If Joseph 'saw the words in English'

[_Chap]

If these accounts quoted by DCP are not rejected, there seems to be no evidence in them that would suggest a significant degree of 'Smith mediation' between the seer stone and the transcription. Nor is there any evidence here that when Smith could read the stone, his state affected what appeared on it.

There is no decisive evidence either way.

Which is what I've been saying.

We don't know, and cannot know, what interaction or relationship, if any, there might be between Joseph's vocabulary, education, etc., and the product of the dictation. But we do know that the translation process did not proceed automatically and mechanically, as my computer's internal processes do, in complete indifference to his mental/emotional/spiritual state.

I've simply said, and I've said it many times, that there is no firm basis on which to postulate precisely what was entailed by the nature of the very incompletely known translation process.

We don't know a lot of things.

But if we accept the accounts adduced above, they do point in one direction and not in another.

The direction they do point in is

(a) the one in which the stone either shows text or does not, and where Smith and his scribe serve merely to get that text, when it is visible, onto paper in a reliable manner.

The direction they do not point in is

(b) the one in which the properties of Smith as a physical/mental system condition the nature or quality of what is transmitted, when transmission occurs.

Some people might like suggest that there is evidence for (b), since it allows for wiggle room where the text of the Book of Mormon gives problems. But not only is there no positive evidence for (b), but it is explicitly counter-indicated by the report that Martin Harris said that the way the stone worked ensured that "the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used".

Surely that is about where one has to leave it, absent better evidence than we have? To say more would be nothing but baseless conjecture.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I disagree.

And, given my experiences with language and translation, I'm not sure that I find Martin Harris's comment entirely intelligible. Not, at least, in the sense you seem to prefer.

There is no one-to-one equivalence between any two languages on the planet. And the further apart they are in time, linguistic character, cultural background, and the like, the more to the forefront that fact comes.

[_Chap]

I disagree.

And, given my experiences with language and translation, I'm not sure that I find Martin Harris's comment entirely intelligible. Not, at least, in the sense you seem to prefer.

There is no one-to-one equivalence between any two languages on the planet. And the further apart they are in time, linguistic character, cultural background, and the like, the more to the forefront that fact comes.

I know a lot about translation too. The difference between DCP and me seems to me (and subject to correction) to be this:

DCP thinks that there really was an ancient Book of Mormon, and that the present text under that name is a translation of it. That entails for him a problem, in that he can see that some entity, somewhere, has to deal with the inherent looseness of the translation process, since as he says "there is no one-to-one equivalence between any two languages on the planet". What is that entity to be? God? The stone itself? Smith? All three? There has to be some wiggle room somewhere.

I think that there was no ancient Book of Mormon. One of the many pieces of evidence that point me towards that conclusion is that the process alleged to have taken place during the production of the present text is, from the point of view of what is really involved in any actual translation, nonsensical, in that it seems to postulate an impossible one to one correspondence between languages.

It's a bit like the case of the 'others' in the Book of Mormon. Those who believe the Book of Mormon records the real history of Lehi and his party find themselves saying that there must have been others there, since otherwise such things as the numbers of people mentioned do not make sense. They then make considerable efforts to find what can be taken as implied mentions of those others. Some find those efforts produce convincing results; others do not.

To those who do not think the Book of Mormon is genuine, like me, the implausibility of certain aspects of the early history of Lehi and the rest is yet another piece of evidence that the text in question is some kind of fake.

I hope that is a fair summary of the position.

[_Daniel Peterson]

it seems to postulate an impossible one to one correspondence between languages.

I simply don't see that postulate.

I hope that is a fair summary of the position.

It's not altogether bad.

This is a question, as most serious questions are, of prior probabilities or antecedent assumptions. Our assumptions vary significantly.



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[_Chap]

it seems to postulate an impossible one to one correspondence between languages.

I simply don't see that postulate.

I see it in these words, which DCP says he does not find "entirely intelligible":

the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used.

So far as I understand him, the lack of intelligibility of these words resides in the fact that they do seem to imply "an impossible one to one correspondence between languages". On that basis DCP questions the intelligibility of the testimony, as testimony. I question the intelligibility of the assumption on which the testimony is made, which is that the Book of Mormon is a translation of an ancient text.

I hope that is a fair summary of the position.

It's not altogether bad.

This is a question, as most serious questions are, of prior probabilities or antecedent assumptions. Our assumptions vary significantly.

.

Like I said. DCP and I, but most of all our readers, can test our assumptions by investigating their implications. I hope that as a result of our discussions readers have some basis for coming to a judgment on whose assumptions stand up better.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I see it in these words, which DCP says he does not find "entirely intelligible":

the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used.

So far as I understand him, the lack of intelligibility of these words resides in the fact that they do seem to imply "an impossible one to one correspondence between languages". On that basis DCP questions the intelligibility of the testimony, as testimony.

That's correct.

I question the intelligibility of the assumption on which the testimony is made, which is that the Book of Mormon is a translation of an ancient text.

That's only one of the assumptions on which Martin Harris's comment is based.

Suppose Johnny says that Walter Kaufmann's version of Goethe's Faust represents a translation that is just as Faust exists in the poet's original German manuscript, precisely in the language then used. Is Franky justified in responding that, since such a one-to-one correspondence between languages is impossible, Johnny's description represents serious evidence against the existence of an original German text of Faust and even, in fact, of Goethe himself?

That would be silly. The problem lies in Johnny's problematic notion of translation. The question of whether Goethe really wrote Faust will be answered on entirely different grounds.

Martin Harris never translated. At best, he's a secondary witness on this matter, not a primary one. Anyway, his statement isn't very clear. If I understand it, I don't think it's intelligible. It's not strong evidence (nor really, as I see it, any evidence at all) against the existence of Nephites or golden plates. It's not his assumption that the Book of Mormon is a translation of an ancient text that makes his testimony intrinsically problematic -- unless, of course, the question of antiquity is to be begged -- but his assumption of an impossible one-to-one correspondence between languages.

[_Chap]

I won't quote DCP's antecedent post: readers can see it for themselves. For me, Harris's testimony adds just one more bit of implausibility, and indeed of unintelligibility, to the 'seer-stone' account of how the Book of Mormon is said to have been produced.

Unlike the 'Faust' example given by DCP, we aren't dealing with an unrealistic claim about what an otherwise perfectly normal and intelligible translation process could achieve.

We are dealing with an alleged prophet who produces a version of an alleged ancient text, not by using looking at that text and exercising normal language skills, but by staring at a mystic rock in his hat, and seeing glowing letters that allegedly appear on that rock by miraculous means. I am therefore not at all surprised to find that this process is also alleged by someone who was close to the people who took part in that process to do something that no normal process of translation can ever hope to achieve.

And that, for me at least, is just one more weight in the scales to tip them towards rejecting the whole story as nonsensical.

[_Daniel Peterson]

As I say, it's a matter of antecedent assumptions about prior probabilities.

Chap and I view things very differently, and there's no question that his views are far better received on this message board than mine are.

As I've also said, I don't think anybody has ever suggested that the mode of translation of the Book of Mormon was common.

[_Ray A]

This should be helpful (Royal Skousen):

Joseph Smith's Translation of the Book of Mormon: Evidence for Tight Control of the Text.

[_Chap]

Skousen's conclusion:

Conclusion
Evidence from the original manuscript supports the traditional belief that Joseph Smith received a revealed text by means of the interpreters. This idea of a controlled text originates with statements made by witnesses of the translation. The evidence from the original manuscript, when joined with internal evidence from the text itself, suggests that this control was tight, but not iron-clad. The text could be "ungrammatical" from a prescriptive point of view, but the use of nonstandard English is not evidence that the text was not being tightly controlled, or that it did not come from the Lord, who apparently does not share our insistence on "proper English" (see D&C 1:24). In fact, the occurrence of non-English Hebraisms such as the if-and construction strongly suggests that the text was tightly controlled down to the level of the word at least. This tight control is also supported by the consistent phraseology in the original text. And the spelling of names such as Coriantumr suggests that control could be imposed down to the very letter.

All of this evidence (from the witnesse's statements, the original manuscript, the printer's manuscript, and from the text itself) is thus consistent with the hypothesis that Joseph Smith could actually see (whether in the interpreters themselves or in his mind's eye) the translated English text—word for word and letter for letter—and that he read off this revealed text to his scribe. Despite Joseph's reading off of the text, one should not assume that this process was automatic or easily done. Joseph had to prepare himself spiritually for this work. Yet the evidence suggests that Joseph was not the author of the Book of Mormon, not even its English language translation, although it was revealed spiritually through him and in his own language.