Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!sun-barr!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: frog!jp@endor.harvard.edu (John Pimentel) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Book of Mormon Message-ID: Date: 25 Aug 90 01:43:00 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Charles River Data Systems Lines: 126 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I wrote: >One further item, Joseph Smith also retranslated parts of the Bible, to >put back the meaning that was accidently/deliberately omitted (not >intended as an accusation, but covering all the bases). > >--- >------------------------------------------------------- >John Pimentel ...!{decvax!mit-eddie!harvard}!frog!jp >Disclaimer: The opinion presented, is just that; >I take full responsiblity for those parts I've entered. In article [--clh] wrote: >[I'm not entirely sure what you are saying about the history of the >Bible. If you are simply pointing out that no translation is exact, >then you are surely right, but the same thing is true of the Book of >Mormon. Even if Smith had angelic help, he would have had to make the >same compromises in going into English that modern Bible translators It is my understanding that Joseph Smith prayed as he translated, thus if the interpertation he thought is correct, he was told so by the Holy Ghost, likewise, if the interpertation was incorrect the thought was removed from him by the Holy Ghost or, in other words he had a stupor of thought. >have to, because no two languages map onto each other cleanly. Having >multiple modern translations of the Bible is probably not a >disadvantage. Looking at several different translations often allows >us to get a clearer view of where compromises had to be made in the >translation, Don't you mean where errors had crept in by the translator. I see no reason, if something is translated by gift of translation from God, that I should seek out several versions to understand the meaning of the word of God. >and what the nature of those compromises is. Obviously >we're not as near to the original as we are to the original of the >Book of Mormon. But it's not true that translations are based on >multiple generations of copies ending up in an Nth generation copy in >1540. Can you say Xerox? :-) >So they had >In fact current NT translations (I don't know enough about the >OT text to comment on it) are based on manuscripts from about 200 to >the early 300's. Well, currently I am reading the OT, currently at 2 Chr. and I am finding all sorts of neat things, like missing books, verses that say something contrary to God's actions. Here's an example: [KJV] Exodus 4:21 "And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all these wonders before Pharoah, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go." Later, the Lord punishes the Pharoah, because the heart was hardened; does this sound like the action of a loving Lord. Essentially, this verse states to me, as is, that the Lord will harden someone's heart then punish him for it, but it's the Lord who did the hardening. This raises the question, what if the Pharoah didn't want to harden his heart? Then this punishment would be unjust. If, however, I use the JST(Joseph Smith Translation) for this verse, a different meaning is found: Removing "but I will harden his heart" and replacing it with "but Pharoah will harden his heart, and he will not...", then the punishment from the Lord is justified. >The manuscripts from about 200 do not cover the >entire text of the NT, but coverage is good enough to be a good check >on the accuracy of the later manuscripts. So I think we can be fairly >sure that nothing substantive changed after 200. --clh] I am aware of some of the history from 30 AD to 200 AD, so I must raise a warning flag. --- ------------------------------------------------------- John Pimentel ...!{decvax!mit-eddie!harvard}!frog!jp Disclaimer: The opinion presented, is just that; I take full responsiblity for those parts I've entered. [No, my purpose in looking at multiple translations is not normally to find where errors crept in. The problem is that different languages generally do not have the same structure. Thus no simple translation carries exactly the same meaning as the original. This is not an issue of translators making errors. It's inherent in the structures of the languages, and is not solved by having the help of prayer, visiting angels, or anything else. Because it's impossible to get exactly the same combination of nuances, different translators will choose to emphasize different things in the original. Looking at several translations is one way to help get a feeling for this. For example, consider the Good News Bible and something like the Revised Standard. The Good News Bible does its best to get all of the implications that would have been present to the original readers. This means care with idioms and with things that are implied, but would not be obvious in a literal translation. In doing so however, they sometimes obscure the original literary structure. Thus you see things in the prophets that you didn't see before, but you also miss seeing some aspects of their poetry. If you want to look at the literary structure, or you want to read a commentary that deals with details on a word by word basis, you really need something more literal, like the RSV. There are probably places where the Good News Bible and the RSV differ due to one having access to recently found manuscripts not available to the other. But these differences are quite minor, and would not in themselves cause me to consult multiple translations. Your particular example of an "inspired" change does not make me feel more confident about your translation. One of the basic axioms of textual criticism is that the "harder reading" is likely to be the true one, because people who change texts tend to remove things they don't understand and replacement them with ones that they do. Certainly the concept of God hardening people's hearts is a hard one to deal with. But it's in enough different places in the Bible that we can be pretty sure it wasn't introduced simply during transmission. (E.g. Rom 9:18 implies that it was in the Bible as it existed in the time of Paul.) When a translation removes this sort of difficulty, I am sceptical. There are ways to deal with "hardening" that avoid strict Calvinism, but do not require changing the text. --clh]