Hello all,
I was speaking to a mormon. He says:
"A translation to English is going to be produced in English, I have no idea how you lot don't know that.
If I translated your words to French will everyone be reading in English? No, they'd be reading French."
==============================

That doesn't make any sense. How could a translation in english be english? It should be polish.

Earlier to that, I wrote this to him:

"Why is the Book of Mormon written in old english (more precisely, early modern english)? Why isn’t it written in 19 th century english? Joseph Smith is from the 19 th century, is that correct or not?"


~~~~iceman9090



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2020 01:38AM by iceman9090.

(dense me) Huh?


are U saying Joe should have translated it to a different period English?

+GNPE:
I don't know. You tell me.

How about we get educated.
How about we read some late 18 th century newspaper.
There is a scan of a newspaper from Thursday, Oct 10, 1765. Read it top to bottom.
This is the way they spoke in 1765 and this is the way they wrote.

Source:
http://www.aia.umd.edu/seeking_liberty/intro.html
There is a scan of a newspaper on the right side of that page.

As for the Book of Mormon, it’s place is not the 19 the century. That is not how anglophones spoke in the 19 th century.

Here is a challenge. Find some newspapers from the 19 th century New York. Compare it to the english of today.

Here is another one
http://www.aia.umd.edu/seeking_liberty/images2/8%20reynolds%20tav%2024x30.jpg
It is all hand written.

Here is another one
https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/seeking-250-reward-settlers-hunted-for-redskin-scalps-during-extermination-e-m9B_A2N79k-hEF9bbit0IQ


~~~~iceman9090

To me the proof lies in the inability to translate period.

A horse should be a horse.
A chariot a chariot
A sword is a sword

Plus the nonsense words.

Ziff
Curleom

A translation under God would be correct with no need to go through mental gymnastics to understand it.

Forgive this slight tangent.

Mary Baker Eddy, the "Beloved Leader" and founder of Christian Science, once wrote (paraphrase from distant memory), "How fortunate we are that we have the revelation* in its original language" (English).

*That would be "Science & Health With Key To the Scriptures," Eddy' primary writing and the sect's textbook.

+caffiend:
"Mary Baker Eddy, the "Beloved Leader" and founder of Christian Science, once wrote (paraphrase from distant memory), "How fortunate we are that we have the revelation* in its original language" (English)."

==Which one is the original? Because before the King James version, there were earlier translations.

I am aware of Mary Baker Eddy. She had many health problems. I think she believed that prayer is the answer to everything. At one point, she sued someone and claimed he was sucking her life energy or something and the judge threw the case out. This was called the 2nd Salem witch trial, in memory of the insanity of the Salem witch trial where large numbers of people were hung to death. At that point, english people understood how stupid they were for killing each other for being scared of a boogey man. Starting from that period, religion took a back seat and science and logic came forward.

~~~~iceman9090

iceman9090 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello all,
> I was speaking to a mormon. He says:
> "A translation to English is going to be produced
> in English, I have no idea how you lot don't know
> that.

Your acquaintance doesn't seem to understand that translation takes an immense amount of skill and knowledge, that Joseph literally had none, and that if the translation was performed by God and given to JS, God is *also* a horrible translator.

Good translators will render idioms and non-literal phrases into equivalents in the translated language, but words for objects or animals that have equivalents already will be a direct translation.

For instance, someone else mentioned "a horse should be a horse." If the animal actually specified in the BoM was a tapir, as Mormon apologists like to suggest, a good translator would render the word in the text as "tapir" in his English translation. Only an idiot would turn that into "horse" when that isn't the animal in question. (NB "tapir" existed in English, and the animal had been described, classified, and named decades before JS "translated" the BoM).

Similarly, if I had an Italian text that read "fatto con i piedi" I would not translate it literally because it doesn't mean anything in English. Instead I would use an English phrase that conveys the same meaning such as "slapped together" or "poorly made." That would be acceptable license for a translator.

Basically, a translator's job is to convey the literal translation of a text as much as possible and only deviate when an idiomatic word or phrase that has no equivalent in the translated language needs to be replaced, and then to adhere as closely to the sense of the original as possible. The whole money passage in the BoM is an excellent example of how *not* to do it if it were a real translation. "Measure of barley" and "measure of wheat" (which, again, those are English words for things that did not exist in the New World--poor "translation") mean nothing in English without specifying how much a "measure" is. In instances like that, competent translators usually copy the word unchanged, e.g. in the letters of J.S. Bach when he references his pay, the word is left "florin" rather than translated to "dollar" since they are not equivalent and the equivalent value in modern dollars is constantly changing.

Anyone interested in the accuracy of JS's translation skills (or lack thereof) need only look at his fabrication of text wholesale out of an Egyptian funerary scroll to get an idea of both his abilities and integrity.

(I'm too bored to read them, but:)

Is there anything about the PoGP - apologist or otherwise - in the CES letters or anything official "explaining" PoGP?

I know, it's fanciful of me to think much less believe that ChurchCo would officially back away from it....

+Anziano Young:
“Only an idiot would turn that into "horse" when that isn't the animal in question. (NB "tapir" existed in English, and the animal had been described, classified, and named decades before JS "translated" the BoM).”

==How do you know that the word tapir existed?

“"slapped together" or "poorly made." That would be acceptable license for a translator.”

==I see your point and "slapped together" is probably a 20 th century term. However, I am not a language expert and I am only guessing.

“Curleom”

==As for curleom, a god would know what english word to write even if the english word did not exist in the 19 th century. After all the jewish god is omniscient.
Alternatively, it should not be a problem to produce a photograph because the jewish god is omniscient and has invented photography an infinite amount of time back in time.

Now for some texts from the BoM.
“But wo, wo unto him who knoweth that he rebelleth against!”

==People did not speak or write like that in the 19 th century. Nobody says knoweth, rebelleth.

“And he shall be called a Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary.”

==This is acceptable 19 th century english.

“And lo, he cometh unto his own, that a salvation might come unto the children of men even through faith on his name; and even after all this they shall consider him a man, and say that he hath a devil,”

==What is this garbage? People in the 19 th century do not say lo. The word is look. Lo appears all over the place in the King James version of the Bible and Joseph Smith obviously copied it.
People in the 19 th century do not say cometh, do not say hath.
He certainly pounds away at shall and unto.

BoM = cometh appears 127 times
The King James = cometh appears 287 times

BoM = hath appears 517 times
The King James = hath appears 2318 times


Bottom line, there is no reason for the jewish god or Moroni or the stones or whoever it is, to write in the style of the King James version of the Bible.

“Spake unto”

==BoM = appears 76 times
The King James = appears 273 times
How many books in the 19 th century use “spake unto” so often?

“Shall”

==BoM = appears 2490 times
The King James = appears 9928 times

“bringeth forth”

==BoM = appears 5 times
The King James = appears 30 times

“came to pass”

==BoM = appears 1355 times
The King James = appears 456 times

“shall also be”

==BoM = appears 7 times
The King James = appears 0 times

“stiffnecked”

==BoM = appears 39 times
The King James = appears 9 times

~~~~iceman9090

You are way overthinking this. The fact that JS used psuedo-Elizabethan English tells you nothing about the original document, or even whether there was or was not an original document.

There are various versions of Bible translations. They all basically came from the same source documents. Whether the translation used thee and thou and lo or not was not affected in the least by the original bocuments. It was affected by the knowledge of the translator and what audience they had in mind.

The BoM is Bible fan fiction. JS wanted something that sounded like the only Bible he was familiar with, the KJV, so he did his best to imitate KJV usage. That's all there is to it.

Some of the Biblical-epic movies of the 20th century also used Elizabethan English in the dialogue for the exact same reason. They wanted to "sound" like the KJV. It's not that the screenwriters didn't know modern English.

If there were an original source document for the BoM, it would have contained zero English from any epoch. Any form of English that was used in the final product would have been totally the decision of the translator. Or in this case, just like in those movies, the decision of the author or authors.


JS wanted something that sounded biblical. That is the explanation, whether he literally translated gold plates, or whether the BoM is total fiction. The thees and thous tell us nothing about whether the plates actually existed.

There are plenty of other reasons to conclude that the plates never existed.

BOJ: you Nailed it!

> If there were an original source document for the
> BoM, it would have contained zero English from any
> epoch.

Yes, but the source document would surely have included the odd French word. Right?

And with that, I bid you adieu!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2020 04:21PM by Lot's Wife.

+Brother Of Jerry:
“You are way overthinking this. The fact that JS used pseudo-Elizabethan English tells you nothing about the original document, or even whether there was or was not an original document.”

==There is no original document since there is no reason to think that jews (some people want to call them Hebrews) were sea faring people and that they crossed the indian and Pacific ocean and reached Mexico. Also, I have never heard of anyone writing a full book on metal plates. There are single sheets or a few sheets but they are limited.

“There are various versions of Bible translations. They all basically came from the same source documents. Whether the translation used thee and thou and lo or not was not affected in the least by the original bocuments. It was affected by the knowledge of the translator and what audience they had in mind.”

==It is evidence and I have to call into question what I see. For the King James version of the Bible, using lo, stiffnecked, Spake unto, cometh, hath is normal.

So, for the BoM, I would have to ask, why is it written in early modern english style? Is that the style that the jewish god or Jesus or Moroni likes?
Nope, it is more likely that the BoM is a joke.

“The BoM is Bible fan fiction. JS wanted something that sounded like the only Bible he was familiar with, the KJV, so he did his best to imitate KJV usage. That's all there is to it.”

==Isn’t that what I have been saying? That JS wants something that sounds like the King James version of the Bible?

“There are plenty of other reasons to conclude that the plates never existed.”

==Yes, there is plenty of evidence that the entire religion of mormonism is a joke.

~~~~iceman9090

“The BoM is Bible fan fiction. JS wanted something that sounded like the only Bible he was familiar with, the KJV, so he did his best to imitate KJV usage. That's all there is to it.”

==Isn’t that what I have been saying? That JS wants something that sounds like the King James version of the Bible?

COMMENT: Yes, you have been saying that JS wanted something that sounded like the KJV. On that we have common ground. It is the rest of the stuff you heaped on top of that that I consider to be "overthinking" what that implies.

Specifically, You seem to think that the thees and thous are some kind of proof that there were no plates and no translation. There were no plates and no translation, but the pseudo-KJV English in no way proves that point.

Suppose JS did have plates and did translate them. If he wanted it to sound like the Bible, because it was a record of people that the god of the Bible chatted with on a regular basis, he still would have written his translation in KJV English.

You seem to be questioning how someone writing a document centuries in the past and in some foreign language would know to write it with thees and thous. The writer would not know to do that. Any writer of any document would not know how to write to a particular style that didn't even exist at the time. The writer writes what she writes. It is the translator that makes 100% of the decisions regarding linguistic style, not the person writing the foreign language document.

If there had been plates, they would have contained zero English. JS, whether author or translator, would have created all of the English text, in the style he felt most appropriate.

Translators have to make all sorts of decisions, and often they are matters of opinion. There is no "right" answer. That is why there are multiple versions of the Bible, and the Illiad, and the Odyssey, and Euclid's Elements, and various Roman speeches, etc etc. Somebody didn't like the decisions the previous translators had made, and thought they could do a better job.


Up-thread, LW mentioned the word "adieu" which appears in the BoM. Some people here seem to think that is proof the BoM is fabricated. How could a French word show up in a supposedly Hebrew or Reformed Egyptian, or whatever text?

A French word could show up in exactly the same way the 522 pages of English words showed up. Assuming it was translated, for the sake of argument, all the word "adieu" proves is that JS was familiar with the word, and thought it a good substitute for "farewell". The original document would have had neither English nor French in it.

Actually there is an even more fundamental flaw in that argument. "Adieu" is a standard English word, though not a particularly common word. All of us who saw it in the BoM could guess what it meant. Yes, it came to English via French, which got it from Latin, but the English dictionaries I just checked all had it listed. (OK, all both of them, but unlike Free Man, who extrapolates to infinity from a single data point, I insist on at least two data points before I am willing to extrapolate to infinity :). So, all the words in the BoM were either English, or made up (curelom, ziff, etc), including "adieu".

+Brother Of Jerry:
“Specifically, You seem to think that the thees and thous are some kind of proof that there were no plates and no translation. There were no plates and no translation, but the pseudo-KJV English in no way proves that point.”

==I don’t remember saying that or implying that.

“Suppose JS did have plates and did translate them. If he wanted it to sound like the Bible, because it was a record of people that the god of the Bible chatted with on a regular basis, he still would have written his translation in KJV English.”

==It is my understanding that the translation was greenlighted by the big man himself: the jewish god. He gave a couple of rocks to Joseph Smith, which happen to be in the rock box. The rocks were doing the translating. Words would appear as glowing letters. Joseph Smith reads them and the other dude writes it down on paper.
In other words, Jo Smith is not the one translating them just like when I use bablefish, I am not the one translating words.
Right?

“You seem to be questioning how someone writing a document centuries in the past and in some foreign language would know to write it with thees and thous.”

==I’m not sure if I understood. Are you saying that I said that the guy (the jew or jews or native americans or Mayans) writing the golden plates included thee and thou and hath in their writings?

“If there had been plates, they would have contained zero English.”

==Correct.

“JS, whether author or translator, would have created all of the English text, in the style he felt most appropriate.”

==It’s not up to him. The project is greenlighted by the big guy: the jewish god. Why would the jewish god choose early modern english style?
Is he stuck in the past? He loves that style? Is it suppose to help the 19 th century reader? The 20 th? The 21 th?

“Translators have to make all sorts of decisions, and often they are matters of opinion. There is no "right" answer. That is why there are multiple versions of the Bible, and the Illiad, and the Odyssey, and Euclid's Elements, and various Roman speeches, etc etc.”

==That can happen with the Bible because the original source material is available. Actually, they are copies of copies. The originals have degraded away. There is the dead sea scrolls but who knows if that is the first version.

“Up-thread, LW mentioned the word "adieu" which appears in the BoM. Some people here seem to think that is proof the BoM is fabricated. How could a French word show up in a supposedly Hebrew or Reformed Egyptian, or whatever text?”

==LOL. That one is funny. I didn’t know adieu was in there. It appears only once in the BoM?
No one is claiming the reformed egyptian had the word adieu. We are talking about the BoM of 1830.

“"Adieu" is a standard English”

==Yes, english borrows words from left and right. Entrepreneurship is one example.

The latin word for god is deus and in french, it turned into dieu and the french say “a dieu” which then fused into adieu which means good by.
I’m guessing the english took the word god from the germans and I guess germans say gott.
The equivalent of adieu is goodby in english which used to be god by or by god.

Warning: there might be some errors in what I wrote. I’m not a language expert.

Who is Free Man?

~~~~iceman9090

iceman9090 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ==How do you know that the word tapir existed?

The South American tapir was described and classified by Linnaeus in 1758, and according to the Oxford English Dictionary "tapir" first appeared in English sources in the second half of the eighteenth century.

> “"slapped together" or "poorly made." That would
> be acceptable license for a translator.”
>
> ==I see your point and "slapped together" is
> probably a 20 th century term. However, I am not a
> language expert and I am only guessing.

That's not the point; "fatto con i piedi" ("made with the feet") is a 20th-century idiom too. But in the 20th-21st centuries, "slapped together" *conveys the same meaning* as "fatto con i piedi" regardless of the date of the original phrase.

As Brother of Jerry points out above in his excellent post, this is a failing of the Book of Mormon "translation." A good translation uses vocabulary and phrasing contemporary to the translator to convey the meaning of the original text except in specific instances where that is not possible, but Joseph Smith deliberately used archaic language in order to give his book more credibility in the eyes of his largely uneducated peers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2020 04:16PM by Anziano Young.

Brother of Jerry is right. It was just a way of making the BOM sound more biblical and thus (it was hoped) more marketable.

But it wasn't the only book using biblical phraseology during this period. One of the likely inspirations/sources for the BOM was Gilbert Hunt's "The Late War," a recounting of the War of 1812 in KJV-style prose.

http://wordtree.org/thelatewar/

Also check out "The First Book of Napoleon." Joseph was merely jumping onto King James' bandwagon.

Instead of confusing and losing the youth, God would have used words millenials could understand.

Like when the "Lamanites prospered in the land" could have been translated to "the tan buffed guys were exceedingly legit"

"And it came to pass" worded as "check this out foo!"
"tight like unto a dish" correctly translated "Amber Heard shoulder porn"

+MormonMartinLuther:
"Instead of confusing and losing the youth, God would have used words millenials could understand.

Like when the "Lamanites prospered in the land" could have been translated to "the tan buffed guys were exceedingly legit"

"And it came to pass" worded as "check this out foo!"
"tight like unto a dish" correctly translated "Amber Heard shoulder porn""

==That reminds me of the Rick James version of the Bible.

Here is a section of Genesis:
Genesis 1:1
OK, I can't post any of it. Look at the link


Source:
https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Rick_James_Version_of_the_Bible

~~~~iceman9090

Actually, the word "lo" is still used in 'English' English.

Joe Smith was making stuff up using his own knowledge or English, plus whatever he stole from the Bible and other sources.

+matt:
"Actually, the word "lo" is still used in 'English' English."

==I've never seen it anywhere and I read a bunch of newspapers online and offline, science textbooks, religious material, etc.

~~~~iceman9090

I use "lo" on this website from time to time. "Lo these many years," etc.

It's more literary than you'll find in newspapers, textbooks, etc., but it is not archaic.

iceman9090 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> +matt:
> "Actually, the word "lo" is still used in
> 'English' English."
>
> ==I've never seen it anywhere and I read a bunch
> of newspapers online and offline, science
> textbooks, religious material, etc.
>
> ~~~~iceman9090

Maybe I should have said "British" English?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2020 08:04AM by matt.

Just watch My Fair Lady and you will get it.

Language is defining and has its own personality.

If you want to sound educated you use a posh accent nodding to English. If you want to sound hip you use American. Sexy? Try a Southern drawl or for me its' Scottish Accent.

Want to sound Biblical? Godly? You use that old queen King James' flowery lingo with lots of "th's." Joseph Eliza Doolittled it! Clever that! Was Oliver Cowdrey the Henry Higgins? I think so.

If you want to become president you use the word "grab" rather than "procure."

Actually the Mormon makes sense, he just left out key words.

"A translation [from Reformed Egyptian] to English would be produced in English."

At my age leaving a few words out of a sentence and then not understanding why the object of my conversation has a puzzled look is, well, puzzling.

Last year I read an Mopologetic article that explained that the so-called language "mistakes" in BoM were, in fact, not mistakes, they were actually *proper* use of archaic English ranging from the 19th all the way back to the 14th Century. IOW, it was further evidence that the BoM translation was true.

However, in one of those I-can't-believe-he-doesn't-see-how-boneheaded-this-is moments, the apologist fails to see that would be like me translating something and using words & phrases ranging from Shakespeare to NWA.

+Chicken N. Backpacks:
"Last year I read an Mopologetic article that explained that the so-called language "mistakes" in BoM were, in fact, not mistakes, they were actually *proper* use of archaic English ranging from the 19th all the way back to the 14th Century. IOW, it was further evidence that the BoM translation was true."

==What mistakes?

"However, in one of those I-can't-believe-he-doesn't-see-how-boneheaded-this-is moments, the apologist fails to see that would be like me translating something and using words & phrases ranging from Shakespeare to NWA."

==It doesn't matter if you are translating something or not. I am writing in english right now and so are other people in this forum. We are all using modern english, which ranges from the late 17th to today.
We could throw in some lingo from the 1970s: Hey get down mamma! Shake that booty!
It's not illegal to do so. It is simply unusual and out of its time frame. Someone who reads that will take notice and wonder why in the 21th century, someone is using terms from the 1970s.

So, when Joseph Smith produced his BoM, did no one ask why it is written in the style of the King James version of the Bible? How did Joseph Smith convince people that it was an authentic book? How did Joseph Smith respond to that question?

~~~~iceman9090

me?

the BoM is sooooooooooooooo silly in premise & content when compared to the N.T., I sometimes wonder why people spend so much time/energy trying to disprove it.

just me I guess.

+GNPE:
“me?

the BoM is sooooooooooooooo silly in premise & content when compared to the N.T., I sometimes wonder why people spend so much time/energy trying to disprove it.

just me I guess.”

==Because I like talking about religion.
Because I like debating.
Because it gives us something to talk about.
Because it serves as a means to peak inside the brain of another person. (How much silliness the theist willing to tolerate? How much mental gymnastics will the theist go through to defend his captor? What will be his response? How does his response compare to the other guys I talked to?)
Because it leads me to more reading material which means learning more and more.

~~~~iceman9090

We've disproved the Book of Mormon (to any legal standard). Game over. Done. Which had little to no effect on the desperate to believe ...

Now for the hard bit: finding a way to shut down this criminal enterprise ... Erm, we're working on it as group here ... Answers on a postcard, please ...

Best regards esias