apocalypse. When were they written? Who wrote them? We don't actually know, do we? Though we can make some pretty good estimations. Can they be trusted to be pure unadulterated truth? Bart Ehrman expected a single, inerrant and consistently constructed figurative airplane, but lost his faith when he discovered to his dismay that it was, to use my earlier phrase, "a bucket of bolts flying in formation."

And yes, I'm using overdramatized imagery.

12 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

On the issue of reading with the spirit, I don't have any major disagreements with you. But I will stand by my comments that that this push for what we might consider the original or authoritative text is ultimately meaningless - both in the impossibility of the task of trying to recover something to a standard we wouldn't be able to recognize in its entirety and by the problem of the gap between us as readers and the intended original audience of the texts. It is this gap that Brigham Young is referring to. Our only real alternative is what Nephi suggests in his likening strategy - and this is something he not only tells us, but also provides us with examples.

When you argue that you are seeking clarification of the Biblical text through modern scripture, it is this strategy of Nephi's that you are using. But we should never confuse this with returning to some original meaning of the text - which no application of modern scripture can ever give us.

And I am not confusing that strategy with returning to the original meaning of the text. I'm pretty sure we'll never see the original meaning of the text in this life.

[mfbukowski]

On 3/18/2024 at 11:05 AM, manol said:

The following is just my opinion.  For context, I'm no longer LDS.

I assume you're talking about the "still, small voice" that speaks peace to your soul, sometimes called the Holy Spirit.  Imo one can definitely listen to the still, small voice when studying the Bible (or any other book), but I wouldn't use the term "translate" in the scholarly sense.  

Assuming that one's intention is to draw closer to God, the accuracy of the translation isn't necessarily the most important thing.  A bad teaching or useless information translated correctly does no one any good.  The truth and usefulness of the teaching is far more important, and there are many true and useful teachings in the Bible.  Those parts qualify as "the word of God". 

I don't think it's a good idea to label the Bible (or any other book) as "the word of God".  While there are teachings in the Bible that the still, small voice will confirm as being effectively the word of God, most of the Bible is the word of whoever wrote that part.  The problem with labeling the entirety of the Bible as "the word of God" is that doing so falsely elevates those parts which are not "the word of God" to equal status with those parts which are.  And then we feel compelled to contort our paradigms to incorporate the unsavory parts of the Bible right alongside those parts which taste sweet to our souls.  The still, small voice will tell you which teachings in the Bible (or any other book) can and do align your soul to God, and the rest of the content doesn't really matter. 

The still, small voice is connection with God. 

In my opinion.

 

Yep.

How does that saying go?

"The philosophies of men mangled by scripture" ??

😳😲

 

 

[manol]

19 hours ago, Leaf474 said:

As a trinitarian Christian, I think the still small voice comes from the Holy Spirit, but that's probably not the most common way the Spirit communicates. The more common way, imo, is by pricking our conscience - the sense that something isn't right about what we're doing.

About the Bible, I'd say it contains the word of God. But it isn't synonymous with that. What percentage isn't? I don't know 😀...

Did I answer your question? 🙂❤️

Yes you did! 

Do you consider yourself a member of a particular trinitarian religion?  If so, is "the Bible contains the word of God" rather than "the Bible is the word of God" consistent with what your religion teaches, or is that your conclusion? 

Edited March 20 by manol

[Teancum]

On 3/18/2024 at 5:17 PM, Stargazer said:

Personally, I feel that the New Testament we have today is largely correctly transmitted. And where there are errors, modern revelation does address them. Dr. Ehrman's concerns notwithstanding, we have a more sure word of prophecy.

 

Have you read any of Ehrman's books?

[Benjamin McGuire]

5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

And I am not confusing that strategy with returning to the original meaning of the text. I'm pretty sure we'll never see the original meaning of the text in this life.

I think that this still presents the problem I am trying to address.

There is zero value for us in the original meaning of the text. It would do us no good to have it. After all, not a single one of us (today) is anything at all like the original audience for which that text was intended. The further we are from that intended audience, the less value that original meaning has. Only as we keep bringing the text into the present do these texts become meaningful to us.

In this sense, the Book of Mormon (as a text) is more reliable now than it ever will be in the future. It is not as reliable now as it was a hundred years ago. And the search for the original text of the Book of Mormon is as irrelevant as the search for the original text of the New Testament in the question of truth. Like the Bible, we have to keep bringing the text of the Book of Mormon into the present to make it meaningful.

At any rate, I doubt that we have enough in common here to make the discussion worth continuing.

Edited March 20 by Benjamin McGuire

[Leaf474]

20 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Brigham Young, in a sermon in 1862 said this:

I have a fairly nuanced view of the idea of translation. I think these are hard questions to ask without setting out the necessary assumptions - who is the author of the Bible, what is the Bible's purpose, and so on. For us to talk about correctly translating the Bible means also that we have some sense about what it means to translate at all. For me, it is about reading a text in one context and trying to move that reading experience into another language with another context. But the moment that we start talking about it being read (the entire purpose of a translation really) we have already lost control of that meaning as a translator. In this sense, there is no "correct" translation of the Bible, there are only competing experiences, some of which may be better than others.

For us to talk about the role of the "little voice," that role is far more important when we read, than it is when we translate it. And let's face it, once a text is a few thousand years old, our ability to read it correctly - and so to translate it correctly - in any meaningful way isn't really possible. And this is true no matter how we define the word 'correctly'. @Stargazer's concerns about transmission may be true, but ultimately are unhelpful, since we have no way of discovering what we do not know. To call the Johanine Comma the most egregious problem of transmission is really to accept the idea that the text is largely intact. David Clines tells us that:

The issue isn't really about our being able to find the unprovable original text, and place it in its unknowable original context. The question is, as Nephi tells us, can we liken the text unto ourselves, and with the 'little voice' come to some greater understanding of our own condition.

Thanks for your input ❤️ The eighth article of faith must mean something when it says,

"We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly..."

 

Since it says "as far as", the implication is that at least some part of it has been translated correctly. Of course, it could be understood as "We will believe the Bible to be the word of God if it is ever translated correctly..."

 

Since the article of faith expresses it as something which has happened or could potentially happen, there must be some meaning attached to it by the author or by the prophet today.

 

Whatever meaning is attached to it by the author or prophet, can that happen for an individual with the help of the little voice?

[Leaf474]

21 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Sorry, didn't read it.

That's cool, I've done the same thing ❤️ 🙂

 

21 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Not sure where you're going with this, but the "little voice" isn't there to translate the scriptures. That is something a bit more involved, as it were.

Here's some examples of the "little voice":

• An LDS US soldier in WW2 found a hand-cranked phonograph while clearing a building of enemy soldiers in France. He went back to it after making sure that the building was clear, and was about to crank the phonograph in order to hear the music record that was mounted. But as he reached for it, he "heard" a voice say "Don't!" He hesitated for a moment, and then reached out again. Again came the voice: "Don't!" He decided there was a reason for what he "heard" and so he carefully checked out the machine, discovering that it had been set with explosives that would go off when the crank was turned.
• A brother in a stake in Washington state received a strong impression that he was going to be called to be the next bishop of his ward. Since the stake president lived in his ward, he decided to see if he could be less visible by spending more Sundays over the summer with him and his family frequently attending another ward out on the coast where they owned a holiday cottage. It didn't matter, he was called anyway. The morning he was sustained, the ward clerk showed up late for bishopric meeting, and when he learned that the bishopric members had not discussed anything because they had learned they were to be released that day, the clerk headed to the chapel to get ready for the meeting. As he walked down the hallway, he saw that one of the classrooms had its light on. He thought to himself that he should turn the light off, when a "lilttle voice" said to him "The new bishop is in that room." When he poked his head in the doorway, he saw a man he knew, and they exchanged greetings. That man was sustained as the new bishop about a half-hour later.
• A brother and his wife woke up one morning having both had a dream that he was to be called to be the stake patriarch. A few days later they were called to visit with the stake president, who proceeded to issue the call, but for them to give it some thought before accepting it. They replied that they could already give their answer, citing what they had been told in their dreams.
• A brother was sitting with his wife in a joint Relief Society/Priesthood meeting during a ward conference. They were sitting in the overflow, with about 150 adults (or more) in the chapel alone, with more in the cultural hall. The brother suddenly got the distinct impression that the stake presidency counselor was going to call him up to speak to the matter that the counselor was then addressing. But the meeting finished without this happening. Chalking it up to his own imagination, he shrugged and went out to the foyer after the meeting. In amongst the rest of the crowd of people who were moving to leave the building, since the day's meetings were over, he happened to run into the stake presidency counselor. After shaking hands, the counselor said to the brother that he had thought to call him up to the stand to bear testimony of what he had been talking about, but had decided to spare him after all. The brother said "You should have! I was told you were going to do it, so I was marshalling my thoughts to speak in support of what you were telling us!" 
• Rather a long time ago, after the crucifixion of Christ, and the same day as his resurrection, Cleopas and another brother were walking towards Emmaus when they were joined by a man who upon inquiring what they had been discussing, told him of the rumor they had heard that the executed Jesus had been resurrected, and that they discounted the tale. This fellow rebuked them for their disbelief, explaining why the story was likely true. They invited him to eat with them, and when he broke the bread they recognized him as the risen Christ, whereupon he vanished from their sight. "And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" That burning is another form of the "little voice".
• Even more anciently this was the still, small voice that Elijah heard as documented in 1 Kings 19. 

 

21 hours ago, Stargazer said:

It's possible that understanding the intent of a passage of scripture could be an instance of the "little voice."

Okay, the still small voice could give you the intent of a passage of scripture. 

 

21 hours ago, Stargazer said:

But the translation of the Book of Mormon, or the writings of Moses and Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, are more than just that still small voice. 

Okay... and the translation of the Bible?

Edited March 20 by Leaf474

[Leaf474]

5 hours ago, manol said:

Yes you did! 

Do you consider yourself a member of a particular trinitarian religion?  If so, is "the Bible contains the word of God" rather than "the Bible is the word of God" consistent with what your religion teaches, or is that your conclusion? 

Well, I might be using "religion" differently than you are here, but I would call Christianity the religion, and there are many denominations within it.

 

I first heard the phrase "the Bible contains the word of God" from a Lutheran pastor. I think I've since heard the idea in other Protestant denominations where liberal ideas are tolerated, such as Methodist and Episcopalian.

 

I'm not completely sure where the Catholics and Orthodox stand on this.

 

I'm probably most comfortable with the idea that the Bible contains the word of God, but I'm open to other ideas. I'm even open to the idea that the original documents of the Bible contain a kind of mystical quality.

 

I currently attend both a Methodist Church and a Catholic Church with friends. I'm not a member of either - I consider myself a "generic Christian".

 

Thanks for asking ❤️ and again, did I answer your question?

[Benjamin McGuire]

1 hour ago, Leaf474 said:

Thanks for your input ❤️ The eighth article of faith must mean something when it says,

"We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly..."

I am sure it does have some meaning - but I think that it has an entirely different meaning today than it did in the 1840s. There is a history to the idea of translation and what that translation means in LDS thought - and in that history we see an extreme shift in the first decade of the 20th century. Joseph Smith had a relatively dim view of the King James translation - but when a new translation was produced (the Revised Version), suddenly many of the LDS leaders were opposed to new translations and spoke in glowing terms of the King James text. So, this idea is out there - but it isn't particularly meaningful to us as Latter-day Saints - because there is incredible resistance in the LDS Church today to using any of the much better translations of the Biblical text in favor of the King James text. So the idea here - at least as generally understood - is problematic at best. And this is especially true in the context in which we are discussing it here. What do we mean when we say Bible? What do we mean when we say "word of God"? And, what do we mean when we say "translated correctly"? For Joseph Smith, who wrote in 1832: "Oh Lord God, deliver us in thy due time from the little narrow prison almost as it were total darkness of paper pen and ink and a crooked broken scattered and imperfect language," there is something entirely different going on that the sort of understanding that we build from that article of faith today.

1 hour ago, Leaf474 said:

Since it says "as far as", the implication is that at least some part of it has been translated correctly. Of course, it could be understood as "We will believe the Bible to be the word of God if it is ever translated correctly..."

I think that this is probably a better understanding - although I would reduce it to a more general principle - we believe the Word of God when it is translated correctly. And what Brigham Young points out in the quote I used earlier is that to translate something correctly is highly dependent on the context in which it is read. That is, there is no correct translation that holds for every one, everywhere, at any time. It can only be translated correctly for a particular audience in a particular moment.

1 hour ago, Leaf474 said:

Since the article of faith expresses it as something which has happened or could potentially happen, there must be some meaning attached to it by the author or by the prophet today.

Whatever meaning is attached to it by the author or prophet, can that happen for an individual with the help of the little voice?

I think that both of these things are true. I would go even further (as I have in other places) and suggest that a prophet understands scripture through the same principles as anyone else does. And when a prophet explains scripture to everyone else, they do so through the lens of their own experience. And this means that the explanation is only helpful to a certain degree. This is the lesson of Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life. Lehi has a vision, Nephi asks to receive the same vision - but the experience for the two men is different. In fact, when Nephi's brothers ask what the river in the vision means, Nephi tells them this: "I said unto them that the water which my father saw was filthiness; and so much was his mind swallowed up in other things that he beheld not the filthiness of the water." (1 Ne. 15:26-27). And this tells us that even if Lehi and Nephi saw the same vision, the experience is different - it has different meaning for both of them (although much of it was the same we assume). The point though is this - if we listen to the prophet's vision - and the prophet's interpretation of the vision - we are no different from Laman and Lemuel. The only way to really understand it is to experience it. If we want the meaning that is intended for us individually, the only way to get it is individually. And this is in part the role of the 'little voice'.

I might even go so far as to suggest that the correct translation of the text (which isn't a translation of words in any sort of literal word-for-word construction) is the one which brings the text into the present moment from our experience and so becomes truly meaningful to us individually as readers.

In other words, if we stop at the meaning provided by the prophet, we are only half-way to where we ought to be. If we ever stop and say that the text has said all that it will ever say - then the text is dead to us. If I were to go back to that article of faith and take up the second part - about the Book of Mormon being the word of God, I would also point out that the Book of Mormon was contemporary to the early LDS believers. It spoke to them in a way they understood. It dealt with issues they were dealing with. If the Book of Mormon was a translation of an ancient text - that translation was still bringing the text into the present for them. And we (as Nephi says, and as I think Brigham Young suggests) need to be willing to continue to bring scripture into our present to produce a correct translation.

[Leaf474]

13 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I am sure it does have some meaning - but I think that it has an entirely different meaning today than it did in the 1840s. There is a history to the idea of translation and what that translation means in LDS thought - and in that history we see an extreme shift in the first decade of the 20th century. Joseph Smith had a relatively dim view of the King James translation - but when a new translation was produced (the Revised Version), suddenly many of the LDS leaders were opposed to new translations and spoke in glowing terms of the King James text. So, this idea is out there - but it isn't particularly meaningful to us as Latter-day Saints - because there is incredible resistance in the LDS Church today to using any of the much better translations of the Biblical text in favor of the King James text. So the idea here - at least as generally understood - is problematic at best. And this is especially true in the context in which we are discussing it here. What do we mean when we say Bible? What do we mean when we say "word of God"? And, what do we mean when we say "translated correctly"? For Joseph Smith, who wrote in 1832: "Oh Lord God, deliver us in thy due time from the little narrow prison almost as it were total darkness of paper pen and ink and a crooked broken scattered and imperfect language," there is something entirely different going on that the sort of understanding that we build from that article of faith today.

I think that this is probably a better understanding - although I would reduce it to a more general principle - we believe the Word of God when it is translated correctly. And what Brigham Young points out in the quote I used earlier is that to translate something correctly is highly dependent on the context in which it is read. That is, there is no correct translation that holds for every one, everywhere, at any time. It can only be translated correctly for a particular audience in a particular moment.

I think that both of these things are true. I would go even further (as I have in other places) and suggest that a prophet understands scripture through the same principles as anyone else does. And when a prophet explains scripture to everyone else, they do so through the lens of their own experience. And this means that the explanation is only helpful to a certain degree. This is the lesson of Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life. Lehi has a vision, Nephi asks to receive the same vision - but the experience for the two men is different. In fact, when Nephi's brothers ask what the river in the vision means, Nephi tells them this: "I said unto them that the water which my father saw was filthiness; and so much was his mind swallowed up in other things that he beheld not the filthiness of the water." (1 Ne. 15:26-27). And this tells us that even if Lehi and Nephi saw the same vision, the experience is different - it has different meaning for both of them (although much of it was the same we assume). The point though is this - if we listen to the prophet's vision - and the prophet's interpretation of the vision - we are no different from Laman and Lemuel. The only way to really understand it is to experience it. If we want the meaning that is intended for us individually, the only way to get it is individually. And this is in part the role of the 'little voice'.

 

13 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I might even go so far as to suggest that the correct translation of the text (which isn't a translation of words in any sort of literal word-for-word construction) is the one which brings the text into the present moment from our experience and so becomes truly meaningful to us individually as readers.

Is that what you believe? The correct translation is an individual matter?

 

(Not trying to back you into a corner or anything, just wondering 🙂 )

 

13 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

In other words, if we stop at the meaning provided by the prophet, we are only half-way to where we ought to be. If we ever stop and say that the text has said all that it will ever say - then the text is dead to us. If I were to go back to that article of faith and take up the second part - about the Book of Mormon being the word of God, I would also point out that the Book of Mormon was contemporary to the early LDS believers. It spoke to them in a way they understood. It dealt with issues they were dealing with. If the Book of Mormon was a translation of an ancient text - that translation was still bringing the text into the present for them. And we (as Nephi says, and as I think Brigham Young suggests) need to be willing to continue to bring scripture into our present to produce a correct translation.

Thanks for your input ❤️

[Benjamin McGuire]

24 minutes ago, Leaf474 said:

Is that what you believe? The correct translation is an individual matter?

More or less - it is an over-simplified perspective. It might be easier to say that I don't believe that a correct translation conceptually exists. I don't think that you can define the term "correct" in that context in a meaningful way. If you were to try and define the concept of a "correct translation" and in particular a "most correct translation," how would you do it?

[Leaf474]

26 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

More or less - it is an over-simplified perspective. It might be easier to say that I don't believe that a correct translation conceptually exists. I don't think that you can define the term "correct" in that context in a meaningful way. If you were to try and define the concept of a "correct translation" and in particular a "most correct translation," how would you do it?

Okay, I'm hearing that "correct" (and by extension "correctly") can't be defined in that context in a meaningful way. 

 

If that's what you're saying, then thanks for your input ❤️

 

(If that's not what you're saying, then I'm interested in hearing more 🙂 )