Book of Mormon Transliteration

[_honorentheos]

MG -

I'd ask again: What verse or verses in the Book of Mormon do you imagine will one day be recognized for their wisdom that transcends LDS culture and becomes part of the collective canon of great thought? It is, after all, the most correct book so I'm guessing it's brimming over with them. I'm just struggling to think of one that isn't biblical pseudepigrapha that speaks best to someone raised LDS who finds it familiar and recognizes the teaching from their days in primary. But I'm sure, given your study, you've amassed a collection of wisdoms to share?

[_Themis]

I see it as a transliteration resulting in the conversion of one historical period to another using conceptual 'mapping(s)' during the translation process. This is possibly one reason that the actual plates weren't always being accessed during the translation. The characters on the plates didn't lend themselves towards a conceptual transliteration.

Joseph didn't use the supposed plates because he didn't know how to read or translate other languages. The witness statements have him with a rock in a hat reading off words appearing on the rock.

I'm of the opinion that the Book of Mormon was composed in antiquity but not translated in antiquity. Duh. As a result of this rather obvious fact I see the Book of Mormon as being a modern translation or more aptly put, a transliteration. But not transliteration in the traditional meaning of the word. Instead of grapheme to grapheme or "letters of the source script to letters pronounced similarly in the target script" resulting in "conversion of a text from one script to another"

The why use the word transliterate if you are not going to use it properly. Just sounds like someone wants a fancy word to make it look good. I'm not sure how grapheme to grapheme would actually work. Do you have an example, or how about the Book of Mormon mentioning steel. Do you think they meant steel in the gold plates, and if not, how does the grapheme to grapheme work there?

[_Symmachus]

There is absolutely nothing of benefit that is going to come from repurposing the word "transliteration," unless you are doing so in bad faith in an attempt to muddy the waters and evade difficult questions. What you are talking about is not "transliteration" but "translation."

Conceptual mapping? That is already what translations grapple with and attempt to do. You can just say "translation."

Midrash? An in-text footnote, sometimes lengthy. What are some Book of Mormon examples of that? I have read plenty of Midrash, and I think apologists who make this appeal are using a definition of Midrash they got in a handbook and not a familiarity with Midrashic literature when they are making this claim. Please see an actual example of Midrashic literature here and point out what features of this you find in the Book of Mormon.

Expansions in Targums? Readers, judge for yourself whether what you see here is what happens in the Book of Mormon. Here is a typical example of the kind of expansion you see in a Targum:

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

Here is a targumic version:

And the Lord said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to distinguish between the day and the night; and let them be for signs and for festival times, and for the numbering by them the account of days, and for the sanctifying of the beginning of months, and the beginning of years, the passing away of months, and the passing away of years, the revolutions of the sun, the birth of the moon, and the revolvings (of seasons).
And let them be for luminaries in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And the Lord made two great luminaries; and they were equal in glory twenty and one years, less six hundred and two and seventy parts of an hour. And afterwards the moon recited against the sun a false report; and she was diminished, and the sun was appointed to be the greater light to rule the day; and the moon to be the inferior light to rule in the night, and the stars. And the Lord ordained them unto their offices, in the expanse of the heavens, to give forth light upon the earth, and to minister by day and by night, to distinguish between the light of the day and the darkness of the night. And the Lord beheld that it was good. And it was evening, and it was morning, Day the Forth.

Yes, there is expansion here, probably rooted in the Midrashic tradition (see, for example, Midrash Bereshith Rabba on this passage here), but it is expansion meant to elucidate the text. Even in the stories and parables that you find in Midrashic literature, their function is to help explain a passage of the biblical text, not spin a new narrative web. They are sort of like secondary sources vs. primary. The Book of Mormon is nothing at all like these.

A generous reading of Michael Ash quoted here is that he is writing from sheer ignorance and has no substantive idea what the terms he is using actually refer to. I think readers who come across this should weight his words against their own experience after spending just five minutes looking through the translations of Midrash and Targum I have linked here. I really want to know where the Book of Mormon evokes this kind of literature.

The only reasoning I can see, assuming there is any, is this:

Book of Mormon = connected to Biblical text
Midrash and Targums = connected to Biblical text

therefore Book of Mormon = Midrash and Targum.

Test for yourself whether that reasoning holds up in practice, MG.

The best analogy with ancient literary genres that apologists have is pseudepigraphic literature, but they seem quite intent on avoiding a generic link between that and the Book of Mormon, choosing instead to pluck minor historical and philological details here and there.

[_Fence Sitter]

The truth claims of Mormonism rest on texts and definitions that never existed.

[_Symmachus]

Because of this, I tend to hold ancient religious and wisdom texts in some regard that has no bearing on whether or not Lao Tzu was a real person, Arjuna really road in a chariot with Krishna and conversed with deity, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead or Paul of Tarsus heard his voice calling him to not persecute his followers. Confucius can illuminate the concept of jen in a way that I can find value in and align with the writings of Seneca or Marcus Aurelius and have confidence that each of these sources is conveying something of value because there is something baked into them that others have found to be not only of value but successfully allowed those who incorporated their teachings into their lives to successfully pass them on where other lesser sources didn't make it. Being of authentic ancient origin and proliferating carries with it an earned level of regard that stands independent of whether or not the source can be proven historical or factual in regards to the stories they tell.

The Book of Mormon is not ancient. ...

Thinking on that, I've been puzzling over what verse or verses would come to exemplify that wisdom? I don't see the Moroni's Promise or "I will go and do" jumping to the head of the line among a hypothetical group of future wisdom seekers finding the divine in the Book of Mormon. But perhaps you could enlighten me on which candidates you think are sleeping giants of wisdom hidden in the text?

I forgot to respond earlier in my post that this is a fantastic insight, Honorentheos, and this last bit a real challenge that apologists should take up.

[_Physics Guy]

I'm a general believer in the concept of memic evolution that comes into play here. Meaning, norms and other artifacts of culture that provide a group that shares those norms and artifacts a competitive advantage over other groups have inherent value that cannot be dismissed out of hand regardless of whether or not there are questions of historical accuracy with the narratives around them. This comes from their having survived and spread through the filter of changing cultures and being able to successfully ride the rising and falling tides of empires. ...

Being of authentic ancient origin and proliferating carries with it an earned level of regard that stands independent of whether or not the source can be proven historical or factual in regards to the stories they tell.

I have the same attitude. Furthermore, memetic evolution can be Lamarckian as well as Darwinian: memes can change as well simply being selected. Older religions have tended to have rough edges worn off them, it seems to me. If they still seem to have dumb bits, well, you should have seen how they were at the start. They can also accrete good bits. So it seems plausible a priori, just as you say, that genuinely ancient sacred texts may have something to them.

The Book of Mormon is not ancient. It never had to pass through the actual filter of time a true source from antiquity has.

Yet Mormonism insisted from the start, and most of it still insists, that the Book of Mormon is ancient. Other new religions have at least tried to pay their dues by honestly offering new revelations as new, just as the big, old religions did back when they started. Joseph Smith declined to play that way. For his 19th-century fan-fiction scripture, Smith demanded the reverential soft lighting that genuinely ancient texts have arguably earned.

I think scriptures are maybe like fine art this way. One doesn't have to be a complete Philistine to be skeptical of whether daubs and blobs are really worth so many millions. A lot of expensive art may be a con. But a lot of famous works of art really do seem to have something. They deserve some respect the way old religions do. And that's why it's a level of fraud beyond what may just be inherently involved in fine art, to forge an Old Master's signature.

[_Gadianton]

Conceptual mapping would also lend itself to commonalities with the Bible phraseology. Blake Ostler's 'expansion on an ancient text' would fit in nicely with this, in my opinion

And chiasmatic Hebrew poetry that 'made it' through the translation process from ancient to modern.

Don't you mean Chiasmsus that made it through the "expansion" process? lol.

[_mentalgymnast]

Conceptual mapping would also lend itself to commonalities with the Bible phraseology. Blake Ostler's 'expansion on an ancient text' would fit in nicely with this, in my opinion

And chiasmatic Hebrew poetry that 'made it' through the translation process from ancient to modern.

Don't you mean Chiasmsus that made it through the "expansion" process? lol.

If Joseph Smith spent a good amount of the 'translation' process without the plates then I would assume that we can agree that unless he had crib notes in his hat he was reading something off the stone. The witnesses verify this. Otherwise we would have to default to some kind of channeling process and/or automatic writing. For me, that doesn't do it for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that I don't believe a coherent and cohesive 'historical' narrative of this complexity would result through one or both of those methods. I believe that to meet the constraints of the short span of time in which the majority of the Book of Mormon was translated and the fact that the plates were not being used exclusively we are left with a process in which Joseph was a 'player' considering the fact that there is 19th century relevancy in the content. And language which comes out of that...and earlier...period of time.

So for me, I look at some type of conceptual mapping with the expansion of the text bit by bit (transliteration of 'chunks' of conceptual/historical material) using the ancient text as the source/control fits the bill. A more or less collaborative effort 'on the fly' using conceptual rather than grapheme/phoneme to grapheme/phoneme. More of visualization put to words. I'm not sure if we're giving credit to the complexity of operations that may have been running the show behind the scenes. Whether or not Joseph understood all of the underlying systems of data transmission, collating of conceptual...along with and/or in tandem with visual material...into bite sized pieces that were then run through his brain/mind with an output that had his own mental 'stamp' on it, I kind of doubt it. In his mind he was doing as the Lord commanded and was carrying out a day by day chore which after a bit of practice became somewhat simple and straightforward.

Controlled? Yes, in some fashion. Tight? Yes/no. I think it would have been a mix.

The translation studies that Skousen and Brant Gardner have done seem to show that there was something of each in play. Bringing them together in some fashion lends itself to a creative process using some sort of conceptual mapping and implementation.

Regards,
MG

[_Themis]

If Joseph Smith spent a good amount of the 'translation' process without the plates then I would assume that we can agree that unless he had crib notes in his hat he was reading something off the stone. The witnesses verify this. Otherwise we would have to default to some kind of channeling process and/or automatic writing. For me, that doesn't do it for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that I don't believe a coherent and cohesive 'historical' narrative of this complexity would result through one or both of those methods. I believe that to meet the constraints of the short span of time in which the majority of the Book of Mormon was translated and the fact that the plates were not being used exclusively we are left with a process in which Joseph was a 'player' considering the fact that there is 19th century relevancy in the content. And language which comes out of that...and earlier...period of time.

If Joseph, as the witnesses tell us, was seeing the words on his rock/seer-stone how would he not be able to read off a coherent, cohesive and complex narrative prepared potentially over centuries by the power of God? Given the time span you are looking at this would be the only way he could make such a narrative.

[_mentalgymnast]

Don't you mean Chiasmsus that made it through the "expansion" process? lol.

For the sake of argument, let's say that the chiasmus found in the Book of Mormon is complex.

How did it get there? Again, per my last post, if Joseph is moving along at a fairly rapid pace in the 'translation' and reading off of a rock...how did it end up in the Book of Mormon? It's not the Dr. Seuss jingles we're talking about.

If you haven't noticed, I'm suggesting that the actual process and the system(s) involved seems to be a bit (understatement) more complex than putting his head in a hat and simply reading words magically put there by whomever.

I look at the Book of Mormon as being a mixed bag of a number of different systems/operations in play. After all, if Steve Jobs can develop an iPhone and that technology can do a whole lot of operations per second, wouldn't God be able to AT LEAST match that?

Regards,
MG