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In this episode, Zach, Sarah, and Jennifer discuss the mechanics and methods of the translation process. Throughout this 6 part series, Me, My Shelf, & I will tackle and refute claims about the seer stones head-on using facts from the historical narrative.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(2:58) The Mechanics of Translation
(4:24) Curtains
(8:12) Methods of Translation
(13:59) Conclusion
Sarah Allen is a senior researcher with FAIR, and the 2022 recipient of the John Taylor: Defender of the Faith Award. By profession, she works in mortgage compliance and is a freelance copyeditor. An avid reader, she loves studying the Gospel and the history of the restored Church. After watching some of her friends lose their testimonies, she became interested in helping others through their faith crises. That’s when she began sharing what she’d learned through her studies. She is a co-moderator the LDS subreddit on Reddit and the author of a multi-part series rebutting the CES Letter. She’s grateful to those at FAIR who have given her the opportunity to share her testimony with a wider audience.
Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.
Zachary Wright was born in American Fork, UT. He served his mission speaking Spanish in North Carolina and the Dominican Republic. He currently attends BYU studying psychology, but loves writing, and studying LDS theology and history. His biggest desire is to help other people bring them closer to each other, and ultimately bring people closer to God.
President Harold B. Lee, untitled Rick’s College Devotional Address; Excerpts transcribed from the second half; 26 October 1973; no official printed version available. President Lee said:
Let me tell you something in a way of a testimony now. We’ve wondered how the prophet Joseph Smith was able to translate. Here he was an unschooled boy, and to translate from unknown hieroglyphics or an unknown language into the English language. Scientists scoff at it—how ridiculous can you be to claim such a thing? But we had something happen at the last conference that I want to tell you about to indicate something. That will give you a key to how the Lord can open the mind of a man and give him spiritual understanding beyond what his natural self could. We had eleven translators or interpreters that were down in the basement of the tabernacle, translating in eleven different languages. One of these brethren was translating for the Swedish brethren. And here, for most of the talks they had the script so that they could study it. And they would as the speakers spoke in English, they would repeat it for the benefit of those that were listening. But when this man who was translating from Swedish, from my English into his Swedish, at the priesthood meeting where he had no script. I was talking from an extemporaneous standpoint in my closing address. He said something happened, and I want you to hear, he said:
“The whole conference was a spiritual experience, but at the general priesthood meeting, I had an experience which I’ve never had before. I knew that there were some Swedish brethren attending the conference who had never been here before and perhaps would never come again. Therefore, I had a great desire that they receive everything that the prophet had to deliver. Not having a script, I commended myself into the hands of the Lord. And as you began to speak, I was startled by the fact that I knew one or two words and even three ahead of the time before you would say them. At first I was so startled that I did not dare to pronounce them as they were given. Usually, I closed my eyes and listen, and then interpret as I heard the speakers delivered. But this time I was prompted to look at your face on the television screen.
“In this very unusual situation, I looked at you and began to translate the words as they came. But to my amazement, I did not receive just the words in my mind, but with my inner eyes, I saw them emanating from the vicinity of the temple of your head and coming toward me. I did not see them actually as written on something. And yet I saw them and how they were spelled and experienced the power of the spirit as I received them. One of the things that made it even more dramatic was that when a complex sentence was about to be delivered, I received more words so that I could reconstruct the grammar into good Swedish and delivered it at the very moment you pronounced the words. Never have I experienced a great force with which the interpreted message was flowing as I did at that time. The same experience happened during your closing remarks on Sunday afternoon, except that I did not see the words coming to me.
“I have talked with the Swedish members in attendance, who have expressed an awesome amazement of what they experienced. They said they heard the interpretation and understood the interpreted message was delivered at the same moment as you delivered the words in English, but the interpretation was all that they heard. That the message came directly from you to them, they have all expressed that their attendance at the conference was a fantastic experience, never to be forgotten.”
Latter-day Saints don’t you think for a moment that the Lord doesn’t have means of communicating with us and sending us messages that are beyond our understanding, even to translate an unknown language into our understandable language. He did it with the prophet Joseph. He did it with King Mosiah. He’s done it with others. He’ll do it today as we have need. I have no doubt.
My whole soul pleads that I may so live that if the Lord has any communication that He would wish me to receive for my beloved people [the Church], that I could be a pure vessel through which that message could come. I don’t ask for anything; I don’t want anything more than the Lord is willing to send. I trust that I may live worthily so that I won’t be a lame vessel. Or a broken reed that the Lord can’t use at the times when He wants to communicate with His people.
I know that this is the Church and Kingdom of God, you Latter-day Saints. I know it with every fiber of my being. I have been polished, yes, . . . I thank the Lord and I understand more of what the apostle Paul meant when he said of the Master, “Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. And thus being made perfect he became the author of salvation for all who would believe on him” (see Hebrews 5:8-9). Whatever may be necessary, that I might be more refined; to purge out all that may be in me or that I have done that didn’t please the Lord. I would hope that I would stand ready to receive; to please God that I wouldn’t fail or flinch in a time of trial or testing.
I bear witness that these things are true. You hold fast to the iron rod, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the power of salvation. “Stick with the old ship,” as a father who was just about to apostatize was told by an unseen speaker. Stick with the old ship, it will see you safely through. You may think it is out of date. It is out of date, thank goodness, as compared with some of these modernistic things of permissiveness. But before you depart from those plain simple doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you had better make sure that you know the direction you are going, and listen to those who preside in authority over you. So I bear you that witness and leave you my testimony.
There is a wonderful Spirit here today. There is something unusual about this [Spirit] today. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it is one of those occasions when we could feel and hear and see remarkable things happen. You brought with you a tremendous spirit and I can feel it.
https://byui-media.ldscdn.org/byui_ft/devo_audio/1973_10_26_ADV_LeeH.mp3