When is a prophet translating as a prophet?

[_Fence Sitter]

Book of Mormon –Original (gold plates) not available- Inspired translation.
Book of Moses –No records to compare - Inspired translation or revelation.
Book Of Abraham--Relevant portions missing- Inspired translation.
EA/GAEL-Existing Documents-Secular translation
Kinderhook Plates-Existing known fraud-Secular translation
Greek Psalter shown to Joseph Smith in 1842 by Henry Caswall-Secular translation

It looks like the only time a prophet is translating as a prophet is when the original is no where to be found.

[_Quasimodo]

Book of Mormon –Original (gold plates) not available- Inspired translation.
Book of Moses –No records to compare - Inspired translation or revelation.
Book Of Abraham--Relevant portions missing- Inspired translation.
EA/GAEL-Existing Documents-Secular translation
Kinderhook Plates-Existing known fraud-Secular translation
Greek Psalter shown to Joseph Smith in 1842 by Henry Caswall-Secular translation

It looks like the only time a prophet is translating as a prophet is when the original is no where to be found.

Fence, you obviously don't understand God's immutable law of convenience. When facts bring the validity of God's true church into dispute, God will provide a convenient excuse to expunge any damage. All apologetics rely on this blessing.

[_honorentheos]

The main reason I continue to find Don Bradley's research and presentation on the GAEL, kinderhook plates, etc., interesting is what it says about this very question in the thread title. Why WOULD the prophet take on the attempt to put to paper a translation of a document using a method only loosely based on revelation? I think it starts to shine a light into the thinking and character of Joseph Smith that is not as significantly explored as other areas have been.

[_Corpsegrinder]

The main reason I continue to find Don Bradley's research and presentation on the GAEL, kinderhook plates, etc., interesting is what it says about this very question in the thread title. Why WOULD the prophet take on the attempt to put to paper a translation of a document using a method only loosely based on revelation? I think it starts to shine a light into the thinking and character of Joseph Smith that is not as significantly explored as other areas have been.

What, in a nutshell, does Don Bradley’s research say about the question in the thread title?

[_Fence Sitter]

What, in a nutshell, does Don Bradley’s research say about the question in the thread title?

In a nutshell. ( and forgive me if I butcher it but here is my take.)

1. William Clayton was correct when he said that Joseph Smith attempted a translation of the Kinderhook plates. I think Don found some other references that backed up what Clayton said. It is not longer possible to blame the scribe on this one.
2. Don theorizes that since we have no evidence that Joseph attempted an translation on the Kinderhook plates (which are frauds) via inspiration that we must conclude that it is a secular translation. I think he is fighting a rearguard action here.

I have several problems with the second part. I don't think Joseph Smith ever differentiated between when he was doing something by revelation and when it was not. As far as I can tell he always acted as if what he was doing was by divine guidance. If this wasn't inspired how do we know the Book of Moses wasn't or the Book of Abraham or most of his revelations? Poor Zelph he is the one with the most to loose if this turns out to be correct.

Why is the default position a secular one? Given Joseph Smith's history wouldn't be the other way around?

Additionally when he made his attempt he sent for the GAEL to be used in his translation. So now you have to believe the GAEL was a secular translation also, otherwise the attempted translation of the Kinderhook plates using the GAEL would have to be considered inspired. This now ties into the discussion about who is responsible (those pesky scribes again or Joseph Smith,) for the EA & the GAEL.

[_honorentheos]

Fence sitter,

I think that's a pretty good explaination. I think we should drop the notion of Joseph Smith having tried a "secular" translation when describing it, though. I think it becomes an unfortunate sticking point for exploration.

What I find interesting about Don's research is that it fits nicely with other information we have about Joseph from the Kirkland time period. It seemed that he took a significant interest in language, and in more traditional forms of translation.

I think where we run into problems is when we assume this means he cast off all pretension to being a seer or that it means he might have produced the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham through some sort of "linguistical" method. I think a more important catagory that is popular in LDS apologetics right now is Joseph Smith's use of a mechanical method. I would classify a method as "mechanical" if it relies on and object that assists in translation other than Joseph's knowledge of the language or direct revelation. Using this, I think the pro-LDS explaination for the Book of Mormon is a mechanical one (it relies on the Urim and Thummim for a large portion of the explaination).

I suspect someone more knowledgeable on the topic of early American occult practise might be able to shed light on how this could be related to Joseph Smith's pre-Mormonism beliefs.

To me, Don's research is interesting because it seems to suggust a few things I think are worth further research:

- First I think it would be worth spending some time in effectively catagorizing the methods that Joseph Smith used in translation such as a mechanical method as I outlined above. It seems that much of the current discussion on Joseph Smith's texts are hovering around this idea anyway.

- Second it would be informative to chart the progression of Joseph Smith's use of these methods to see what it tells us about Joseph Smith and his view of his own ability to translate over time. I think it would be a difficult task for someone either very pro or anti Joseph Smith as it would be easy to bias the examination in favor of one's particular view of him. There are plenty of texts/translations that get overlooked such as the scrap of manuscript Joseph Smith claims was written by John the Beloved that forms D&C 7 for example. Is this a mechanical translation, a fabrication, or something other? I think that would depend on how it is determined Joseph Smith used the Bible in his translation methods.

[_Fence Sitter]

Honorentheos,

First of all I want to thank you for the link to Wilford Woodruff journal. What a fascinating read. If you know of more like that I would llove to see them.

Being the novice I am at this mostly what I have is questions and a whole lot of those bias you mentioned. While I do not believe in any divine influence for what Joseph Smith did (or at all for that matter), I do recognize my inability to explain how he produced the Book of Mormon under the circumstances as I understand them. That is why he is such an interesting person to me.

I am aware of Joseph Smith Jr's interest into Hebrew, Greek ( I think), Egyptian and an Adamic language. My OP was mostly meant to be a play on the "When is a prophet speaking as a prophet" discussion so often seen and obviously did not offer anything substantive.

I am not sure we can avoid the discussion of secular vs divine regarding Joseph Smith's translations/works unless our only interest in him is as a non-believer where we automatically rejects any arguments that include divine assistance or lead there. I am not at that point yet. Perhaps there are still some vestiges of belief left in me. While that may be a sticking point for non believers I think it is vital to understanding the LDS POV.

Help me understand your "mechanical" distinction or why it is important. Do you view the term "seer" as including the use of objects to act as one? I thought the only time he used an object to translate was at times (mostly?) with the Book of Mormon. He may also have used seer stones to provide relations that would not have fallen into the translation category. Is there evidence of a mechanical translation for any other text? Maybe I need to understand better what you mean by

when we assume this means he cast off all pretension to being a seer

Because to me a seer is more that just someone who translates using a seer stone.

Right now I can think of three methods that Joseph Smith Jr used to translate, and I think the first two are difficult to fully separate.

1. Use of an object to produce a text. This would also include some sort of divine or occult assistance. This is what you label as "mechanical" correct? To me this is just revelation with an object that is used to focus his mind or if you are a non believer he is making it up and using the object as a prop.
2. No object involved, a non believer would say he just made it up and a believer would say it was revealed to him.
3. When he actually thought he could read the language involved.

I have more questions but want to understand better what you are saying before I proceed.

Thanks Honor.

[_honorentheos]

Honorentheos,

First of all I want to thank you for the link to Wilford Woodruff journal. What a fascinating read. If you know of more like that I would llove to see them.

You're very welcome Fence Sitter. I don't think I have any unique information but one of my favorite links to read on Mormon issues is the BYU Digital Library.

If for nothing else, the Millennial Star archive is worth browsing through.

Being the novice I am at this mostly what I have is questions and a whole lot of those bias you mentioned. While I do not believe in any divine influence for what Joseph Smith did (or at all for that matter), I do recognize my inability to explain how he produced the Book of Mormon under the circumstances as I understand them. That is why he is such an interesting person to me.

That puts us both in the same boat.

I am not sure we can avoid the discussion of secular vs divine regarding Joseph Smith's translations/works unless our only interest in him is as a non-believer where we automatically rejects any arguments that include divine assistance or lead there. I am not at that point yet. Perhaps there are still some vestiges of belief left in me. While that may be a sticking point for non believers I think it is vital to understanding the LDS POV.

I wouldn't have a problem with the distinction except that contrasting "divine" with "secular" is ultimately a value-judgement. If we accept that a translation is divine or claimed divine then we are making a statement about Joseph Smith's role as prophet. The opposite has unfortunately occurred when we use "secular" - it seems to be a value judgement on whether or not Joseph Smith claimed he was communing with God somewhere in the process. I think it creates too many avenues for distraction, having watched it first hand on the boards during the discussion on Don's presentation after the FAIR conference. I'm not saying it can't be useful, I've just seen it become the argument rather than underlying material and that seems a problem easily averted.

Help me understand your "mechanical" distinction or why it is important.

I think a mechanical translation is one that bypasses the native or supernatural abilities of the person performing the translation. For a truly secular example I'd offer Babelfish.

With this in mind, I think the seer stones represent a mechanical method of translation (as claimed by Joseph Smith) as no one claims that Joseph Smith actually understood reformed Egyptian whatever that language might be. Nor does Joseph Smith receive the revelation entirely independent of the seer stones most of the time.

What's interesting, to me, is that Don's research suggests the GAEL/KEP might have been another mechanical tool Joseph Smith created for use. But between the two there seems to be a lot of variety in the translation methods used. in my opinion - I'm not sure there has been a systematic study of these methods and when they occurred. Nor am I sure if all could be easily classified. I think much of the D&C is purely "revelatory" in the sense of coming from Joseph Smith either as conduit to the divine or as originator. But much of it is also inspired by the so-called translation process of the Bible. So, where would the inspired translation of the Bible fall?

I think that Joseph was very interested in true linguistic methods of translation and this explains his fascination with languages during the Kirkland period. But I think he was more ambitious than his ability allowed. So much of what we have from him could be some form of composite approach. For example, it seems his forays into Hebrew led to some of his theological developments but only because he was reading a lot of meaning into simple words that might have been translated linguistically but perhaps poorly. For example, his reading of the creation and the term "Elohim". I think this could become an interesting category that I think of as "confabulatory" translation.

Anyway, the truth is I am just thinking about this without having invested much into it. But I think it could be interesting and valuable to be able to flesh out the timeline. When I first became interested in exploring Mormon history from the perspective of critic, the 1st vision apologetic shared on FAIR as well as the boards made heavy use of a poorly constructed timeline for descriptions of the events. I think many people invested a good deal of time and thought into clarifying the mess and today one rarely if ever hears a Mormon apologist point to Lorenzo Snow's 1908 account description of first hearing Joseph tell of the first vision and claim Snow heard the 1st vision in 1831. The clarity of the issue only came with laying out the accounts and supporting information on the timeline where they occurred. Right now, I sort of intuit that a similar approach to examining the translation methodology and results employed by Joseph Smith would help us understand him better as well as his claims of being a seer.

[_Fence Sitter]

Honorentheos,

Did Don's research show or is it known if Joseph Smith Jr. used the EA/GAEL for his brief translation of the Kinderhook Plates or that he just sent for them?

[_honorentheos]

Fence Sitter,

My understanding is that Don's research showed the limited translation of the kinderhook plates is derived from the description next to a single symbol found in the KEP/GAEL that is similar to a symbol found on the forged plates. I don't recall if it included additional information from Clayton or others that specifically say Joseph translated using them.