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A good book on the overall history is “The Story of the Book of Abraham – Mummies, Manuscripts, and Mormonism”, by H. Donl Peterson. It describes how the artifacts came to JS, the translation, the display of the mummies for a fee, etc. It’s a chapter in our history that not many know about. It’s from an LDS perspective, but I remember it being a fair treatment of the subject, and very informative. wayfarer wrote:Joseph Smith translated nothing.
He had no language skills, and dictated the resultant scriptures (Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, Inspired Version) without looking at the source material, if there was any. Those are the facts. The best we can say is that he used Inspiration (the “gift and power of God”) to reveal scripture. Whether this is true is unknowable (unprovable, unfalsifiable), therefore it is a matter if faith.
I disagree… there is considerable evidence that he knew some Hebrew, but when and where he got it I don’t know. I don’t think he knew Hebrew when he did the Book of Mormon, but certainly he learnt it later on.
SamBee wrote:wayfarer wrote:Joseph Smith translated nothing.
He had no language skills, and dictated the resultant scriptures (Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, Inspired Version) without looking at the source material, if there was any. Those are the facts. The best we can say is that he used Inspiration (the “gift and power of God”) to reveal scripture. Whether this is true is unknowable (unprovable, unfalsifiable), therefore it is a matter if faith.
I disagree… there is considerable evidence that he knew some Hebrew, but when and where he got it I don’t know. I don’t think he knew Hebrew when he did the Book of Mormon, but certainly he learnt it later on.
Book of Mormon Translation: 1828Joseph Smith “Translation” of the bible: 1830-1833
Joseph Smith picks up a beginners book of hebrew written by Josiah Seixas: possibly 1835
Book of Abraham “Translation”: 1835
Joseph Smith learns Hebrew from Joshua Seixas: 1836
I think I’ll stand by what I said. For all intents and purposes, he didn’t know any foreign languages, and learned a very little hebrew enough to think, incorrectly, that Elohim was plural of Eloi/god, but then once he learned from someone who actually knew hebrew, he would have learned that no Jew ever says that Elohim is in the plural.
Yet he stuck to the idea that Elohim is plural in his King Follett speech.
Actually, the Elohim matter is highly controversial. I think Smith was RIGHT to consider it plural. Traditional Jews don’t consider it so, because it would fly in the face of accepted notions. Much as many Christians do likewise, or read it as a reference to the Trinity. Rabbis don’t
wantto think of Elohim as plural, because it would undermine them, and contradict other notions such as the Shema… However, there are one or two hints of a knowledge of mangled Hebrew in the BoM… Deseret for example, instead of Deberet.
SamBee wrote:Actually, the Elohim matter is highly controversial. I think Smith was RIGHT to consider it plural. Traditional Jews don’t consider it so, because it would fly in the face of accepted notions. Much as many Christians do likewise, or read it as a reference to the Trinity.
Rabbis don’t
wantto think of Elohim as plural, because it would undermine them, and contradict other notions such as the Shema…
I completely agree with you, and should have so stated in my previous message.Shema Ysrael, Adonoy Eloheinu Adonoy echad!!!
Here’s the deal, though: according to Strongs, “Echad” is a numeral “One” or “First” derived from the root “Achad”/united. Echad can also mean “United”, or “Together”. While it may be possible to think of one person as being united, the idea of using this term to be “united in one” is very much a part of the Shema.
This may be one of the very most important pieces of the restoration: that ‘the gods’ being separate beings, are of one heart and one mind (aka Zion). Mormon understanding of three distinct beings in a godhead as being “one in purpose” is functionally equivalent to being “united in one”. I get chills in my spine when I chant the Shema: it’s meaning is far beyond anything we can possibly imagine: the gods are one–all beings that are one-with the divine principle are gods, yet not distinct, independent gods, but completely united as one heart and one mind.
Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh echad!: Jehovah Our-God(s) Jehovah United-in-One — that would be the literal translation.
and taking it a step further: Yahweh: he-that-is, the I AM of “Ehyeh-asher-ehyeh” Ehyeh: I AM, Yahweh: he-that-is: yet to intone this is to fall short of this reality: I AM is the ultimate representation of being itself: being self-so. To authentically be (not future, not past, completely and totally in the present), one-with all that is, IS the divine reality: that is the Christ. That is the only name by which salvation comes to us: I AM our-god(s), I am ONE!
Psalms 82 wrote:God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
Doctrine & Covenants 38:27 wrote:Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I AM. I say unto you be ONE, and if you are not ONE, you are not mine.
Moses 7:18 wrote:18 And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.
John 17:11,20-22 wrote:And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one
3 Ne 27:27 wrote:What manner of men ought ye to be, Verily I say unto you, even as I AM.
Psalms 46:10 wrote:Be still and know that I AM GOD
Returning to earth, and your last comment:SamBee wrote:However, there are one or two hints of a knowledge of mangled Hebrew in the BoM… Deseret for example, instead of Deberet.
Two fundamental facts exist about the book of mormon: It exists, and it inspires. And besides that, there are funny little coincidences among the plethora of anachronisms and perhaps not-so-inpired parts: chiasmus, and evidence of linguistic correspondence.I do not believe the book of mormon was translated from golden plates. Flat out. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that the book of mormon reflects the history of native americans, or is even historical at all.
I DO believe that the book of mormon is incredibly inspired and contains a very simple, direct exposition of core Christian gospel principles. I find that teaching from the book of mormon in Gospel Doctrine is completely uninteresting, because there is nothing to interpret, nothing to translate, nothing to analyze. It says what it means and means what it says — much more so than any other scripture in my humble opinion.
And while I think that there is substantial evidence that Joseph Smith was a very flawed individual — even to the point of being convicted of outright fraud (sorry ray, the facts are the facts) — the fact also remains that the book of mormon exists, it inspires, and in my opinion, it clearly lays out the core principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
truth needs no apology or defense. There is a huge case of cognitive dissonance when we realize that Joseph Smith did not translate anything, but he DID bring forth a very powerful book and scripture. And as much as the church wants to whitewash the history, and as much as apologists try to refute the criticisms of the Prophet, the fact remains that very flawed individuals are often the exact thing the Lord uses to further the work. This, if anything, is a profound testimony to me that I, being flawed, can taste of the divine spirit in moments of oneness with all that is.
Quote:And while I think that there is substantial evidence that Joseph Smith was a very flawed individual — even to the point of being convicted of outright fraud (sorry ray, the facts are the facts) — the fact also remains that the book of mormon exists, it inspires, and in my opinion, it clearly lays out the core principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
No need to apologize. There’s nothing in that statement with which I disagree.
I’m baffled by the use of seer stones. Has anyone hear been able to come to terms with it? I doubt there’s a good answer. From chapter 2 of Rough Stone Rolling:
Quote:Joseph Knight Jr. said his father thought Joseph Smith Jr. was “the best hand he ever hired,” but that was not the reason Stowell brought young Joseph all the way from Palmyra to work in 1825. Stowell believed that he had located the site of an ancient Spanish mine where coins had been minted and buried…When his men failed to locate the cache, Stowell enlisted the Smiths’ help, and Joseph Smith Sr. and Joseph Jr. agreed to join the diggers in Harmony…Lucy said that after less than a month Joseph Jr. prevailed upon Stowell to stop digging, and in mid-November the group dispersed…
Stowell went to the trouble of bringing Joseph Jr. from Manchester, Lucy Smith explained, “on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye.” Joseph had discovered two stones, one in 1822 while digging a well with Willard Chase a half mile from the Smith farm. The source of the other stone is uncertain. These stones were the keys that enabled Joseph to see things, as Lucy said, “invisible to the natural eye.” Emma Smith described one of them as “a small stone, not exactly black, but was rather a dark color.”
Quote:Money-digging was epidemic in upstate New York. Stories of spirits guarding buried treasure were deeply enmeshed in the region’s rural culture. In Vermont, too, buried treasures and lost mines were detected through dreams, divining rods, or stones…Buried treasure was tied into a great stock of magical practices extending back many centuries. Eighteenth-century rationalism had failed to stamp out belief in preternatural powers aiding and opposing human enterprise. Enlightened newspaper editors and ministers scoffed at the superstitions of common people but were unable to erase them. Ordinary people apparently had no difficult blending Christianity with magic.
Quote:Under examination, the twenty-year-old Joseph said that he had looked for “hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth” and had helped Stowell several times. For the past three years at Palmyra (going back to the time he found the seerstone in 1822), “he had frequently ascertained in that way where lost property was.” But he was not happy with this work.
And from chapter 3:
Quote:BY THE FALL OF 1827, Joseph Smith stood on the line dividing Visionary supernaturalism from rational Christianity-one of the many boundaries between the traditional and modern world in early-nineteenth-century America. He was difficult to place in relation to that line because he faced in both directions. Joseph looked backward toward folk beliefs in divine power communicated through stones, Visions, dreams, and angels. At the same time, he turned away from the money-diggers’ passion for treasure and reached for higher, spiritual ends. The gold plates and angels scandalized rational Christians, while the religious impulse confused the money-diggers.
Quote:Eighteen twenty-eight was a turning point in Joseph Smith’s development. It was the year when he found his prophetic voice. Not two years earlier, he was entangled with the money-diggers and struggling to scrape together rent money for his family. In 1828, he dictated 116 pages of the Book of Mormon and received a revelation spoken in God’s voice. By this time, the treasure-seeking language has disappeared. Neither the lore nor the greed of the money-diggers enters the picture. The plates are being translated, the revelation said, that God’s people might “rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ, and be glorified through faith in his name.” The language was biblical rather than occult.
With Joseph’s realization of himself as a prophet, the rearrangement of memory began. When Joseph tells his history from 1828 on, his search for treasure as a boy became an irrelevant diversion of his youth. Treasure-seeking did not lead to the person he had become. His true history began with his search for a church and his plea for forgiveness. These led to the revelation of the Father and the Son and the Visit of Moroni, the cardinal events of his boyhood.
After 1828, Joseph could no longer see that magic might have prepared him to believe in a revelation of gold plates and translation with a stone. It did not occur to him that without magic his family might have scoffed at his story of Moroni, as did the minister who rejected the First Vision. Magic had played its part and now could be cast aside.
Did magic really play a positive role?I read threads like this and it tears me down the middle. I’m reminded of feeling sick to the stomach when reading of things like seer stones, trial for scrying*, magic, dodgy book of abraham, head in a hat etc etc. I sometimes feel I’ve betrayed myself and have blinkered myself back into activity by seeking the good and ignoring the bad.
I often wonder if I should make a clean break now, before the kids are teens and before I take another 5/10/15 years to do it anyway.
Shouldn’t studying church history help it all make MORE sense as you delve into it. Instead, the more I know about the 1800s, the less it makes sense and the more I have to perform mental gymnastics.
On the other hand… I make it work because it does, in reality, uplift. I make it work because the ‘words work’ whatever the source. I make it work because I fundamentally believe we’re on a path back to God and that Mormonism is a vehicle, among many others, that is effective for me.
* (wayfarer, you are very respected on this site and have clearly studied widely. As such you’re often taken as quite an authority on things. As a minor point of clarification, wouldn’t it be more accurate say he was questioned for fraud, he wasn’t convicted)
Bruce in Montana wrote:
He made a rather elaborate showing of making an Egyptian alphabet, etc.Yes, and in that case he was a regular mortal, and clearly wrong. Did he know he had it wrong – therefore “lying?” I don’t think we can know for sure, personally I don’t think it matters much – but I tend to doubt he knew he was wrong because I can’t see him going to that detail simply to perpetuate a fraud. To me it would be much easier to “keep it under wraps” if it was less detailed.
mackay11 wrote:I read threads like this and it tears me down the middle.
I’m reminded of feeling sick to the stomach when reading of things like seer stones, trial for scrying*, magic, dodgy book of abraham, head in a hat etc etc. I sometimes feel I’ve betrayed myself and have blinkered myself back into activity by seeking the good and ignoring the bad.
I often wonder if I should make a clean break now, before the kids are teens and before I take another 5/10/15 years to do it anyway.
Shouldn’t studying church history help it all make MORE sense as you delve into it. Instead, the more I know about the 1800s, the less it makes sense and the more I have to perform mental gymnastics.
On the other hand… I make it work because it does, in reality, uplift. I make it work because the ‘words work’ whatever the source. I make it work because I fundamentally believe we’re on a path back to God and that Mormonism is a vehicle, among many others, that is effective for me.
* (wayfarer, you are very respected on this site and have clearly studied widely. As such you’re often taken as quite an authority on things. As a minor point of clarification, wouldn’t it be more accurate say he was questioned for fraud, he wasn’t convicted)
i have had a hard time confirming the scrying conviction, so i am not sure. but i do believe that JS believed he could see things through the seer stone, so…while he may well have been tried and convicted of scrying, it is what he thought his gift to be.let me tell you a story. 25 years ago, I came into AA, having some real issues with alcohol. i was trying to get help, and the place i walked in to was one of those smoky recovery clubs. A decrepit guy was there, and i started to talk to him. he at first seemed completely incoherent, but in a moment, he started explaining what i needed to do in the clearest of terms. he told me that i would steal a big book, read it, and it would change my life. he also said some deeply personal things that i thought were known only to me. i listened with rapt attention and amazement. after five minutes, he went back to babbling nonsense.
a week later, i was on a business trip to a conference. i attended another of those clubs, and I had been trying to buy a big book for at least a week. none were available. another conference attendee leant me a copy of the big book, and after reading parts of it, i had a spiritual experience that removed my addiction…powerfully. towards the end of the conference, i went to return the book to the conference attendee, but i had waited too long…she had left, and of course, all i had was her first name. i had stolen the book, read it, and it changed my life, exactly as the decrepit old dude said i would.
i went back home to visit the old man…turned out he was in a hospice dying of brain cancer. his family told me hat he hadn’t been coherent for months. he died shortly thereafter. I had met a true prophet of god for me, and i couldn’t even thank him.
this isn’t going to make sense to the typical LDS mindset that equates increased prophetic authority with increased righteousness, but i have come to know first hand that god — however we choose to define him or her — can choose to reveal knowledge to us through even the most defective of prophets. could god have revealed his divine word in the book of mormon through a scryer? absolutely.
i am sure this is why the mopologists think my beliefs are incoherent.
A guy called ‘cinepro’ started a thread on Mormondialogue called ‘cinepro’s solution to the book of abraham.’ He made the very valid point that no-one leaves the church over the Book of Moses – an inspired writing with no tangible source.
Other examples include:
D&C 7
(Revelation given to Joseph Smith the Prophet and Oliver Cowdery, at Harmony, Pennsylvania, April 1829, when they inquired through the Urim and Thummim as to whether John, the beloved disciple, tarried in the flesh or had died. The revelation is a translated version of the record made on parchment by John and hidden up by himself (see History of the Church,)Also the record of John the Baptist in D&C 93:6-18, which ends
“And it shall come to pass, that if you are faithful you shall receive the fulness of the record of John.”The new intro to the BOA makes it easier to step away from it being a direct translation of the papyrus and more an inspired writing. That would then leave us with a collection of works attributed to prophets that often discuss ‘deep doctrine,’ which Joseph probably knew would be too radical for him to be the originator of. He hints at this issue in King Follett – that he needs base his sermon on the old patriarch’s words (Bible), not his own inspiration.
As such, he “brings forth” doctrine based on the claimed words of not himself but the ancients. This makes it more acceptable to his peers and makes it appear as more of an eternal, restored doctrine, not “new news.”
The writings/sayings of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Enoch, John the Beloved, John the Baptist, the visiting angelic prophets and apostles from Bible history etc etc, all give Joseph’s doctrine more credibility among his peers.
Whether that was Joseph being intentionally misleading and making it up for effect, of whether God directed/guided Joseph to attribute all this to “others” and not himself is up for interpretation.
Inspired or made up. In the end it’s a faith choice.
Thanks, wayfarer, for sharing that experience. There is so much that is profound in it. This is a long post, but I think it’s some good information. I am not a scholar and I have little time to do this, so I don’t have original sources, except for the last quote.
Bruce in Montana wrote:… I guess what I’m asking is that if there were no golden plates involved, would Joseph Smith’s “translation” be as convincing?
I remember the missionary discussions when I was young with the little flip cards showing JS reading off the golden plates and writing. Of course, we now know that things didn’t happen that way.
While Joseph didn’t read from the plates and record the translation at the same time, a picture may accurately depict him studying the symbols and writing them on paper. Also,some of the work was actually done with Joseph looking through the Urim and Thummim (the one we learn about in church) and hemighthave been looking at the plates at times . I have heard many times from different people that the onlymethod was looking at the the seer stone in a hat. Joseph studied the plates:
Quote:Joseph had to learn how to “translate” the curious characters. He had told his friend Joseph Knight Sr. he wanted the plates translated, but now they were there before his eyes, how was he to begin? Developing a method took time. His mother said, “Joseph was very solicitous about the work but as yet no means had come into his hands of accomplishing it.” With Emma’s help, he began by copying off “a considerable number” of the intricate figures and translating “some of them.”….
Joseph Knight Sr., who from his home in nearby Colesville aided Joseph while the translation went on, said that Joseph and “his wife Drew of[f] the Caricters exactley like the ancient and sent Martin Harris to see if he Could git them Translated.” Lucy Smith gave the same reason. She said Joseph was instructed “to take off a facsimile of the characters composing the alphabet which were called reformed egyptian Alphabetically and send them to all the learned men that he could find and ask them for the translation of the same.” Lucy implied that once Joseph had a translation of all the basic characters, he could carry on by himself-thus the need to copy a great number of characters.
-Rough Stone Rolling, chapter 3, section titled “Martin Harris”
Joseph looking through the Urim and Thummim and perhaps looking at the plates:
Quote:Martin Harris was back in Harmony by mid-April 1828, and the translation began in earnest. For two months, from about April 12 to June 14, 1828, Joseph and Harris were hard at work. Joseph translated using the interpreters (also called the Urim and Thummim, crystals mounted on a breast plate), and Harris wrote down the text as it was dictated. A curtain divided the men to prevent Harris from seeing the plates. By mid-June 1828, they had covered 116 pages of foolscap with text. -Rough Stone Rolling, chapter 3, section titled “Martin Harris”
I have recently read and heard that Joseph lost the Urim and Thummim for good after the 116 pages were lost. But I read this:
Quote:Lucy Smith said that Joseph received the interpreters again on September 22, 1828, and he and Emma did a little translating, but the need to prepare for winter intervened. -Rough Stone Rolling, chapter 3, section titled “Oliver Cowdery”
Here is what Emma said about it:
Quote:Question. What of the truth of Mormonism?
Answer. I know Mormonism to be the truth; and believe the Church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.
Question. Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?
Answer. He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.
Question. Could he not have had, and you not know it?
Answer. If he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.
Question. Are you sure that he had the plates at the time you were writing for him?
Answer. The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen tablecloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.
Question. Where did father and Oliver Cowdery write?
Answer. Oliver Cowdery and your father wrote in the room where I was at work.
Question. Could not father have dictated the Book of Mormon to you, Oliver Cowdery and the others who wrote for him, after having first written it, or having first read it out of some book?
Answer. Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon. And, though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, and was present during the translation of the plates, and had cognizance of things as they transpired, it is marvelous to me, “a marvel and a wonder,” as much so as to anyone else.
-Emma Smith – Last Testimony of Emma Smith 1879 Q&A between Emma and Joseph Smith III, The Saints’ Herald 26 (Oct 1879)
Anyway, I am still baffled by the use of seer stones, but I wonder how different from the Urim and Thummim they really are. And sometimes I think Joseph looking into a hat is not necessary weird….or not excessively weird.mackay11 wrote:Inspired or made up. In the end it’s a faith choice.
Or maybe there’s a middle way. I’m new to the Church, but my degrees are in theology and philosophy, so maybe I can offer a stab at a solution, or at least stir the pot.
What if the BOA is midrash? Given my background, I get the very strong impression that the BOA IS midrash as I read it.
Midrash is a specific kind of literature almost exclusive to Judaism that can be most easily described as a cross between a commentary on and an interpretation of a text or texts in the OT.
As I read the BOA, it seems to me to be a midrash on the first couple of chapters of Genesis. If it IS “midrash”, it’s a very
amateurishmidrash, given that JS obviously thought the Hebrew “elohim” was plural, which it isn’t. Nevertheless, the BOA reads like midrash to me, and if so, the fact that it may cross the line between “inspired” or “made up” is really moot, since midrash does that anyway by being a cross between commentary and interpretation. I would really like more input on the whole “midrash” thing if anybody has any insights…or maybe some articles on the subject….???
Mormonguy, Thanks for awakening this important thread. I think you raise a very valid point: it is clear that in the book of Moses, being part of the ‘inspired version’ exercise, Joseph is doing a sort of Midrash.
The problem with the BoA is that it claims a a source: the papyri, written by abraham’s own hand. This is clearly false: it was not, and the egyptology, along with the interpretation of “Elohim” was all wrong.
Mormons expect prophetic and scriptural perfection, and BoA doesnt deliver it–and that is a serious problem.
Correct me if I am wrong, but midrash never claimed to be “scripture” on the same level as the Tanakh. In this respect, the BoA must be evaluated as scripture and not midrash, because it claims to be such. The Book of Moses makes no such claim, so it fits midrash better.
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