Translation Process for Documents

[_why me]

I believe the book was plagerized. There was no translating or gold plates, no Urim and Thummin.

Why would God need to translate a book? I don't understand the question. Why wouldn't the original text be written in English? Why an entirely new language called Reformed Egyptian?

sr

Here is the problem: There is a book and if you have read the head in a hat thread, Joseph Smith's head was looking into a hat. How did he do it? How did he plagarize a book by having his head looking into a hat? Now we need to remember that no one saw any manuscript when Joseph Smith was translating. So how did he do it when his face was looking into a hat?

[_Runtu]

Here is the problem: There is a book and if you have read the head in a hat thread, Joseph Smith's head was looking into a hat. How did he do it? How did he plagarize a book by having his head looking into a hat? Now we need to remember that no one saw any manuscript when Joseph Smith was translating. So how did he do it when his face was looking into a hat?

Answer: he didn't plagiarize a book while his head was in a hat. See my response to your "critical thinking cap" post.

OK, I'm not trying to be snarky, but it's plagiarize, not plagerize or plagarize.

[_why me]

The most probable answer for this is plagerism of the Book of Mormon from other works.

sr

How did he do it without a manuscript? And when did he have the time to do the research? What is your theory?

[_Drifting]

I believe the book was plagerized. There was no translating or gold plates, no Urim and Thummin.

Why would God need to translate a book? I don't understand the question. Why wouldn't the original text be written in English? Why an entirely new language called Reformed Egyptian?

sr

Here is the problem: There is a book and if you have read the head in a hat thread, Joseph Smith's head was looking into a hat. How did he do it? How did he plagarize a book by having his head looking into a hat? Now we need to remember that no one saw any manuscript when Joseph Smith was translating. So how did he do it when his face was looking into a hat?

Am I right in thinking his knowledge of the Bible was impressive and he was able to recite large parts of it? Am I also right that he was able to hold his family captivated in front of the fire with his tall tales of the history of the native Americans?

In which case, why would anyone be surprised that he could do the exact same think with a couple of props?

[_Runtu]

How did he do it without a manuscript? And when did he have the time to do the research? What is your theory?

I can't think of any research he'd have to do. Rather, he or someone else wrote a manuscript by combining moundbuilder myths with Bible passages. If I had seven years to do that, I could certainly come up with something less anachronistic.

Remember that the scribes said he was upstairs, out of the room, dictating, so it would have been difficult to say whether there was a manuscript or not.

[_sr1030]

I'm not sure I agree, sr (welcome back, by the way). A skilled translator knows how to translate not only the meaning, but the voice and style of the original. Therefore, given a good enough translator (God would be good enough, I suppose), multiple writing styles might come through.

Thanks.

I know many very highly skilled professional translators. A translator cannot translate the noncontextual style of the original writer, only the meaning. The original writer could be recognized with any translator by their common usage of contextual words. Remember too that Joseph was allowed to use his own style, and he supposedly translated characters that represented entire concepts and without the noncontextual words.

sr

[_MCB]

Am I also right that he was able to hold his family captivated in front of the fire with his tall tales of the history of the native Americans?

Lucy Mack Smith reported that. We have no knowledge whether this was truthful or not. I personally believe, based on other reports about her character, that she was a full participant in the fraud.

[_Runtu]

Thanks.

I know many very highly skilled professional translators. A translator cannot translate the noncontextual style of the original writer, only the meaning. The original writer could be recognized with any translator by their common usage of contextual words. Remember too that Joseph was allowed to use his own style, and he supposedly translated characters that represented entire concepts and without the noncontextual words.

sr

I suppose it comes down to whether you believe in a loose or tight translation, both of which present problems.

[_Runtu]

Lucy Mack Smith reported that. We have no knowledge whether this was truthful or not. I personally believe, based on other reports about her character, that she was a full participant in the fraud.

I have no idea if she was part of a fraud, but I do know she was happy to charge people money to see the Chandler mummies and hear her explain how her son knew what they were and what they said.

[_why me]

I can't think of any research he'd have to do. Rather, he or someone else wrote a manuscript by combining moundbuilder myths with Bible passages. If I had seven years to do that, I could certainly come up with something less anachronistic.

Remember that the scribes said he was upstairs, out of the room, dictating, so it would have been difficult to say whether there was a manuscript or not.

I think that you got this wrong:

Now it's apparent that Joseph could see the spelling of the names on whatever it was that he was reading from.4 When the scribe had written the text, he or she would inevitably read it back to Joseph for correction.5 So he probably had something with him from which he evidently was dictating, and against which he could check what his scribes had written. But what was it? The witnesses unanimously agree that he did not have any books or papers with him during the translation process, which involved lengthy periods of dictation.6 In an interview with her son not long before she died, Emma Smith insisted that Joseph had no text with him during the work of translation:

Q: Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?

A. He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.

Q. Could he not have had, and you not know it?

A. If he had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.

Emma Smith could speak authoritatively regarding the period during which she herself served as a scribe. What about the much longer period when Oliver Cowdery was taking dictation? While they were in Harmony, Pennsylvania--where most of the Book of Mormon text was committed to writing--Emma says that Joseph and Oliver were not far away from her:

Q. Where did father and Oliver Cowdery write?

A. Oliver Cowdery and your father wrote in the room where I was at work.7

A correspondent from the Chicago Times interviewed David Whitmer on 14 October 1881 with the same story:

Mr. Whitmer emphatically asserts as did Harris and Cowdery, that while Smith was dictating the translation he had no manuscript notes or other means of knowledge save the seer stone and the characters as shown on the plates, he [that is David Whitmer] being present and cognizant how it was done.8

Similarly, the St. Louis Republican based on an interview in 1884, reported that

Father Whitmer, who was present very frequently during the writing of this manuscript [i.e., the Book of Mormon] affirms that Joseph Smith had no book or manuscript, before him from which he could have read as is asserted by some that he did, he (Whitmer) having every opportunity to know whether Smith had Salomon Spaulding's or any person's romance to read from.9

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