Do any of you know if the bom has ever been translated into 'English' to make it more readable in modern times rather than the fake 17th century language.


And for those who did foreign missions were the bom translation for other countries do it in their modern language or did they reproduce the book in foreign 17th form?

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I Nephi being born of.....It's bullshit

Adieu

The church officially discourages that.

OK to translate it into hundreds of other languages, but not English.

It has been (sort of) done, but not well: "Modern Revelation: The Book of Mormon Concisely Translated into Plain English" by Thomas Johnson, Wisdomseed Press (PO Box 56, Moab, Utah), 2005, ISBN 0-9767608-0-0

No longer in print, and hard to find used.

1. I actually began to "translate" it to modern English and got part way through first Nephi. I found that it reduced the number of words by a third. This would not only make it more readable but would save a lot of paper.

2. The only reason not to made such a change is that it would be too obvious and TBMs might realize it was being changed instead of the little changes constantly made. Yet, it would probably increase English readership....except I, for one, would have read it through earlier rather than falling asleep. That would have gotten me away from TSCC earlier.

"Having Visions" by Susan Wolverton does a good job, and also provides concise summaries of each book in the BoM for those who can't stand to read it even with modern English.

http://www.amazon.com/Having-Visions-Translated-Exposed-English/dp/0875863094/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338599701&sr=1-7

As for translations into other languages, there's a new book called "The Book of Mormon: A Biography" that goies into quite a bit of detail on the process. It also lists all tranlsations and when they were made. According to the author, the church insists on a formal rather than a functional translation, i.e., they go for as close to a word-by-word translation as they can reasonably get.

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Mormon-Biography-Lives-Religious/dp/069114480X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338599873&sr=1-1

You mean that all the world gets a bad translation? And I presumed that only those of us whose native language is English have to put up with it. Why must people be so tortured?

While the verses are divided differently, it is a lot easier to read.

Interesting site excerpt:
6. In 1888, Walter Sidney Rigdon -- Sidney Rigdon's grandson -- said that his grandfather's role in fabrication of The Book of Mormon was a family secret.

http://sidneyrigdon.com/criddle/rigdon1.htm#11



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2012 09:57PM by suckafoo.

http://www.lds.org/handbook/handbook-2-administering-the-church/selected-church-policies#21.1.8


That's some funny stuff!

Modernizing the language of the BofM is discouraged because doing so might obscure evidence that it was plagiarized from the King James Bible.

A corollary: stripping the BOM of it's pseudo King James language will produce an even more pedestrian and uninspiring text. *



* Which is exactly how the Vulgate (Latin) bible strikes me: the language used is spare, plain, not the least bit poetic, etc. Even a first-year Latin student can easily read it. And typically, they will feel an urge to translate from memory into King James style to "sex" up the prose.


Stylistically, the BOM is dross - so better to keep a little KJV sauce sprinkled on it, so the members can gush about its inspirational impact.

Community of Christ (formerly RLDS) have 2 versions- 1908 version very similar to LDS and 1966 Revised Edition without the thees and thous (both have different chapter divisions to LDS version)

The BoM translation we used in Japan back in the 70s used an archaic form of Japanese (think samarai movie) that all the people we tried to get to read it thought was very difficult.

I think they were working on a new translation at the time, but don't know if they ever finished it.