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WOW! October ed of the Ensign addresses changes to the Book of Mormon!!

Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:21 am
by _hugh jass
The October ed of the Mormon rag, The Ensign, is a Book of Mormon/Gold-plate special edition.

Among other steaming piles of bovine dung they attempt to answer this tough question:

I have heard that changes have been made to the Book of Mormon since it was first published. What was changed and why?

The answer to this question depends on understanding a little about the Book of Mormon translation and publication process.

1. As Joseph Smith translated the golden plates by the power of God, he dictated the words to a scribe. The scribes occasionally made spelling and grammatical mistakes as they wrote down his words. For example, in 1 Nephi 7:20 the words “were sorrowful” were transcribed as “ware sarraful.” The scribes weren’t uneducated, but spelling hadn’t been standardized at the time.

2. The original handwritten manuscript of the translation was then copied to make a new handwritten manuscript for the printer. At this stage, some spelling and grammatical errors were corrected, and punctuation was added. But some new errors also crept in as words were miscopied.

3. The printer did his best to accurately set the type. However, he occasionally introduced still other errors. For example, in Alma 57:25 he misread the word “joy” and instead typeset “foes.”

4. The Prophet Joseph Smith looked carefully at the first three editions of the Book of Mormon, and he continued to help make refinements and adjustments. But some errors weren’t found until later editions. In 1981 a printer’s error in Alma 16:5 was finally corrected, changing “whether” to “whither”—making it conform to the original manuscript as the Prophet had translated it from the golden plates.

5. Other changes included new chapter and verse breaks and footnotes with cross-references.


Serious hard hitting answers.

Re: WOW! October ed of the Ensign addresses changes to the Book

Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 5:29 am
by _sunstoned
Did they talk about the title change where the principal ancestors are thrown under the bus?

Re: WOW! October ed of the Ensign addresses changes to the Book

Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 5:36 am
by _hugh jass
sunstoned wrote:Did they talk about the title change where the principal ancestors are thrown under the bus?

LOL Throwin the Indians under the bus!

Re: WOW! October ed of the Ensign addresses changes to the Book

Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:35 pm
by _truth dancer
So, the original, "white and delightsome," rather than the recent corrected version, "light and delightsome," was what, a trivial mistake from a scribe? An insignificant copying error by the printer? Or an inadvertent oversight when Joseph Smith was reviewing the transcript?

Really, the deception is worse than the problem.

PR 101... admit to just barely enough of the accusation so you can't be accused of lying by denying it, then spin it as you want it to be understood making the accusers look ridiculous for even mentioning it.

(sigh)

~td~

Re: WOW! October ed of the Ensign addresses changes to the Book

Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 1:29 pm
by _DarkHelmet
You forgot about #6

6. As church theology was still evolving during the 1830s, many doctrinal changes were made, such as references to Jesus being God were changed to Son of God. Also, the phrase white and delightsome was changed to pure and delightsome to reduce the level of racism in the book.

Re: WOW! October ed of the Ensign addresses changes to the Book

Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 2:49 am
by _hugh jass
Oops. I forgot to include a link.

The list that I quoted in my OP is at the bottom of this page:

http://LDS.org/ensign/2011/10/common-qu ... n?lang=eng

The October Book of Mormon'fest edition is here:
http://LDS.org/ensign/2011/10?lang=eng

Re: WOW! October ed of the Ensign addresses changes to the Book

Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:48 pm
by _LDS truthseeker
And how about the King Benjamin problem? King Benjamin was changed to Mosiah twice! Now how can this be a typo?