Brigham Young on Bible Translation

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Your example is not analogous.

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/2_ne/25/1,4-7#1

The Book of Mormon narrative makes it clear that Nephi included scripture from Isaiah. Therefore, it follows that the plates contained those scriptures, not some editorial insert from Joseph Smith.

I'm aware of what the BoM narrative says. Parsing what the plates "said" (or even knowing if they "said" anything at all) from what Joseph Smith "said" is nigh to impossible. What liberties Joseph Smith took in constructing the work we know as the BoM are not known.

Put simply, you can't demonstrate what the plates did or did not contain.

But then, I'm not interested in the attempt. Oh, I'm aware of the issues, but as far as I'm concerned all kinds of documents that don't make fantastic translation/inspiration claims are scripture. Documents that have been taken to be something other than what I believe them to be are scripture too.

I could go on and on, but it wouldn't change that I consider the BoM to be scripture. For me, it all comes down to faith and fruits. Reason, while useful for interrogating faith, can't replace it (the correlative opposite is also true).

Whatever our disagreements, we can agree that we have faith in the BoM as scripture, can't we?

[Tex]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

I've already replied to that post.

You didn't speak to the point of it being a bad analogy.

Originally Posted by Archaea

Do you believe we have sufficient detail as to the revelation process to exclude it as a possibility?

IMHO, we certainly lack significant details and it is ambiguous enough to include this logical possibility.

Given that there are no independent means of confirming the Book of Mormon's supernatural origins, I think we require something more than bald guessing, yes.

Originally Posted by Archaea

You are presuming quite a bit. It is equally logical God could have handed it to JS fully translated without erros. Why didn't he do that?

It is not illogical to make JS work as a translator, struggling through recognition so that he would grow and learn the principles more deeply than if it were just magically revealed to him in perfect form.

Can't you see the pedagogical value of God forcing a prophet to compare biblical passages, to ponder them and to verify their important in providing a midrashic work of revelation and translation? Those principles would be so well taught as to become ingrained within him.

I don't disagree with you, which is why Occam's razor doesn't really apply here. (read: you're making my point to Chino for me) The most logical solution is not necessarily the correct one.

Originally Posted by Archaea

Is that the only suggestion that this scenario provides?

Not necessarily. But the cognitive leap from "inspired copying" to plagiarism is tiny.

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

I'm aware of what the BoM narrative says. Parsing what the plates "said" (or even knowing if they "said" anything at all) from what Joseph Smith "said" is nigh to impossible. What liberties Joseph Smith took in constructing the work we know as the BoM are not known.

Put simply, you can't demonstrate what the plates did or did not contain.

Don't you think this is a specious argument? Was there ever any doubt on the minds of anyone associated with the prophet, to say nothing of the modern church today, that the plates contained the same Book we read today?

And does it not strike anyone as odd that we are continually seeing strange hypotheses about the original of the Book without the slightest support in the historical record?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Tex

And does it not strike anyone as odd that we are continually seeing strange hypotheses about the original of the Book without the slightest support in the historical record?

The independent record is deficient and incomplete, so why would it be logical to find an answer to a question with an incomplete record?

Relying upon a relatively empty transcript is a not a basis to dismiss theories based on clues within the text itself. That's the basis of academic textual critical analysis. That's what Skousen has been doing with the Amlicite versus Amalekite issue.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Tex

You didn't speak to the point of it being a bad analogy.

Yes I did. Indy was assuming that I didn't think Isaiah was actually on the plates, that's why he thought it was a bad analogy. Otherwise it is a sound analogy.

Why don't you just answer the question? Do you think NT writers were scandalous when they copied and pasted from the mistranslated LXX and passed them off as Jesus' quotations when Jesus was really quoting that Masoretic Text?

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Tex

Don't you think this is a specious argument? Was there ever any doubt on the minds of anyone associated with the prophet, to say nothing of the modern church today, that the plates contained the same Book we read today?

And does it not strike anyone as odd that we are continually seeing strange hypotheses about the original of the Book without the slightest support in the historical record?

It isn't specious in the least. Guessing as to what was on the minds of Joseph Smith's contemporaries, and appealing to the masses, is.

By "the plates contained the same book" do you mean that Jacobian English (and even the King James Bible text) was on the plates?

Beyond the fact that knowing what was on the plates is nigh to impossible, how are you accounting for the textual changes in the various editions of the BoM?

And who is "we?" Copies of the BoM that aren't in English don't have Jacobian English in them (they have a translation in their own languages, but I don't know the word-for-word and dynamic equivalence stuff going on in all of those translations. I suspect that it is not consistent).

I don't know what you're referring to with your "hypotheses about the original of the Book."

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Tex

Not necessarily. But the cognitive leap from "inspired copying" to plagiarism is tiny.

This is what I'm just not getting at all.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Tex

And does it not strike anyone as odd that we are continually seeing strange hypotheses about the original of the Book without the slightest support in the historical record?

No support in historical record?

We have the original manuscript.

The original manuscript repeats errors perpetuated in the KJV.

Hence, the the textual evidence says the Prophet used the KJV for certain portions.

NT writers did the same.

Hence, using other sources, even if they're imperfect, is within bounds of a prophetic calling.

Hence, I'm right.

Q.E.D.

[jay santos]

This stuff is a bit above my head but I was reading to see what the big problem was about JS inserting Isaiah KJV.

Tex, is the anti-Mormon stuff you're worried about this concerning Isaiah disunity and the possibility of some of the Nephi Isaiah chapters being written after Nephi lived?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by BlueK

No, but if he were inspired to do that very thing I wouldn't have a problem with it either. But as some have pointed out, there is no supporting evidence that he did the copy and paste thing. It's kind of hard to do that with your head stuck in a hat. Even the anti's can't get around that.

I am pretty sure that the "face in the hat" document did not indicate that it was the only technique he used.

[Chapel-Hill-Coug]

Originally Posted by jay santos

This stuff is a bit above my head but I was reading to see what the big problem was about JS inserting Isaiah KJV.

Tex, is the anti-Mormon stuff you're worried about this concerning Isaiah disunity and the possibility of some of the Nephi Isaiah chapters being written after Nephi lived?

Quoting the KJV directly is the least of the BOM problems. My understanding, from a colleague who studied this carefully, is that the ONLY reasonable conclusion is that he lifted straight from the KJV. I'd have to tap into this guy's research to refresh my memory, but I believe it has to do with the fact that in the *original* bom manuscript, it quotes the KJV EXACTLY, minus 100% of italicized words...no more, no less (then subsequent copies, including the first edition BOM, revised the Isaiah passages slightly from that point). Assuming this is true (the source is a faithful scholar member, fwiw), then cut and paste is the ONLY conclusion here. [It's possible I've gotten parts of the argument wrong here, I'm going off memory. But either way this source told me that there is no other option once you look at the evidence from the orig manu].