View source for Criticism of Mormonism/Websites/MormonThink/Joseph's Translation of the Bible

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|L=Criticism of Mormonism/Websites/MormonThink/Joseph's Translation of the Bible
|H=Response to MormonThink page "Joseph's Translation of the Bible"
|T=[[../|MormonThink]]
|A=Anonymous
|<=[[../The Kinderhook Plates|The Kinderhook Plates]]
|>=[[../Joseph Running with the Plates|Joseph Running with the Plates]]
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|L=Criticism of Mormonism/Websites/MormonThink/Joseph's Translation of the Bible
|H=Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Joseph's Translation of the Bible"
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|L1=Response to claim: "How is it that the BOM doesn’t match the" Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible?
|L2=Response to claim: "Why didn’t the next prophet, or any subsequent prophet, finish the inspired version of the Bible?"
|L3=Response to claim: "Joseph...left 'uncorrected' the passages about how in heaven, they neither marry nor are given in marriage"
|L4=Response to claim: "the Book of Abraham....distinctly taught the plurality of gods....Why didn’t Joseph correct this when he translated the Bible"
|L5=Response to claim: "Another error in the King James Version is the introduction of the name 'Lucifer'"
|L6=Response to claim: "Each time linguists make a new Bible translation....not one to date has confirmed any of Joseph Smith's inspired version passages"
}}
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==Response to claim: "How is it that the BOM doesn’t match the" Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible?==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Joseph Smith corrected the Bible. In doing so he also corrected the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is the most correct book and was translated a mere decade before the JST. The BOM was not corrupted over time and did not need correcting. How is it that the BOM doesn’t match the JST?
}}
{{information|Some have presumed that Joseph simply opened a Bible and copied those chapters when he came to material on the gold plates that he recognized as being from the Bible. Joseph's work on the Bible was for the purpose of clarification, and was not an attempt to restore original Biblical text.
}}
{{:Question: Why does the Book of Mormon match the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible so closely?}}
{{:Question: Why are many of the quotes from Isaiah in the Book of Mormon identical to those in the King James Bible?}}
{{:Question: Do academic translators copy translations of other documents to use as a "base text"?}}
{{:Question: If the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) is Joseph Smith's 'correction' of Biblical errors, why do these corrections not match known Biblical manuscripts?}}

==Response to claim: "Why didn’t the next prophet, or any subsequent prophet, finish the inspired version of the Bible?"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Why didn’t the next prophet, or any subsequent prophet, finish the inspired version of the Bible that the church thought was so important that they altered our version of the King James Bible to include the portions that Joseph did retranslate? Does it make any sense that the inspired version of the Bible should not be finished merely with the death of the first prophet of the restoration? If we really did have a succession of prophets since Joseph Smith, this important work would have been finished and published as God commanded Joseph to do.
}}
{{misinformation|The fact that Joseph was collecting funds to publish what we call the JST suggests that he believed it was sufficiently advanced to be published, so no further work on it was necessary. The Church did publish passages from the JST in the scriptures for use in comparison with the KJV text. The Book of Moses, which was produced as part of the Joseph Smith Translation, was canonized.
}}
{{:Question: Was Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible ever completed?}}

==Response to claim: "Joseph...left 'uncorrected' the passages about how in heaven, they neither marry nor are given in marriage"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=The JST contradicts current Mormon teaching and practice that is so basic and important to Mormonism. The doctrine of eternal marriage is not taught in the JST. Joseph (and all the subsequent prophets who are also translators, see D&C 107:91-92) left 'uncorrected' the passages about how in heaven, they neither marry nor are given in marriage...<br>....<br>Some apologists say that Joseph covered this doctrinal error D&C 132:15-17 which they say correctly states the LDS view on eternal marriage. However, this provides another reason why Joseph should have corrected the marriage verses of the Bible when he did the JST so there would not be contradictions. Why bother translating the bible at all when he could merely correct all scriptural and doctrinal erros of the past by giving new revelations in the D&C?
|provenance=Jerald and Sandra Tanner, ''The Changing World of Morminism'', 520.
}}
{{misinformation|The critics assume a certain meaning for the passage, and then claim that it was "uncorrected."
}}
{{:Question: Does Jesus Christ's statement "they neither marry, nor are given in marriage" contradict the Latter-day Saint doctrine of eternal marriage?}}
{{:Source:Joseph Fielding Smith:Conference Report:1941:that marriage while they are in the world, yet the fact remains that when they are dead the marriage comes to an end}}

==Response to claim: "the Book of Abraham....distinctly taught the plurality of gods....Why didn’t Joseph correct this when he translated the Bible"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Joseph's 1842 translation of portions of the Book of Abraham, however, distinctly taught the plurality of gods as well as does the Book of Moses -- a concept of deity Joseph had started teaching a few years earlier, but one which many Saints neither understood nor appreciated. Why didn’t Joseph correct this when he translated the Bible, including many, many verses he corrected in Genesis and not wait until he produced the Book of Abraham and the Book of Moses a decade later? 
}}
{{misinformation|The King James Bible ''already'' supports a "plurality of Gods."
}}
{{:Question: When Joseph performed his inspired translation of the Bible, why didn't he rewrite the creation account in Genesis to read more like that in the Book of Abraham?}}

==Response to claim: "Another error in the King James Version is the introduction of the name 'Lucifer'"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Another error in the King James Version is the introduction of the name “Lucifer” into the English translation of Isaiah 14:12, a name with occurs nowhere else in the Bible.....This error is compounded in Mormon theology, with Lucifer appearing as a character in the endowment ceremony in the Mormon temple.
}}
{{misinformation|In LDS theology, "Lucifer" is a name which designates the pre-mortal Satan, prior to his rebellion against God. Because of Isaiah's use of the term, it has a long history in that role in western Christianity 
}}
{{:Question: Why is the name "Lucifer" used to represent Satan in Latter-day Saint scriptures and the temple ceremony?}}

==Response to claim: "Each time linguists make a new Bible translation....not one to date has confirmed any of Joseph Smith's inspired version passages"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Each time linguists make a new Bible translation such as the NIV, The Message, NKJV, etc. , they all go back to the original sources and try to use new information such as the Dead Sea Scrolls in making the translations, and not one to date has confirmed any of Joseph Smith's inspired version passages.
}}
{{misinformation|Joseph was not restoring the original Biblical text. The Joseph Smith Translation (JST) is better thought of as an "inspired commentary" rather than a "translation".
}}
{{:Question: If the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) is Joseph Smith's 'correction' of Biblical errors, why do these corrections not match known Biblical manuscripts?}}
{{:Source:Matthews:Joseph Smith's Translation of the Bible:does not necessarily assume that it be a restoration of the original Bible text}}
{{:Question: How is the Joseph Smith Translation best understood?}}

{{endnotes sources}}