Calling an Audible in the Great Game of Translating the Book of Mormon
by Jeff Lindsay
Years
ago when I acquired one of Royal Skousen's early publications with
the marked up text from the Original Manuscript of the Book of
Mormon, I was embarrassed at the bad grammar with awkward expressions
like "them days." Whether that was bad grammar or actually
acceptable grammar from a puzzling Early Modern English influence is
another story and another debate.
Today,
though, I enjoy perusing and using Royal Skousen's majestic
publication, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text
(Yale University, 2009) that lets us look at the language that was
dictated, hour after hour, as Joseph sought inspiration as he shut
out his surroundings and stared at some kind of tangible aid, a seer
stone, held inside a hat.
We
can almost hear the echo of Joseph's voice as he dictated raw text
not taken from a carefully prepared manuscript from some scholarly
collaborator or committee of technical advisors and ghost writers,
but from inspiration as he shut out the world and somehow saw or
sensed something in the depths of a hat to transmute text from gold
plates into ink and paper laden with a treasure in archaic English.
Numerous
witnesses of this rapid translation work, including at least one
non-LDS witness, consistently described what happened and make it
clear that the process involved oral dictation that was copied by a
scribe. Joseph was not using a manuscript. He dictated text and the
scribe wrote it down. That became the Original Manuscript. It was
then copied and delivered to the printer. Remnants of these
manuscripts today clearly witness to the reality of these processes,
with abundant evidence that the Original Manuscript was the result of
scribes hearing words and writing them down, while the Printer's
Manuscript shows evidence of scribes seeing words (on the Original
Manuscript) and copying them down.
In
1 Nephi 13:29 of the original manuscript the scribe (not yet
identified, but designated as scribe 2) wrote down the following:
&
because of these things which are taken away out of the gosple of the
Lamb & exceeding great many do stumble
Obviously,
scribe 2 misheard “an exceeding great many” as “and
exceeding great many”. The scribe’s use of the ampersand
(&) shows that the error was not based on visual similarity.
Hearing an,
the scribe interpreted it as the casual speech form an’ for and.
Other
interesting changes can be seen in the Appendix of The
Earliest Text giving
"Significant Textual Changes." For example, when Nephi
quoted Isaiah 14:19 in 2 Nephi 24:19, Isaiah's "raiment of
those that are slain" apparently was misheard and was written as
the "remnant of
those that are slain." A natural aural mistake for someone
writing oral diction. "I have removed the
borders" in Isaiah 10:13 became "moved the
borders" in Nephi's quotation in 2 Nephi 20:13. "Found the
kingdoms" in Isaiah 10:10 became "founded the
kingdoms" in 2 Nephi 20:10. Likewise Ramah from
Isaiah 10:29 became Ramath in
2 Nephi 20:29. These are examples of apparent errors that entered
into the early Book of Mormon manuscripts that were or, in some
cases, may still be in need of correction.
These
kind of errors from the aural and oral nature of the Book of Mormon
translation process don't just occur in quotations from the Bible, of
course. They are found throughout the text, but I think their
presence in the Isaiah passages are significant because it reminds us
that even the Isaiah passages weren't created by just dragging out a
Bible and copying from it (related: "Did
Joseph Use a Bible?").
Those passages were probably also dictated. And as far as we know,
based on what multiple witnesses saw and based on the evidence we can
see in the Original Manuscript and Printer's Manuscript, the text was
dictated and recorded by scribes. Nobody saw a manuscript that Joseph
used. Nobody saw a Bible that he pulled out when it was time for
Bible quotes. It looks like that oral dictation process was in use
steadily.
If
there was a time when a Bible was used to simplify the translation
work, I would guess that it would be for Isaiah 4 through 9 quoted in
2 Nephi 14 through 19, where Skousen's list of significant changes in
the Appendix shows a gap, while there seem to be periodic changes in
the chapters before and after due to possible scribal errors. That
could be because a more careful and accurate scribe was used during
those chapters, or for other reasons. (I also think this section
probably isn't covered in what we have left of the Original
Manuscript.)
On
the other hand, whether there are scribal errors or not, there are
numerous other apparently intentional changes in the Book of Mormon's
quotations from Isaiah and other parts of the Bible. Some are subtle,
such as the recently discovered Hebraism in 2 Nephi 12:2 as it quotes
Isaiah 2:2. One little word is changed as that becomes when,
but in so doing, significant meaning is added in the process as an
interesting Hebraism is introduced in a way that is relevant to the
Restoration. Subtle, but cool. See Paul Hoskisson, "Was
Joseph Smith Smarter Than the Average Fourth Year Hebrew Student?
Finding a Restoration-Significant Hebraism in Book of Mormon Isaiah"
at Mormon Interpreter.
And
yet, of course, there are still problems. The text quoted seems to
follow the KJV when it is good enough, and "good enough"
includes errors (generally of no doctrinal significance) in the KJV
that some folks insist should have been fixed if Joseph really was
inspired. I'm all for total perfection, even in details that don't
really matter, and often demand it in others. Fortunately
it's not part of my set of expectations for the Book of Mormon.
Human
errors have not been completely excised, whether they are errors from
Nephite writers, Joseph Smith, scribes, typesetters, or whoever else
had a hand in the Book of Mormon and its translation and publication,
but what gets past the human influence is a majestic testament to the
divinity of the Restoration and the reality of Jesus Christ. That's
cause for rejoicing and much more careful study.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.