If Joseph 'saw the words in English'

[_Daniel Peterson]

I'm fine with that.

And I might note that "tight control" isn't inconsistent with paraphrastic translation, since, as we apparently both agree, no two languages correspond to each other one-to-one.

[_Chap]

What Skousen means by the various kinds of control:

1. Loose control: Ideas were revealed to Joseph Smith, and he put those ideas into his own language (a theory advocated by many Book of Mormon scholars over the years);
2. Tight control: Joseph saw specific words written out in English and read them off to the scribe—the accuracy of the resulting text depending on the carefulness of Joseph and his scribe;
3. Iron-clad control: Joseph (or the interpreters themselves) would not allow any scribal error to remain (including the spelling of common words).

Since Skousen believes in tight control, that means the only way Smith could have influenced the text qualitatively is through careless reading, or failure to notice the scribe's errors. If there is any paraphrasing going on, it is not being done by Smith, consciously or unconsciously (which was, I thought, perhaps wrongly, a possibility that DCP wanted to leave open) but by 'the Lord'.

To go back to the OP, one would hope that when (for instance) 'the Lord' saw a word in the alleged original text of the Book of Mormon that referred, for a Nephite, to the metal that 19th C. New Englanders knew as 'copper' he would not paraphrase it into English 'steel'. 'The Lord' may reasonably be presumed to know the difference between the two substances, and to be quite interested in maintaining the distinction. After all, as C.S. Lewis remarked somewhere "God likes matter. He invented it."

But perhaps once you let 'the Lord' into the equation, it is the equivalent of allowing division by zero in algebra: you can prove anything to be equal to anything else.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Since Skousen believes in tight control, that means the only way Smith could have influenced the text qualitatively is through careless reading, or failure to notice the scribe's errors. If there is any paraphrasing going on, it is not being done by Smith, consciously or unconsciously (which was, I thought, perhaps wrongly, a possibility that DCP wanted to leave open) but by 'the Lord'.

You thought wrongly, and I give up.

To go back to the OP, one would hope that when (for instance) 'the Lord' saw a word in the alleged original text of the Book of Mormon that referred, for a Nephite, to the metal that 19th C. New Englanders knew as 'copper' he would not paraphrase it into English 'steel'. 'The Lord' may reasonably be presumed to know the difference between the two substances

Sigh.

[_Chap]

You thought wrongly, and I give up.

Dang! It would seem that I have misrepresented DCP, like all us antimos do in the end. There's my credibility gone.

Sigh.

Sniff...

[_Daniel Peterson]

Oh well. You gave it your best shot.

Don't take it personally. We all have to deal with our inherent limitations.

I, for example, was never going to be tall enough to play in the NBA, and I had to come to grips with that.

[_Chap]

Now that DCP has finished saying anything of relevance to the discussion and gone back into the heavens before our astonished gaze, leaving behind only ... no, let us pass on quickly to meditate again on the OP.

The views it criticises, admittedly in a rather idiosyncratic register, do seem to bear quite a close resemblance to Royal Skousen's views on 'tight control', i.e. "Joseph saw specific words written out in English and read them off to the scribe—the accuracy of the resulting text depending on the carefulness of Joseph and his scribe" - don't they?

Joseph put his head in a hat, looked at a brown rock and the words of the Book of Mormon appeared to him in English. No excuses about horses, smelting ore for metal swords or anything else holds up if the statement is accurate.

The baloney of him choosing words he was familiar with to explain Tapirs as Horses is pure unadulterated b***s***. Cureloms and Cumoms was not changed to foxes and wolverines, was it?

God put the words in front of him on the rock and he read them off, or he didn't. It can't be both ways.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Now that DCP has finished saying anything of relevance to the discussion and gone back into the heavens before our astonished gaze, leaving behind only ... no, let us pass on quickly to meditate again on the OP.

The views it criticises, admittedly in a rather idiosyncratic register, do seem to bear quite a close resemblance to Royal Skousen's views on 'tight control', i.e. "Joseph saw specific words written out in English and read them off to the scribe—the accuracy of the resulting text depending on the carefulness of Joseph and his scribe" - don't they?

And Peterson's voice, quiet as a hummingbird's wing, wafts down from heaven just below the surface of Chap's conscious mind, saying, "Which is, poor fellow, entirely compatible with everything I've said here. You've never got it." Chap pauses, uncertain for a split second, and then proceeds as if nothing had happened.

[_Chap]

Now that DCP has finished saying anything of relevance to the discussion and gone back into the heavens before our astonished gaze, leaving behind only ... no, let us pass on quickly to meditate again on the OP.

The views it criticises, admittedly in a rather idiosyncratic register, do seem to bear quite a close resemblance to Royal Skousen's views on 'tight control', i.e. "Joseph saw specific words written out in English and read them off to the scribe—the accuracy of the resulting text depending on the carefulness of Joseph and his scribe" - don't they?

And Peterson's voice, quiet as a hummingbird's wing, wafts down from heaven just below the surface of Chap's conscious mind, saying, "Which is, poor fellow, entirely compatible with everything I've said here. You've never got it." Chap pauses, uncertain for a split second, and then proceeds as if nothing had happened.

Oh, I think we have all understood DCP's views on the 'ancient text revealed by man gazing at rock in his hat' story some time ago. Though there is a certain delicious frisson to be gained from hearing them repeated, and realising that he intends them to be taken in dead earnest.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Oh, I think we have all understood DCP's views on the 'ancient text revealed by man gazing at rock in his hat' story some time ago. Though there is a certain delicious frisson to be gained from hearing them repeated, and realising that he intends them to be taken in dead earnest.

Ooooooh. Smug superiority.

[_Chap]

Oh, I think we have all understood DCP's views on the 'ancient text revealed by man gazing at rock in his hat' story some time ago. Though there is a certain delicious frisson to be gained from hearing them repeated, and realising that he intends them to be taken in dead earnest.

Ooooooh. Smug superiority.

And (to make it worse) totally unprovoked. How unfair the internet can be.