On another thread, someone said something about the lost 116 pages, and it made me think about the story we were told - on the reason why the lost 116 pages weren't retranslated. D&C 10 discusses the reason - here is the summary:
D&C 10 Section Heading wrote:Revelation given to Joseph Smith the Prophet, at Harmony, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1828. HC 1: 20–23. Herein the Lord informs Joseph of alterations made by wicked men in the 116 manuscript pages from the translation of the “Book of Lehi,” in the Book of Mormon. These manuscript pages had been lost from the possession of Martin Harris, to whom the sheets had been temporarily entrusted. See heading to Section 3. The evil design was to await the expected retranslation of the matter covered by the stolen pages, and then to discredit the translator by showing discrepancies created by the alterations. That this wicked purpose had been conceived by the evil one, and was known to the Lord even while Mormon, the ancient Nephite historian, was making his abridgment of the accumulated plates, is shown in the Book of Mormon
Joseph Smith and 'god' weren't worried about providing a word for word duplicate. They were only worried that the 'wicked men' would alter the manuscript, thus, Joseph Smith's translation wouldn't match up to it anymore.
Is this evidence for a tight translation?
WK: "Joseph Smith asserted that the Book of Mormon peoples were the original inhabitants of the americas"
Will Schryver: "No, he didn’t." 3/19/08
Still waiting for Will to back this up...
I think you make a good point here. And I believe that an increasing number of LDS believers would agree in the concept of a tight translation. Certainly the foremost expert on the Book of Mormon text, Professor Royal Skousen, is a staunch advocate of a "tight translation." I consider his arguments to this effect the definitive rationale for the theory.
... every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol ...
GEEZ! Why didn't I think of this? I have dissected this whole tight/loose debate, and this never, never occurred to me.
You are absolutely right, who. If Joseph Smith had translated the text via "loose translation", he could have simply explained that some minor deviations could be expected due to the process.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.
For what it's worth, I've never seen much but evidence for "tight translation." Anything else reeks of after-the-fact-apologia.
Of course it's ad-hoc apologetics. All the contemporary evidence points to tight translation. Literally reading words off a rock.
To me, it's telling that the people who tend to be proponents of the loose translation theory are the people who know enough about ancient Mesoamerica to know that the historicity of the Book of Mormon, as an ancient American text, particularly in Mesoamerica, is pretty screwed otherwise.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.
moksha wrote:Am I being used as a tool of satan, when I think that this sounds like a cover story in case Martin Harris' wife carried her taunts to fruition?
Excellent point, WK. D&C 10 attributes the discrepancies that would be found between the 116 pages and the re-translation to purposeful modification, rather than to variation in how Joseph Smith wolud translate; and this implies that the author of the revelation wants or expects his audience to hold to a "tight" model of translation.
Wow, I feel so cool now. This is like the first actual thing i've ever contributed to the boards.
Now I know how all you smart people feel all the time. :)
WK: "Joseph Smith asserted that the Book of Mormon peoples were the original inhabitants of the americas"
Will Schryver: "No, he didn’t." 3/19/08
Still waiting for Will to back this up...