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The Church has translated the four accounts of the First Vision into nine languages. :clap: The link below is to an article about it. It is the Salt Lake Tribune, so, just like with the Deseret News, I would suggest NOT reading the comments.
👿 http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/2456387-155/mormon-founder-joseph-smiths-four-versions Amazed they hadn’t already done this earlier. However as the Italians have it “traduttore, traditore”, which means “to translate is to betray”, i.e. no translation properly captures the original. You can see that even in the proverb itself, where the two word wordplay is lost.
No real way around that one though, it just comes with the territory. I’m happy to hear this. It places a greater number of people on equal footing.
:thumbup: I’m happy to hear it, too. I hope the essays follow soon. I would like the essays published in the Ensign. I need english speaking, church attending members to read them. That’s the common ground I want. SamBee wrote:…However as the Italians have it “traduttore, traditore”, which means “to translate is to betray”, i.e. no translation properly captures the original.
So are you talking about translating the essays, or the BOM?
LookingHard wrote:SamBee wrote:…However as the Italians have it “traduttore, traditore”, which means “to translate is to betray”, i.e. no translation properly captures the original.
So are you talking about translating the essays, or the BOM?It could apply to anything. Muslims only believe the Qur’an to be correct in Arabic. Likewise, one of the things we use as an argument of the superiority of the BoM over the Bible is that it was a direct translation (supposedly). However, it is not a direct translation into the many other languages it has been translated into. While I do believe there can be inspiration in such translations (and I believe the same for the KJV and newer translations of the Bible), I do not believe these translations to be perfect. Sometimes words or meanings of words just don’t have exact enough equals in other languages.
We’ve got our very own concept of English being the “language of the restoration.” I’ve heard that exact argument being made for the BoM, learn English so you can read the BoM in its purest form. I think the problem is with the old accounts not the commentary. We can’t ask the writers the exact meanings. Greek and Hebrew don’t translate well to English all the time; poetry never does.
The BoM was translated by divine inspiration.
DarkJedi wrote:Sometimes words or meanings of words just don’t have exact enough equals in other languages.
I remember reading the BoM in Spanish and gaining insights that were not quite as apparent in the English version. The words for the translation were likely chosen by a team of translators. Could they have been inspired in their selection? More importantly, could I have been inspired to see something important hidden within the words?
In English class ages ago we were talking about the metaphor of a particular chapter in a book. As a surly teenager at the time I was wondering aloud why a tree can’t just be a tree. My teacher was explaining how the body of metaphors associated with a particular work can grow over time and can include metaphors that the original author may have never intended. It was quite a concept to be able to add meaning to what originally could have been just a coincidental word choice. In a way it invites each reader to be part of the creative process.
The KJV Bible’s full of those – dumb ass for example means a donkey which cannot talk, not a silly person or the backside!
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