If Not a Supernatural Translation, Then What? Examining the Other BM Translation Theories​

[@Glen.Danielsen]

Brothers Scott and Casey: these episodes are cherished! Thanks toweringly much.

[@Tannersflat]

The Book of Mormon also contains many different authoring styles from the various prophets' writing on the plates. I did not remember this being mentioned in your podcast. (I loved it by the way, thank you for the work you do)

[@JBMontana500]

Thank you both for your time on these great episodes.

[@raymondswenson1268]

The book is full of moving sermons about the Savior, about our free will, about God's love for us, about the last days and Israel. But Joseph had never preached a sermon in church to anyone before the translation. Where did he learn the skill? He learned from doing the translation. The plain and precious teachings of the book were his college education.

[@joefromkokimo]

This is a great series. I have enjoyed many of these. Respectfully, I think the 'View of the Hebrews' needs a deeper dive. If it really is "the most compelling" argument against the BOM, to say that Joseph Smith used it to support the BOM and that should be enough to turn your attention away from it just isn't very strong. Many people will see that the fact that Joseph quoted or referenced it only supports what they believe that Joseph got his ideas from it. Sure, the details of the 2 books are juxtaposed, but the big picture story is there.

[@carlday30]

Another fascinating subtopic is alternative SUPERnatural explanations of the Book of Mormon, i.e., other purportedly automatic or "channeled" writing, such as A Course In Miracles. Here's a great paper on that: Rees, Robert A. (2006) "The Book of Mormon and Automatic Writing," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: Vol. 15 : No. 1 , Article 3.

[@ryanbradley3293]

You really have to go to great lengths in order to say that it wasn’t translated, which is the great thing. How can someone logically say that such a complex book was written by a mostly illiterate farm boy in early 19th century rural New York even without including the recorded facts that he was just looking at some ancient rocks in a hat and speaking the words of the book in only a couple months.

[@whizwhitney]

I would say Sydney Rigdon probably wrote it.

[@carlday30]

Evan after watching the video? Why?

[@raymondswenson1268]

Nobody who lived in 1830 America had all the knowledge to write the Book of Mormon. No one knew that ancient records of spiritual significance were engraved in sheets of metal, including ones bound together with metal rings. No one knew that there was a place in southwest Arabia named "Nahom" associated with burials in 600 BC, including several grave markers bearing the name "Ishmael." No one knew that a line Eastward from Nahom would take you to the seacoast of Arabia at a place that had trees for timber, iron ore at the surface, grapes, and honeybees. No one knew that ancient Hebrews wrote using the form called "chiasmus", which was in the Book of Mormon but not recognized until 1967, but Joseph dictated all those words. No one knew what happened during a super volcano eruption until Krakatoa in the 1880s. No one knew, but Joseph described all these things, and they have been confirmed as real by scholars in the nearly 200 years since. The Book of Mormon claims there were horses in the Americas circa 40 BC. In 1830, people thought there had never been horses in the Americas until brought by the Spanish in 1500. It was decades later that paleontologists discovered all horses originated in the Americas, and migrated to Eurasia thousands of years ago. Horses went extinct in the Americas at some point, but no one can say when the last native horse died. If that happened in 33 AD, it would be consistent with the Book of Mormon.

[@forzion1894]

Very nice summary of the naturalistic explanations of the production of the Book of Mormon and the difficulties of the same. However, your very worthy and able efforts to present good information about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon are undermined by your use of a picture of Joseph looking in a hat. I am sure you know that this is very controversial and contradicts Joseph and Oliver's repeated testimonies that the Book of Mormon was translated from the plates using the Nephite interpreters which came with plates for the purpose of translating them (see JS-H 1:35). You know very well that there are many other images available relating to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon (such as of the plates and interpreters or Moroni visiting Joseph or delivering the plates to him, etc.) which would not be offensive to those who believe Joseph and Oliver told the truth about the translation.

[@carlday30]

Watch the previous video in the series.

[@forzion1894]

​@@carlday30 I have watched all the videos in the series, and unfortunately they all effectively repeat the false narrative that Joseph and Oliver were lying when they repeatedly stated in writing during their lifetimes that the translation came from the plates using the Jaredite/Nephite interpreters, and they all use the image above inaccurately showing Joseph using a treasure-digging stone in a hat instead. See the new book "By Means of the Urim & Thummim: Restoring Translation to the Restoration" for a complete and accurate review of the historical record, and a defense of Joseph and Oliver's veracity against the false stone-in-the-hat narrative put out by these otherwise fine videos.

[@raymondswenson1268]

David Whitmer's description of what HE saw when they were doing the translation at HIS HOUSE for a month is highly credible. If we accept David's testimony of seeing Moroni with the gold plates, and the liahona and other artifacts, why should we doubt him on this? Besides, how else did Joseph use the Nephite interpreters, besides looking at them? The notion that they were "beaming" concepts into his mind, which he put into words, is simply a fantasy people have had about it, largely to explain the quotation of long passages of Isaiah and Matthew in almost KJV language. But examination of the original manuscript and printer's manuscript show that Joseph was literally READING the words, including spelling of names. The English language translation was not composed in Joseph's mind, it was composed in the mind of someone else that the Lord called, who KNEW NEPHITE REFORMED EGYPTIAN and KNEW ENGLISH. One candidate as the actual translator was Moroni himself, the last author and editor of the gold codex, who appeared to Joseph and spoke to him in English and quoted long passages from the Bible that were similar to, but not identical to, the KJV, including Malachi 3 and 4. Moroni as a resurrected angel had hundreds of years to learn Early Modern English and Bible translations by Tyndale in the 1530s and going forward. Of course, God could do the translation work, but he made Nephi, Mormon and Moroni do the labor of creating the gold codex rather than writing it for them. And he made Joseph work through reading out the translation rather than having Heavenly Express drop off an overnight package in a cardboard box. By having a human being who knew the original language, the literary characteristics were preserved so that we could find them 150 years later and verify the book's authenticity.