Book of Mormon Transliteration

[_canpakes]

Those problems have been rehashed and brought up over and over again.

If the words Joseph read were given to him word for word directly from God, that presents a bit of a problem.

What problem exists within the mind of the faithful believer that requires an alternative translation theory?

I understand why problems may be perceived by an independent observer outside of the faith, but what is the rationale of attempting to rationalize those problems away for either believers or non-believers with any of the various theories?

[_jfro18]

(1) what are the principal problems and (2)why are they identified as problems?

What forces the faithful away from the traditional explanation - In other words, Smith simply reading words presented to him (a) by God, direct from (b) the original source?

Those problems have been rehashed and brought up over and over again.

If the words Joseph read were given to him word for word directly from God, that presents a bit of a problem. Thus, the other views/means that folks have put out there in trying to understand the translation process. Whatever that process was, however, believers are obligated to default to the 'gift and power of God' being the driving force behind the translation.

Regards,
MG

This is literally what the quotes we have about the Book of Mormon writing process suggest though.

That the words didn't change until they were read back to Joseph Smith correctly tells you this is a super tight translation.

That's why the KJV errors are a big problem or why Deutero-Isaiah basically kills any chance of it being an ancient historical document since Deutero-Isaiah was written after Lehi left.

In order to know this and still believe, you have to redefine what translation means, what historical means, and, most important, you have to redefine what those around the translation process told us about it.

You can't have both a tight and loose translation under the quotes and information we have - it just doesn't make sense especially given that Joseph is seeing the words in a hat with his rock.

And this is why most believers refuse to talk about it, because you're right that Occam's Razor is really clear that this just doesn't add up when you try to account for all of the problems in the Book of Mormon itself combined with the fact that it's clearly a 19th century production.

[_honorentheos]

MG isn't making a great case for why the Book of Mormon should be considered of any actual significance, period.

I think the Book of Mormon's primary significance is that it is an artifact of history. The million dollar question is whether or not it is an artifact of the nineteenth century or of an ancient people that had prophets, saw and worshiped Christ, etc.

It is either one or the other. We all use Occam's Razor

ok

and Pascal's Wager as we determine for ourselves which route to take.

Why?

Modern artifact or ancient? I can see why critics of the Book of Mormon make the choice that they do.

and the vast majority of archeologists, historians, and people in general.

Actually, it's not really a million dollar question so much as just a triviality for most people of less concern than if Captain America will survive the upcoming Avengers movie or not.

[_Themis]

Although then you have the inherent problem of Joseph Smith's world in the Book of Mormon. Unless the 'ghost committee' is also composed of country hicks.

I remember you criticizing me for arguing how God would do things we think are logical and reasonable, but here you want to argue the same thing. Your arguments are all over the place with no real coherence to anything other then Joseph is a prophet of God.

I do see that speed of translation seems to be handicapped by involving too much complexity within a short amount of time. But I'd take a gander at saying God's processing power and delivery of information filtered through Joseph's mind using transliteration of concepts (pictures/visualization) through an organized sequence of mapping using Joseph's already fertile Biblical brain mapping (stories, teachings, prophecies, etc. from the Holy Bible) would out do the transmission of information from source to end through cellular technology. The human brain functions at a much higher processing speed.

So you need a God who likes to do things in dumb ways with a little loose here and a little tight here, so MG can have things like steel and iron loossey goosey and chiamus(which is something we see all over English literature) being from the ancients tighty whitey.

As I said earlier, I think we may be discounting the underlying complexity of the translation process. We may find that it's a bit easier to just say, "by the gift and power of God". But that sounds sort of lame, doesn't it?

I have never seen good evidence for complexity beyond human potential.

BY saying...and admitting to the fact...that God is great, I think we might allow for a bit more creativity in the whole translation process than we might otherwise. And we have to look at the book as it is and ask questions in regards to the 'problems' we see and how they might not be problems at all if we were/are able to look through a different lens.

Why? I don't see any good explanations for why God has to do some convoluted process that gets things really wrong. Especially since the best method of translating a text to someone who cannot read other langues would be the process all the witnesses claim happened. The problem for us today is we can now see clearly it shows the Book of Mormon was made up, so believers need something else.

But I'm not sure we can even to that. We stumble along the way. I suppose that's where a bit of faith comes in.

Why? Scientologists will probably tell you the same thing when you don't understand their claims. Why not learn all the the relevant evidence regarding the Joseph's smiths claims?

I think I've reached my interest limit on this thread for now. I'd like to read what other are saying, etc.

LOL Yes people are asking you some hard questions, but it is your thread.

[_I have a question]

There will not be any 'smoking gun' one way or the other.

Regards,
MG

But there is a smoking gun, in terms of the current Church doctrine on how the Book of Mormon came into being (words on a rock, super tight translation). The KJV errors on their own are a smoking gun as far as that is concerned.

In terms of the KJV errors appearing in a history of people who supposedly lived before 500 AD, that was supposedly written into gold plates at the time and then projected word for word onto a rock in the 19th century and written down by people who had a KJV Bible to hand...what’s the simplest explanation you can think of for that?

[_jfro18]

In terms of the KJV errors appearing in a history of people who supposedly lived before 500 AD, that was supposedly written into gold plates at the time and then projected word for word onto a rock in the 19th century and written down by people who had a KJV Bible to hand...what’s the simplest explanation you can think of for that?

Just as Joseph used a rock in a hat for "convenience," he used the KJV Bible when he recognized the text as needed for convenience.

So you see, no problem.

[_Fence Sitter]

It's deja vu all over again.

[_Themis]

Just as Joseph used a rock in a hat for "convenience," he used the KJV Bible when he recognized the text as needed for convenience.

So you see, no problem.

Look Jesus is giving the Nephites the sermons. I bet they are the same in the Bible so lets just write that down instead. I'm sure God will be fine with that.

[_Gadianton]

Gad: What is he READING of of a rock, MG? Is he reading English words off of a rock just like LDS.org says?

MG: That does appear to be the case as near as we can tell from the accounts of the witnesses and others.

MG: if Joseph is moving along at a fairly rapid pace in the 'translation' and reading [English words] off of a rock

MG: 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

wiki: Ostler accepts the Book of Mormon as an actual historical account, but as edited and expanded in light of Joseph Smith's vocabulary and capacity for expression within his world view.

What on earth does Smith's vocabulary have to do with anything if he's merely reading English words off of a rock?

[_mentalgymnast]

What on earth does Smith's vocabulary have to do with anything if he's merely reading English words off of a rock?

That's my point. Is he merely reading words off of a rock or are there some pretty dang complex systems/operation(invisible for the most part from where we sit) that are in play. As I said earlier, if God is involved in this process we're going to have to take things up a notch in regards to the 'technology' required to pull this off.

Afterall, look, reading words off of a seerstone. That right THERE tells you that either we have a fraud/charlatan on one hand, or a process that is a bit above our pay grade to get a grasp on. During this thread I'm attempting to show that there may be some other directions to come at this translation/transliteration(concepts/visualizations/ideas...put into words) process. I'm not in anyway saying that what I'm describing is how it actually was. But I think that a bit of creativity is involved in trying to understand the process knowing what we know now about some of ins and outs of the whole thing. Otherwise, we are strictly obligated to go the route of automatic writing, channeling, or outright fabrication/fraud.

One thing I think many of us can agree on is that Joseph Smith couldn't have hobbled together the Book of Mormon on his own. There's something else in play. I've looked at the alternative theories and for me they simply don't explain the 'whole picture'.

Regards.
MG