Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: With the publication of a new article the Church just released on the translation of the Book of Mormon, some people are suggesting that the Church is subtly trying to back away from Book of Mormon historicity. And the battleground surrounds the word translation versus revelation. Welcome to Informed Saints. My name is Jasmine Rapley. I'm joined today by Neal Rapley, Steven Smoot, and today we're talking about the nature of Book of Mormon translation versus revelation because some are claiming that the Church is now gaslighting us. So I thought it would be fun to start with this Reddit post that was responding to this new article that came out. This is an article from the Church's series Topics and Questions called the Translation of the Book of Mormon. I think that's what it's called.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: And some ex Mormons have found some concerns with how the Church has articulated this. So, okay, this post was from about a month ago, says in the new essay by the Church, the Book of Mormon has now joined the Book of Abraham as a revelation in quotes. And this is quoting from the essay. The Book of Mormon came to us through a series of miraculous events. It is the translation of an ancient record engraved on plates that was preserved for centuries and entrusted to Joseph Smith by an angel named Moroni. The translation was accomplished not using traditional methods, but by divine revelation. Joseph dictated the book to scribes at a breathtaking pace, completing almost the entire translation between April and June of 1829.
So this commenter then says the Church must have accidentally used the word translation for 200 years.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: I guess they also accidentally used it in that post that they were quoting.
[00:01:33] Speaker C: Can we just back up and read that again?
It is the translation of an ancient record. Of an ancient record, yeah.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: So the Church clearly is articulating the Book of Mormon as an ancient record, as being a translation, but they are using the word revelation. And so some people are seeing the disparity in this, like, is it revealed by God?
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Or.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Or is Joseph Smith really translating something that's historical? So this is another post that was from a little earlier, but it really hits the nail on the head on what this pain point is. In the latest round of Simple Answers to important Questions in the section Book of Mormon Translation, the Church has now stated that the text of the Book of Mormon came from Revelation. This answer is in response to the question, what did Joseph Smith mean when he said he translated the Book of Mormon? It's been discussed on this sub and other forums for years how apologists like Patrick Mason have recently been referring to the Book of Mormon as Joseph's great translation. Is this another example of the Church has leaning further. Is this another example.
Is this another example of the Church leaning further into this argument that translation doesn't actually mean translation?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Dun, dun, dun. Oh, no.
Yeah. Oh, boy.
This is a fun1 from 6 years ago.
So Elder Ulissa Suarez, he said something fun in General Conference. We can put the quote right here, and this seems to be responding to it. Elder Ulisses Suarez just gave a talk about how it is best to think of the Book of Mormon production as a revelation rather than translation. This is the first time I've heard that in conference. Could be wrong here. What are the implications of this? Does this impact apologetic arguments on loan shifting? Oh, Neil, that's a question for you. Or euphrasms. Is this a step further, further into unfalsifiability?
[00:03:13] Speaker C: I think the biggest implication is that this person hasn't been paying close attention to for a long time.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: So there's people who are seeing a pattern where the Church is talking about translation, but they're doing it in terms of revelation instead of like opening up a dictionary and looking up what words in ancient reformed Egyptian mean and then transcribing it, rather saying that this is Joseph had gold plates and he's this conduit for God's revelation. And somehow that might mean that this is actually backing away from historicity. Maybe this isn't actually an ancient record, but rather Joseph Smith is just this conduit for some divine genius of inspiration.
So, Stephen, you've written on this a few times.
You have a paper in this book, this is just barely published, called Defending the Book of Mormon proceedings from the 2023 FAIR virtual conference. And so in this book you talk about the difference between translation and revelation as it was understood by saints in the earliest days of the Church. Right?
[00:04:09] Speaker C: Yeah. The title of Stephen's here, in fact is is the Book of Mormon a translation or a revelation?
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Yes. So I have the article in here that's been published and I have a second article that is soon to be out with BYU studies. So not being content with one article that only I care about, I decided to publish two of them.
I originally presented this research at a Joseph Smith Papers conference some years back and was finally able to get it in a state where I got two publications out of it.
This one is just about the Book of Mormon, but the one through BYU studies will also cover the Book of Abraham, one of these, which is super.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Relevant because that seems to be what. What's being contested here.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: That's another one that people look at, and they say the Church is backing away from the Book of Abraham being a translation and being historical or being an ancient record by calling it a revelation. So keep your eyes open for the second article, which will come out later this year, hopefully the last issue of BYU Studies of this year, which will cover both of these. Okay. But we will just focus on Book of Mormon for the purposes of this conversation.
And I'm not sure if there's anything else we want to highlight to kind of lay the grounds or we can just sort of get into it.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Let's get into it, because I think those Reddit posts really highlighted, like, what people are concerned about the idea that there's this discrepancy between is this an ancient record that Joseph Smith translated by opening up a dictionary and looking words up, or is this just a revelation of God, which means it doesn't actually have to be grounded in history.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: How.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: How do we even determine the difference between those two?
[00:05:34] Speaker B: And in addition to that, some of these posts that we were looking up also include the element of the churches gaslighting us now, because this whole time it was calling it a translation. And then scholars came along and just disproved about ancient Nephites and historicity. So now they're backing away into the realm of revelation, which is unfalsifiable, which is sort of a Mott and Bailey type deal they claim the Church is doing here.
So that's the other component to it. The first one is, what terms should we use to describe this scriptural production and other scriptural productions that Joseph Smith gave us? And then the second question is, what is the terminology the Church has been using, and is it trying to mop Bailey us or Gaslight us? Right. By having once claimed it was one thing and now it's claiming it's another thing to back away from historicity or to sort of salvage the Book of Mormon from the withering criticisms that is received over the years? Right.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: So let's talk about it.
What verbiage should we be using for the Book of Mormon? The Book of Abraham? Revelation.
[00:06:35] Speaker C: Does this represent an actual change in the verbiage used to describe the Book of Mormon?
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Okay, so I will give you the short answer, then we'll pick it apart. So which term should we be using to describe the Book of Mormon? Translation or revelation? The answer is yes.
The answer is both.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: Porque no los dos.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Porque no los dos. Exactly. Okay, so a big part of my paper, and I'll show the receipts, is literally since the days of Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith himself and others have been calling the Book of Mormon both a translation and a revelation.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's pretty. That's straightforward.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: That is very straightforward. That is clear as crystal in the documentary record. And we're not talking about fringe weirdos, right? We're talking Orson Pratt. We're talking mainstream representative dudes. William Phelps, Oliver Cowder, Joseph Smith himself. Joseph Smith himself are calling it both of these things. Okay, so to answer the first question, you can call it both because it is both. And we'll explain why. The second question, has the church sort of been backing away from it? No, because I can show I don't go through, like, the entirety of church history, but I can show that the language being used by the first generation of Book of Mormon readers, Latter Day Saints, echoes and mirrors and is in some ways identical to the current generation of Book Mormon readers, including Elder Suarez, who used this language in General Conference. He quotes Joseph Smith in General Conference, which I think these people kind of missed. So we're going to go through and unpack this a little bit. Right? But up front, the short answer is it's fine to use either to describe the Book of Mormon because Joseph Smith used both those terms. All we have to do is make sure that we understand how Joseph and others were using those terms. And the fact that we do have some idiosyncratic ways in which we use terms like translation. Right?
[00:08:25] Speaker A: So when I think of translation, I'm thinking of like, okay, open up my Greek New Testament to John, and it's, you know, nrk, hologos. And, you know, you've got all these different words. I'm like, okay, now I gotta pull out my Greek lexicon, gotta look up what each of these words mean. Then I've gotta parse each word. Then I've got to kind of put it in a sentence and say, what does this mean approximately in English?
Is how. Is that how the earliest Latter Day Saints would have also understood the word translation? Is there any difference between how we use that word today versus in the 19th century?
[00:08:56] Speaker B: There is some ways in which it's similar and some ways in which it's different. So, like yourself and myself and Neil, even when he studied Latin at uvu, right? All of us who have learned a second language at some point sat down with a lexicon in a dictionary and the text, and we learned it in a conventional method. Joseph Smith did that when he learned Hebrew with Joshua Satius, Right? He purchased some Hebrew grammar books, purchased a Hebrew Bible, and He learned it the good old fashioned way.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: But this was after the Book of Mormon.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: This is after the book of Mormon, 1835. This is 1836. Really? 1836, yep. So in that sense, yes, they use the term translation to refer to conventional renderings of ancient texts, like he did studying Hebrew. However, both before and after that, Joseph Smith is using translation in the sense of, to convey an ancient record into modern speech. But it is the method of translation that is unconventional, and it is the sort of the operative dynamic of how that translation was accomplished that is absolutely unlike anything that we do today with conventional translation methods. Right. So as somebody who is about to finish a PhD in Semitic languages, I can tell you that it is outside of the rules, outside of the bounds of conventional secular academic scholarship, for me to whip out a seer stone during one of my language exams and to claim to channel the translation by revelation and then give it to my professor. Right.
That is the method Joseph is using for the Book of Mormon, for the Book of Abraham, and for other scriptural productions. When he calls it, quote, a translation, yes, it means I believe. And I believe Joseph Smith thought it means rendering an ancient text into modern speech. What it did not mean, however, because it was impossible for him to do so, was that he would crack open a lexicon of reformed Egyptian and scrutinize the morphemes and the syntax and the sentence structures and the grammar of reformed Egyptian, and. And through his own sort of mental process, was able to crank out a translation by his own native ability or talent. Right. And we can show some examples. A big part of both my papers is saying when you look at the revelations surrounding the Book of Mormon translation, that's where you learn that this is something unconventional and outside of the standard terminological limits of quote, translations that make sense. So it's, yes, it's rendering ancient texts into modern speech, but the method by which Joseph Smith is doing it is something entirely outside standard conventional academic methods. Let's, let's real quick look at the fact that Joseph Smith gives several of his own descriptions of how he, quote, translated the Book of Mormon. And to be sure, Joseph Smith calls it a translation on many occasions. So in the preface to the 1830 Book of Mormon, the first edition, right, when he's explaining the loss of the 116 pages, he says something to the effect of, I would have the reader know that by the gift and power of God, I translated 116 pages of manuscript which have since been lost. Okay?
So sort of he's presenting it As a translation to his audience in the first edition of the Book of Mormon in 1840 and in 1843, and several different letters he writes to people, he uses this phrase by the means of the Urim and Thummim. I translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. And throwback to our Garrett dirkmod episode. Right. There's a deep cut. Go watch your Garrett dirkmod episode where we talk about this. So. So those are the kind of the components, translation, Urim and Thummim, gift and power of God.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: That's what's really important, because what this shows to us is that these two realms of translation and revelation are now merging in each other. In Joseph Smith's usage of these terms and how he conceptualized and explained how he rendered the translation of the Book of Mormon, he does not say, by the use of a reformed Egyptian dictionary, which I got from Charles Anthon, I translate the Book of Mormon, he says, by means of seer stones, Urim and Thummim. I translated, rendered an ancient text by revelation. Gift and power of God. Okay, I want to. Oh, go ahead. While I look up this.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: Before we move on from that, I want to point out that, like that expression from Joseph Smith, by the gift and power of God that is used and repeated in church literature and in lessons and like, that has been, like, so common. I'm pretty sure as a missionary, that's how you teach it, right? You say he translated by the gift and power of God. Like that phrase becomes ingrained in you. I don't want to belittle or whatnot. Some of these people who are Pikachu face shocked that we're now calling it a revelation. But I have to wonder.
I know you heard that the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God.
In your time in the church, what did you think that meant exactly? Did you not think that meant revelation? Because that's what I always assumed it meant. God was revealing a translation to him.
And it doesn't mean. And this is. You've already addressed this a little bit, but I think this is part of the concern that people seem to have. And I feel like if you actually read the stuff, like the new translation essay and stuff, it's like, pretty clear that's not what's going on. It doesn't mean that we're saying it's not a translation. It's not actually an English rendering of a reformed Egyptian text, an ancient text. It just means that the way that translation was given was by revelation. And that has been the byline. Right. Literally, since 1830.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: And I mean, when we look at the witness documents, none of them talk about Joseph Smith, like, putting his finger on the plates and trying to decipher glyphs. One of the criticisms people have is that he's sticking his face into a hat to read off of a rock, whether it's the urim and thumb or the seer stone. And so, like, clearly, even that process indicates that this is not a conventional dictionary led translation. This is being revealed by God, but it doesn't mean that it's not a rendering of an ancient text.
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. So you're exactly right. We want to scrutinize what does this phrase by the gift and power of God mean before I run through a couple sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. Because what's nice about the Book of Mormon translation is we also have revelations from Joseph Smith that coincide with the translation. That gives us more insight into what does this mean. Quote, gift and quote, power of God. Right. I just want to read this statement.
This is from 1843. It's coming from Joseph Smith. I mean, it's probably being ghostwritten by William Phelps, but Joseph Smith approves it.
[00:15:02] Speaker C: And he signs it.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: He signs off on it. But in any case, this is what Elder Suarez quoted in his General Conference talk. And this kind of highlights when we bring all the historical evidence together, what does Joseph Smith conceptualize by this? So I'm going to read this.
So he says, the fact is, this is Joseph. The fact is that by the power of God, I translated the Book of Mormon from hieroglyphics, the knowledge of which was lost to the world, in which wonderful event I stood alone, an unlearned youth, to combat the worldly wisdom and multiplied ignorance of 18 centuries with a new revelation.
Did you get that? Literally, in the same passage, Joseph Smith switches between calling the Book of Mormon a translation and a revelation. And it's all because he says, it was by the power of God that I did this. Right. So if you want this little snapshot, look at carefully what Elder Suarez and other sources like the essay that the Church published are citing. This is where they're getting it from. They're not making it up suddenly out of nowhere. Okay, now let's run through, if we have a moment, a few of the revelations that Joseph Smith produced.
These are sections 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 20 of the doctrine and Covenants, all of which touch on, in some manner, the translation of the Book of Mormon. We don't have to read all of them, you know, in length, because they're easily accessible. But this is 1829, 1828, 1830. This is right there. Within that time frame, the earliest revelations, as he is translating and publishing the Book of Mormon, these are the revelations he's receiving. Okay, so DNC Section 3, received in 1828. It speaks of Joseph having, quote, sight and power to translate.
Okay, that's kind of interesting. Sight, seership and power, divine power, revelation to translate. The two are coming together, right, in this sort of concept of translation, which is being done because Joseph is a seer and God has given him the seeric sight, or ability to see the words of the translation, to then pronounce them.
[00:17:10] Speaker C: Right? And it kind of speaks to the method, as described by a lot of other witnesses or people close to Joseph Smith, that when he translated, he was literally seeing the words, right? He would put a seer stone, or the Urim and Thummim, the Nephite interpreters, he'd put them in a hat, and he would bury his head in that hat so there was all darkness. And then he would look into that, and then he would literally see the translation appear before him. And so he has the sight and power to translate.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Translate.
That is, by the way, how it appears when it gets published in 1835 in the manuscript. He is said, he is given, quote, a right to translate. That's kind of interesting, right?
I didn't have to have a right to translate as when I was in grad school.
[00:17:53] Speaker C: Like, what right do you have to translate?
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Exactly. Yes, exactly. It's like. It's like once you know the language, you can just do it. You don't have to ask for permission. But for Joseph Smith, he is first given the right to translate, and then when he publishes it, he revises that to say, sight and power to translate. Okay, so that's D and C3.
So we go then to section six, which is 1829. And now Oliver Cowdery has stepped into the picture, right? So Oliver Cowdy is going to get involved, and we have several revelations with him. And famously, of course, Oliver is unable to translate the Book of Mormon. Why is that? Is it because he did not brush up on his reformed Egyptian lexicon? No, it's because in Section 6 and in other revelations, Oliver is told that you have a gift to assist in the translation of the Book of Mormon, but you don't have the same right to translate the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith does. In other words, there's like a revelatory office that Joseph Smith occupies that Oliver Cowdery does not occupy. And so he can assist in producing the Book of Mormon. It does encourage him to uncover, quote, mysteries and other revelation and things like that. But in terms of translating the Book of Mormon, this is something that Joseph is supposed to do and not Oliver. Right. That only makes sense if we are dealing with an unconventional method of translation, or I should say unconventional, sort of dynamic, operative power of translation, because otherwise, what's the big deal? Anybody can go down to their local store and pick up a Hebrew grammar or whatever and start learning it like that. That doesn't require special revelation from God to learn Hebrew or Greek from a lexicon or Egyptian for that matter. Right. Anybody can grab an Egyptian grammar and learn it for themselves. The Book of Mormon is different. God is saying in Section 6 others. Because it's a right for Joseph, not for Oliver.
[00:19:37] Speaker C: In fact, I mean, you mentioned it being kind of an office of sorts. And it is interesting. In some of the early revelations, in addition to the titles Prophets, Seer, Revelator, that we commonly use today, there was a fourth title attached to Joseph, Translator. Yes, that was a distinctive role of his broader prophetic office, if you will. That again, we don't use that today. When we sustain the quorum of the 12 and the First Presidency, we do not sustain them as translators. We sustain them as prophets, seers and revelators.
So that is not necessarily part of their calling.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: But it was part of Joseph's.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: And I know we've been kind of doing tongue in cheek. We've been talking about reformed Egyptian lexicons. Yes, I know we're going to get in the comments. There is no such thing as a reformed Egyptian lexicon. But we're just, you know, making the point.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: You get the point here, people. One of these days we do need.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: To do an episode on the language that's on the plates because that is fascinating and that is a frequent criticism as well.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: No, thank you for that. But this is just to illustrate. Yeah. The point. Right. Okay. We'll just do one more. One more section here. This one's a lot of fun. This is Section 8 of the Doctrine of Covenants. It's given in April of 1829.
It's directed to Oliver Cowdery. I'm going to just read some parts of it and then we're going to show something on the screen here because there's something interesting in the manuscript copy of this revelation. Right. So in this Revelation, the Lord tells Oliver Cowdery that He would, quote, receive a knowledge of whatsoever things you shall ask with an honest heart. And this includes, according to revelation, quote, a knowledge concerning the engravings of old records which are ancient, which contain those parts of my scripture of which hath been spoken by the manifestation of my spirit. Okay, you with me so far? It goes on to say that this knowledge would come in your mind and in your heart by the Holy Ghost. That famous line, right? This is the spirit of Revelation by, in your mind, in your heart, by the Holy Ghost which shall come upon you and dwell in your heart. This, the text of this revelation calls this quote, the Spirit of Revelation.
Okay.
Notice however, it's specifically about this knowledge of engravings on ancient records. Right. And, and things of that. So tying it with book Mormon translation. Okay?
According to Oliver's faith, the revelation says, only by his faith, in this revelatory outpouring, would he be able to, quote, translate all those ancient records which have been hit up, which are sacred. Not referring to the Book of Mormon, because he's not allowed to do that. But later he will participate in the Book of Abraham translation. I think he's involved with the pure language translation, right? Certainly the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. So Oliver will assist by the spirit of Revelation to assist in these translation projects. But the Book of Mormons for Joseph Smith. Now, why am I highlighting this section? Let's pull up the manuscript here.
So this is from the manuscript Revelation book from Kirtland. I think this is John Whitmer's handwriting and copy Commandment AD 1829. This is the sixth command. So in the ordering of it, Right. Even though it's Section 8 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the order in the manuscript Revelation book, it's the sixth commandment. Okay, look at the heading here that John Whitmer writes for this. Let's read it out loud. And then I'm going to come to important part. A revelation to Oliver, he being desirous to know whether the Lord would grant him the gift of.
And what does it first say? There, do you see it?
[00:23:02] Speaker A: I mean, it's hard to read.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: It says the gift of Revelation. And then revelation is crossed out and what's next to it? Translation given in Harmony. Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. April 1829. So as John Whitmer is copying this revelation in the manuscript book in Kirtland, he is struggling on whether to describe this as Oliver having a gift of revelation or translation. Because the language of the Revelation collapses these two things together, where the translation can only come because of revelation that the Lord is going to Give Oliver.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: So what you're saying is that Joseph is the one gaslighting the Church all.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: The way back in 18, all the way back there. Yes, absolutely.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: But, but it's clear, from the very earliest parts of our history, revelation and translation seem to be synonymous, interchangeable. It is when it comes to the Book of Mormon, the Book of Mormon is just unique. It is not just a conventional translation. It is revealed.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: It is revelation. Yes. And I, I run through other examples up Section 10, Section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants. I mean, Section 20, it says the Book of Mormon is given, quote, given by inspiration. I mean, that's revelation language, people. Come on.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: And that, by the way, is right in the new Book of Mormon translation essay that people are, are saying is changing the narrative. We do know that the translation was divinely inspired.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: Yes. Quoting Section 20 again.
[00:24:21] Speaker C: Yeah, this isn't new. This is exactly what the Church has been saying from the very beginning.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: So that's some of our revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants. Right? That helps frame and helps us understand what does Joseph Smith mean when he says, quote, by the gift and power of God. That's fancy language coming from his revelations to mean inspiration. Revelation. The translation will come by revelation. That's all it's saying. Okay, so again, like Neil was saying, I like. What else did you think it was supposed to say? Right? Or what else do you think it was meaning by that?
Joseph Smith is an uneducated young man. He does not have training in ancient languages. He cannot read reformed Egyptian on his own. Heck, he couldn't read normal Egyptian on his own. Right from the Egyptian papyri he got. It was only by revelatory outpouring, by this gift of the spirit, this gift of revelation, that he could produce a translation. We don't need to get into at this point, the mechanics of type versus loose or whatever. We'll have another conversation about things like anachronisms or loan shifting.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: But.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: But for now, we just need to know.
If Joseph just looks at the plates on his own, he cannot translate them. It must be through a revelatory inspirational power as a seer that he's able to look at the plates and render a translation. That's what these sections of the Doctrine and Covenants are saying. That's what Joseph Smith himself says in several statements. And as we can get to here in just a moment, that's what other people around Joseph Smith are saying as they are encountering the Book, as they are hearing from, from Joseph and Oliver Cowdery and others. This is what they understand to be what the earliest church members are saying about the Book of Mormon.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Okay, so these earliest readers of the Book of Mormon, was this a translation of an ancient record or was it a revelation for them?
[00:25:55] Speaker B: It's both. Yes. They. And they use both when they're talking about it. And this includes non Latter Day Saints, by the way. Okay, so the first guy I quote is Diedrich Villers, who's friends with the Whitmer family.
You can check out the quote in my article. But he basically says when he gets the Book of Mormon from a member of the Whitmer family, the Whitmers tell him it was by inspiration that the Holy Ghost allowed him to translate the record. Like, it's very explicit. The language that Diedrich Willers uses. Right. That he's getting from the Whitmers. Do you have it there?
[00:26:21] Speaker C: It says. And that the Holy Ghost would reveal to him the translation in the English language?
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Yes. So we could quote others besides Villers. We could quote Oliver Cowdery, Orson Pratt, John Whitmer. I'll shelve them for now. You can read them in the full paper. I want to read the account given by Phineas Young. He is the brother of Brigham Young. He is converted by the preaching of Samuel Smith, Joseph Smith's brother, one of the eight witnesses. Okay, I'm going to read the. The entire quote here. It's a little. It's not too long. But to really capture what's going on here and to show you how early Latter Day Saints had no problem interchanging these terms, I'll read his account. We'll throw it up here on the screen so you can follow along. In April 1830, having received the Book of Mormon, as I was on my way home from the town of Lima, when where I had. Where I had been to preach, I stopped at the house of a man by the name of Tomlinson to get some dinner. While engaged in conversation with the family, a young man came in and walked across the room where I was sitting. He held a book towards me saying, there is a book, sir, I wish you to read. The thing appeared so novel to me that for a moment I hesitated, saying, pray, sir, what book have you? The Book of Mormon, or as it is called by some, the Golden Bible.
Ah, sir, then it purports to be a revelation.
Yes, he said, it is a revelation from God. I took the book and by his request looked at the testimony of the witnesses. Said he, if you will read this book with a prayerful heart and ask God to Give you a witness, you will know of the truth of this work. I told him I would do so. And then I asked him his name. He said his name was Samuel H. Smith.
Ah. Said I, you are one of the witnesses.
Yes. He said, I know the book to be a revelation from God, translated by the gift and power of the Holy Ghost, and that my Brother, Joseph Smith Jr. Is a prophet, seer, and revelator.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Okay. So clear as night and day, using revelation translations in the same sentence.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Same sentence.
[00:28:16] Speaker C: I think it's. Two points are noteworthy here. One, Phinehas is attributing this language to Samuel, who is Joseph Smith's brother. Right.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: So.
[00:28:25] Speaker C: Right. You know, Joseph Smith's own brother, who is also one of the eight witnesses, who does not have. He's not one of the three witnesses. He doesn't have a visionary experience. He physically handles and sees and holds the record in his hands. He knows there's a tangible ancient record. He's actually seen what characters that appear.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: To have ancient work.
[00:28:44] Speaker C: That appear to have ancient work. Right. He knows there's an actual ancient record behind this, and yet he still says it is a revelation from God.
So again, there's no. There isn't like a tension or a dichotomy in their minds behind this. This idea that on the one hand, it is a translation of this real ancient record that Samuel has seen and held and hefted, and at the same time, that it is a divinely revealed work that has come to us by divine revelation. Those. Those are not mutually exclusive ideas for him.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Yes. Right. John Whitmer. I'll just mention he says something very similar. He says, I have no hesitation to say the Book of Mormon is a divine revelation.
Again, like Samuel, he's one of the eight witnesses. So I don't know what to tell you, but the earliest readers, they're using these terms interchangeably because they know what Joseph Smith is claiming. They know what the book itself claims about how it came forth, and so they see what's going on here.
[00:29:41] Speaker C: I would. And I know, Jasmine, you had something you wanted to add, but I would just interject here to say, I actually think when you go through the primary sources, the language of the earliest saints, they actually called it a revelation more than we tend to do today. We, I think, tend to actually use the language of translation and ancient record and stuff a lot more than just calling it straight up a revelation. They were a lot more prone to say, this is a new revelation from God.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Okay. So if we can establish that Joseph Smith, in The earliest days, translation, revelation, they were interchangeable, and today it's the same thing.
So we can establish that the Church hasn't changed the narrative on whether or not the Book of Mormon is a translation versus revelation. But could that mean that Joseph the Smith himself was backing off from historicity? What evidence do we have that, like, we want to be, like, tiptoeing around the historicity? Is this really an ancient text?
[00:30:39] Speaker B: Thank you for bringing that up. And the short answer flatly is no. And I have a separate article I've written on this, which I cite in this article. Looking at the reception of the Book of Mormon in apologetic Latter Day Saint literature, specifically on historicity, I want to be very clear.
There is no evidence that Joseph Smith or Oliver Cowdery or Orson Pratt or any of these people at all were backing away from historicity when they call the Book of Mormon a revelation. They are emphatic that this thing is an ancient text that God revealed and Joseph translated.
They are going to pains, they're going to great lengths to try to establish the historicity in apologetic publications, including official church publications in the Times and Seasons, in the Millennial Star and so forth. So to answer that question flatly, no, this gets to that second point, I'm glad you brought it up because it is just, I think, wrong to say that, well, we're going to back away from historicity because we, you know, we can't deal with DNA and we can't deal with anachronisms, so we're going to call it a revelation instead of a translation to maybe kind of, you know, back away from it.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: Soften the blow.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: Soften the blow. No, I think that is totally wrong. I think that's totally fallacious. That is not backed up by the documentary record. It is not backed up by the history of reception of the Book of Mormon. You can have plenty of conversations about, well, what kind of nuances do we call this inspired translation or whatever? Those are fine conversations to have. But at no point are these men thinking, well, we gotta back away from historicity, right, guys? So let's start calling it a revelation. There's no evidence for that.
[00:32:07] Speaker C: And I would add to that, I think what some of these people are maybe trying to get at when they ask, like, does this have implications for anachronisms or loan shifting or whatever the case may be. Right?
And maybe what some of people are trying to get at is by talking about it as a revelation rather than an academic, conventional, traditional translation, the implication is maybe that it doesn't have to be as literal.
Right. But the thing is, all translation happens on a spectrum, right. Stephen can probably speak to this. I mean, I like, I translated Latin, right. And I had experiences where I translated more literally and other times when I translated less literally. You guys both have experience translating that you could probably give examples of.
All translation happens on a spectrum, and there are academics who choose to translate in like, paraphrastic ways because they feel like it frees them up to communicate better in the target language rather than being super literal. And then there are other translators, and it often depends on your purpose in translating and who you're trying to communicate with. But there are other translators who will translate very rigorously, literally, word for word, because, you know, they want this to be used by academics or whatever, and they don't care that it creates a very stilted and awkward expression in the target language.
But it's always the purposes and intent of the translator that rule the day over how you translate, right?
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:31] Speaker C: And what I think, knowing that it is a revelatory translation, what that does do for us is it tells us that at the end of the day, whatever role or part Joseph Smith played in it, the ultimate translator is God. Right. And so the translation is fulfilling God's purposes, God's intent, not necessarily Joseph Smith's, not. Not even necessarily Mormons or Moroni's. Right. It is fulfilling God's purposes. And we know that God's primary purpose for the Book of Mormon is to testify of Jesus Christ.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:00] Speaker C: And if there's anything that really comes through clearly right. In the Book of Mormon, whatever other things you might have, like, oh, it's like, what does horses and chariots mean? Or whatever. Right.
There's no ambiguity around the witness of Christ in the Book of Mormon.
It's always clear. In fact, it's too clear. Right.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: That's one of the anachronisms, the high Christology.
[00:34:22] Speaker C: So that's kind of like, yes, it impacts it in respect of. It shifts who we should be thinking about, like, who is the ultimate translator and what is their goal. But it doesn't actually change, like, the nature of translation per se.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: Well said, Neil. I agree with all that. I'll just mention, by the way, we won't get into it here, but everything we're talking about with the Book of Mormon basically can talk about with the Book of Abraham too. And not in this one, but in my BYU studies article, I get into more in depth discussion how everything about translation versus revelation and how was it done? Gift and power of God, you know, gift of inspiration, Seer Stones, all that that applies. The Book of Mormon also applies to the Book of Abraham, right? So don't, don't get sidelined or you know, feel like you're being sucker punched when you see the church sometimes referring to the Book of Abraham as a revelatory inspired te texts as well. All the same things we've applied to the Book of Mormon applies to that as well.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: And we definitely need to do more on the Book of Abraham, especially as we get closer to next year when we're going to study the Old Testament. The poker praise, it's going to be awesome. But for those wondering about like Seer Stones and the actual mechanism of Joseph Smith's translation, you definitely should check out the episode we did with Garrett Dirkmot discussing all about Seer Stones, the method of Book of Mormon translation. And of course, if you want to actually learn more about what we've talked about today, you can find the article in Defending the Book of Mormon. This book recently published by FAIR and we will see you next time.
