Criticism of Mormonism/Books/No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith/Chapter 4

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Contents

Response to claims made in "Chapter 4: A Marvelous Work and a Wonder"


Claims made in "Chapter 3: Red Sons of Israel"
A work by author: Fawn Brodie
 Claims made in "Chapter 5: Witnesses for God"

53

Claim
  • Joseph warned Martin Harris that God's wrath would strike him down if he examined the plates or looked at him while he was translating.

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

53

Claim
  • Harris once tried to trick Joseph by substituting an ordinary stone for the seer stone.

Author's source(s)
  • Summary of Martin Harris' sermon in Salt Lake City, September 4, 1870, Historical Record, Vol. VI, p. 216.
Response

54

Claim
  • Lucy Harris stole the manuscript and "neither pleas nor blows could make her divulge its hiding place."

Author's source(s)
  • Author's speculation.
Response
  • Lucy states in the Hurlbut affidavits that her husband "has whipped, kicked, and turned me out of the house." Despite the fact that Lucy Harris makes no mention of the lost 116 pages of manuscript from the Book of Mormon, Fawn Brodie actually concludes that Harris beat his wife in order to get her to divulge what she had done with the lost 116 pages of manuscript.
  • The Hurlbut affidavits—Lucy Harris

54

Claim
  • Joseph realized that he could not duplicate the 116 pages exactly.

Author's source(s)
  • Author's conjecture.
Response

55

Claim
  • Joseph's family was counting on sales of the Book of Mormon to prevent foreclosure on their farm.

Author's source(s)
  •  [ATTENTION!]
Response
  •  Mind reading: author has no way of knowing this.: the author presents no evidence for this claim.

55

Claim
  • Once Joseph had translated the small plates of Nephi, he could go back to the old plates and carry on.

Author's source(s)
  •  [ATTENTION!]
Response

58

Claim
  • The Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon were "chiefly those chapters from Isaiah mentioned in Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

58 - Joseph was careful to modify primarily the italicized interpolation in the King James text

The author(s) of No Man Knows My History make(s) the following claim:

Joseph was careful to modify primarily the italicized interpolation in the King James text.

Author's sources: Author's conjecture.

FAIR's Response

Question: What do the italicized words in the Bible represent, and why is it relevant to the Book of Mormon?

Italicized text is used in some Bible translations to indicate when a word has been "added" because of necessity of English grammar

Often, the italicized word is a word which is implied in the original Greek or Hebrew text, but must be explicitly used in English. It is claimed by some that Joseph Smith was aware of this, and while copying the KJV passages, tended to alter the italicized words to make it look more like a translation.

Some members accept the possibility that the italicized words are often altered "intentionally," but disagree with what this means about the translation. They do not see it as threatening Joseph's inspiration, the divine nature of the translation, or the reality of an ancient text on the plates. Others hold that there is no evidence that Joseph even had access to a Bible, nor that he was aware of the italics' meaning. (It should be noted that the Bible that Joseph had access to at age 14 in which he read James 1:5 prior to the First Vision belonged to his parents. At the time of the translation, Joseph did not have access to that Bible).

Either option is a viable response, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully more data will be forthcoming to help resolve the issue, that we might better understand the translation process of the Book of Mormon.


Question: Did Joseph know what the italics in the Bible meant?

Joseph didn't even know that Jerusalem had walls around it. His basic knowledge of the Bible was limited

Just as there is no evidence that Joseph owned a Bible, there is even less that he had any knowledge of what the italicized words in the translation meant. Emma made Joseph's early ignorance crystal clear:

When he stopped for any purpose at any time he would, when he commenced again, begin where he left off without any hesitation, and one time while he was translating he stopped suddenly, pale as a sheet, and said, ‘Emma, did Jerusalem have walls around it?’ When I answered, ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘Oh! [I didn’t know.] I was afraid I had been deceived.’ He had such a limited knowledge of history at that time that he did not even know that Jerusalem was surrounded by walls.[1]

If Joseph didn't know this, how do the critics expect that he knew what the italics in a Bible (which he likely did not own) meant? This is something which many modern Bible readers do not know. However, one cannot conclude with certainty that Joseph did not understand what the italicized words meant. Some LDS scholars believe that he did.

Furthermore, italicization patterns varied between Bibles, and an analysis of Joseph's Book of Mormon "changes" to the KJV concluded that changes to the italics were not a determining factor.[2]


Barney: "three types of evidence favoring the conclusion that Joseph understood the meaning of the italicized words"

Some LDS scholars do believe that Joseph may have understood the meaning italicized words. Kevin Barney: [3]

I think there are basically three types of evidence favoring the conclusion that Joseph understood the meaning of the italicized words. First, and most importantly, is the distribution of the variants in Joseph’s inspired translations, which show a clear (though by no means absolute) tendency to revolve around the italicized words. Skousen and Wright agree roughly on this distribution, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30%, give or take, but they draw different conclusions from it. My experience spending a fair amount of time examining variants is that the italics were a significant factor.

Second is the practice of often crossing out italicized words in the “marked Bible” used as an aid in preparing the JST. Anyone with access to the critical text can see this phenomenon for herself, since they have actual pictures of the marked Bible text.

Third are near-contemporary statements from Joseph’s milieu evincing a familiarity with the purpose of the italics. A prominent example is this from a W.W. Phelps editorial in the Evening and Morning Star (January 1833):

The book of Mormon, as a revelation from God, possesses some advantage over the old scripture: it has not been tinctured by the wisdom of man, with here and there an Italic word to supply deficiencies.—It was translated by the gift and power of God.[4]


Question: Could Joseph have used a Bible during and simply dictated from it during Book of Mormon translation?

Nobody ever reported seeing a Bible, because Joseph was looking at the stone in the hat in full view of witnesses

The witnesses of the translation are unanimous that Joseph did not have a book or papers, and could not have concealed them if he did have. Since much of the translation was done via Joseph's seer stone placed into his hat to exclude the light, it is not clear how the critics believe Joseph concealed a Bible or notes in the hat, and then read them in the dark.

Emma Smith described this portion of the translation:

Q — [Joseph Smith III]. What is the truth of Mormonism?
A — [Emma]. I know Mormonism to be the truth; and believe the church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.
Q —. Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?
A —. He had neither manuscript or 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.
Q. — Could not father have dictated the Book of Mormon to you, Oliver Cowdery and the others who wrote for him, after having first written it, or having first read it out of some book?
A. — Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate a coherent and wellworded letter; let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon. And, though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, . . . it is marvelous to me, “a marvel and a wonder,” as much so as to any one else.[5]

NOTE: Some Mormon scholars believe that the passages in the Book of Mormon which match, for the most part, the wording of similar passages in the King James Bible, indicate that Joseph Smith simply used the wording from the Bible as he dictated. If this is the case, he clearly received that wording as part of the revelatory process, since the witnesses confirm that there was no book or Bible present at the time. For more information see Ensign (Sept. 1977): "If his translation was essentially the same as that of the King James version, he apparently quoted the verse from the Bible"


Ensign (Sept. 1977): "If his translation was essentially the same as that of the King James version, he apparently quoted the verse from the Bible"

Richard Lloyd Anderson (Ensign, September 1977):

In fact, the language in the sections of the Book of Mormon that correspond to parts of the Bible is quite regularly selected by Joseph Smith, rather than obtained through independent translation. For instance, there are over 400 verses in which the Nephite prophets quote from Isaiah, and half of these appear precisely as the King James version renders them. Summarizing the view taken by Latter-day Saint scholars on this point, Daniel H. Ludlow emphasizes the inherent variety of independent translation and concludes: “There appears to be only one answer to explain the word-for-word similarities between the verses of Isaiah in the Bible and the same verses in the Book of Mormon.” That is simply that Joseph Smith must have opened Isaiah and tested each mentioned verse by the Spirit: “If his translation was essentially the same as that of the King James version, he apparently quoted the verse from the Bible.” [6] Thus the Old Testament passages from Isaiah display a particular choice of phraseology that suggests Joseph Smith’s general freedom throughout the Book of Mormon for optional wording. [7]

NOTE: Witnesses to the translation process, including Joseph's wife Emma, state that Joseph Smith never consulted a Bible or any other book as he was dictating. If Joseph did indeed quote passages from the Bible word-for-word, as Richard Lloyd Anderson suggests, he did it without the aid of having a physical Bible present during the translation. For details, see Question: Could Joseph have used a Bible during and simply dictated from it during Book of Mormon translation?.


Question: Did Joseph own a Bible at the time of the Book of Mormon translation?

There is no evidence that Joseph owned a Bible during the Book of Mormon translation

The difficult financial circumstances of Joseph's family during the Book of Mormon translation are well known.[8] There is no evidence that Joseph owned a Bible during the Book of Mormon translation.[9] In fact, Oliver would later purchase a Bible for Joseph, who used it in producing his revision of the Bible (which became known as the Joseph Smith Translation). This purchase occurred on 8 October 1829, from the same printer that was then setting the type for the already-translated Book of Mormon.[10] Why would Joseph, poor as he was, get a Bible if he already owned one?


58

Claim
  • Joseph incorporated one of his father's dreams into the Book of Mormon

Author's source(s)
  • Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches, pp. 58-9.
Response

59

Claim
  • Early in the writing Joseph vigorously attacked the Catholic Church as the "great and abominable church" and the "whore of all the earth"

Author's source(s)
  • Source not provided.
Response

60

Claim
  • Lucy Smith's stories about the Golden Bible had converted Oliver Cowdery.

Author's source(s)
  • Author's conjecture.
Response
 FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources

62

Claim
  • Joseph Smith's lack of education is "a favorite thesis designed to prove the authenticity" of the Book of Mormon.

Author's source(s)
  • Author's opinion.
Response

62-63

Claim
  • Joseph Smith borrowed many stories from the Bible.

Author's source(s)
  • Author's opinion.
Response

63

Claim
  • Joseph's sentence structure in the Book of Mormon was "loose-jointed, like an earthworm hacked into segments that crawl away alive and whole."

Author's source(s)
  • Author's opinion.
Response

65

Claim
  • The story of the Gadianton band reflects the anti-Masonic feelings in New York at the time that the Book of Mormon was produced.

Author's source(s)
  • No source given.
  • Author's conjecture.
Response
Notes
  1. ↑ Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Advocate 2 (Oct. 1879): 51.
  2. ↑ See "Italics in the King James Bible," in Royal Skousen, "Critical Methodology and the Text of the Book of Mormon (Review of New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology by Brent Lee Metcalfe)," FARMS Review of Books 6/1 (1994): 121–144. off-site
  3. ↑ Kevin Barney, "KJV Italics," bycommonconsent.com (13 October 2007)
  4. ↑ W.W. Phelps, The Evening and the Morning Star (January 1833)
  5. ↑ Edmund C. Briggs, “A Visit to Nauvoo in 1856,” Journal of History (Jan. 1916): 454; cited in Russell M. Nelson, "A Treasured Testament," Ensign 23/7 (July 1993): 62.
  6. ↑ Daniel H. Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 141.
  7. ↑ Richard Lloyd Anderson, "By the Gift and Power of God," Ensign 7, no. 9 (September 1977).
  8. ↑ Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press; Reprint edition, 1987), 95–100. ISBN 0252060121.
  9. ↑ Matthew Roper, "A Black Hole That's Not So Black (Review of Answering Mormon Scholars: A Response to Criticism of the Book, vol. 1 by Jerald and Sandra Tanner)," FARMS Review of Books 6/2 (1994): 156–203. off-site See also John A. Tvedtnes and Matthew Roper, "Joseph Smith's Use of the Apocrypha: Shadow or Reality? (Review of Joseph Smith's Use of the Apocrypha by Jerald and Sandra Tanner)," FARMS Review of Books 8/2 (1996): 326–372. off-site
  10. ↑ Robert J. Matthews, A Plainer Translation": Joseph Smith's Translation of the Bible: A History and Commentary (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1985), 26; cited in footnote 165 of John Gee, "La Trahison des Clercs: On the Language and Translation of the Book of Mormon (Review of New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology by Brent Lee Metcalfe)," FARMS Review of Books 6/1 (1994): 51–120. off-site
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