This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
CES Letter claims there are “1769 King James Version edition errors in the Book of Mormon.” “Certainly the Book of Mormon should not have the same errors which displaced the original and crept into the text over the centuries,” they conclude, quoting Stan Larson. But when we investigate these examples, we see that these translations were perfectly reasonable. Joseph Smith probably used the King James version of the bible as a basis to translate portions of the Book of Mormon which are found in the bible, as evident from the similarity of the text. In each of these 14 examples, KJV translations do not warrant Joseph Smith changing them. Furthermore, Joseph Smith actually did change the text in some of these examples to fix translation errors, errors which he couldn’t have known about.
1. Isaiah 2:9
| 2 Nephi 12:9 | KJV Isaiah 2:9 |
| “and the mean man [men] boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself not: therefore forgive him not.” | “And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.” |
| Should be: “boweth not down.” |
I have to be honest, I face-palmed when I saw that this was CES Letter‘s first example. It’s pretty obvious that the missing “not” actually does show up in the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith was evidently aware that bowing was something the mean men were not doing rather than something they were doing. He got it right. The only difference is CES Letter thinks the word “not” should be located after “boweth” rather than “humbleth himself.” Then it would be saying the mean man is not bowing down and the great man is humbling himself. Is this how the verse should actually be?
Look at the Hebrew text, “Adam wayyisshah is wayyispal weal tissa.” Literally: “Man bow down person abased not lift up.” Since the Hebrew has no commas, the “not” in that sentence could apply just to the “lift up” part at the end as the KJV translators figured, or it could apply to the second and last part of the sentence as the Book of Mormon figured. But I don’t see how it could apply only to just the first part and the last part of the sentence as CES Letter figures.
Later, in Isaiah 5:15, this same phraseology is repeated, but this time it takes a future tense: “And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled.” This suggests that the mean man was not humble to begin with, which means Isaiah 2:9 should be “humbleth himself not.” He was not humble so he shall become humbled. So the Book of Mormon actually ended up correcting a translation error which Joseph Smith couldn’t have known about.
2. Isaiah 2:16
| 2 Nephi 12:16 | KJV Isaiah 2:16 |
| “And upon all the ships of the sea, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all (the) pleasant pictures.” | “And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.” |
| Should be: “image/ships/craft.” |
If you thought that last example backfired on CES Letter, sit down, buckle up, and get ready for a ride, because the Book of Mormon corrected an even more severe translation error in this example. Let’s start with the most glaring difference between the Book of Mormon verse here and the bible: the first part of the sentence, “And upon all the ships of the sea.” (Skeptics don’t like to talk about this, so I’ll be quick.)
Why did the Book of Mormon introduce this phrase that isn’t in the KJV bible verse? Well, it turns out this phrase is in the bible, just not the KJV bible. As the footnote to the Book of Mormon tells us, “The Greek (Septuagint) has ‘ships of the sea.’ The Hebrew has “’ships of Tarshish.’ The Book of Mormon has both, showing that the brass plates had lost neither phrase.” See a full explanation by Jeff Lindsay here. So, it turns out that the Book of Mormon quotes text that is totally unique to the Greek Septuagint bible. Doesn’t that kinda debunk the skeptic narrative that Joseph Smith copied the KJV bible text “word for word?”
But skeptics ignore all that. The supposed translation error they point out here is the word “pictures.” Is “pictures” a wrong translation? The problem is the Hebrew word here, skiyah, is not found anywhere else in the bible or in ancient Hebrew literature. We have no other context to compare this verse to find the word’s meaning. All we can do is compare the word to related Hebrew words and similar sounding words in other languages. The semetic root of the word, skh, means “attracting gaze” and is thought to derive from an observatory at a city near Ramah. So it has something to do with looking. If you add one certain letter to skiyah, you get maskith which means “showpiece, figure, imagination.” A representative image you look at. This is presumably why the KJV translators came up with “picture” for skiyah.
Dana M. Pike and David Rolph Seely said the translation of this word as “ships” by modern scholars is “based on two main considerations.” First, the Egyptian word sktw translates to a certain kind of ship. Secondly, the Ugaritic word _kt refers to a certain kind of ship. Modern scholars looked at these other ancient languages and found these similarities. Skiyah certainly sounds similar to sktw and _kt, after all. Pike and Seely claim the Ugaritic word for “ships” anyt is cognate with the Hebrew word for “ships,” oni, and _kt is cognate with skiyah. But there is a major flaw with this logic. The Hebrew oniyyah is a singular form of the plural oni, fleet of ships. The only difference is one is singular and one is plural, while skiyah is similarly conjugated from skh, which we know derives from a proper name near Ramah. So how could a singular-form conjugation which derived from a Hebrew word actually be derived from a foreign word? Well, maybe skh was derived from _kt? Maybe, but we know what the definition of skh is, “attracting gaze.”
The words oni and seku are only one letter different, so there is evidently some kind of relationship. And I find the similarity of the Egyptian word sktw too similar to ignore. There is also the context of the rest of the verse; we just had two phrases about ships. But if skiyah translates simply as “ship,” that makes the bible verse redundant: “And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all ships.” It seems to be something specifically having to do with ships.
The Septuagint translation, as we have seen, takes an important role in the Book of Mormon quotation of this verse. The Septuagint renders it as “every display of ships.” So skiyah could be some kind of display of ships. George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl in Commentary on the Book of Mormon say it refers to figure heads mounted on the front of ships. They cite Acts 28:11, which tells of a statue of Zeus attached to a ship as a figurehead. The Greek word for this statue, Dio-skouroi certainly resembles the Hebrew skiyah. The word Dio-skouroi refers to the twins born of Zues, who were patron gods of ships, and sailors would mount statues of them to seek their divine favor. Dio means “divine,” similar to the Latin deus, and skouroi is derived from kouros the statue representation of a boy. Is the Greek skouroi related to the Hebrew skiyah? The base skh in Greek refers to a habitation or dwelling structure and becomes words such as skoti and skoto which have to do with “obscurity.” Just the word “obscurity” as passed down to us today sounds similar to skouroi, and it relates to a visual display, just the way the Hebrew skh does. Whoever rendered skiyah as “display of ships” in the Septuagint translation evidentally knew what they were talking about. It is also interesting to consider this Dioskouroi statue on the ship is implied as the cause of the shipwreck in Acts 28, while Isaiah 2:16 talks about God destroying the skiyahalong with the ships of the sea. The contexts align perfect.
There is no English word for “statue of twins that goes on a ship,” so it comes down to a judgement call of whether Joseph Smith should have translated it as “pictures.” The 1830 definition of “picture” was “any resemblance or representation.” Maybe “ship-idols” would have been a better translation? Well, this issue is also complicated by the fact that there is no evidence of this word existing in Lehi’s time, so who knows what word actually appeared on the brass plates? But from the context of the rest of the verse, I think we get the right idea with “pictures.”
3. Isaiah 3:2
| 2 Nephi 13:2 | Isaiah 3:2 |
| “the mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,” | “The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,” |
| Should be: “soothsayer.” |
The Hebrew qasammeans “to practice divination.” So a correct translation would be “diviner.” But the word “prudent” was a correct translation in Joseph Smith’s time, and actually according to today’s dictionary. Prudent is defined as “careful in providing for the future; provident,” and derives from the word “provident,” which means “showing foresight.” The 1830 definition is: “Foreseeing by instinct,” which certainly can apply to the context of a diviner, especially after having been listed in this verse after “prophet.” So there wasn’t really much reason for Joseph Smith to change the word from the KJV’s translation “prudent.”
4. Isaiah 3:3
| 2 Nephi 13:3 | Isaiah 3:3 |
| “the captain of fifty & the honourable man & the Counsellor & the cunning atificer & the eloquent Orator.” | “The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.” |
| Should be: “enchanter.” |
The first Hebrew word here, bin, means “discerning, skillful, or understanding.” Scholars say in this context it means “to separate mentally, understand.” The second Hebrew word here, lachash, means “a whispering, charming,” and refers to the whispering of a prayer to produce a charm or a charmed amulet.
Considering bin is describing someone whispering a charm, “eloquent” seems to be the perfect translation. Scholars today prefer “clever.” But the 1830 definition of “eloquent” was “speaking with fluency.” So no mistranslation there. The phrase “eloquent orator” would normally make us think of a skilled speaker in some legislative body, but the 1830 definition of “orator” was “a person who pronounces a discourse publicly on some special occasion,” so it could really be any kind of skilled speaker. Look at the context of the previous phrase in the verse: “cunning artificer.” Eillocott’s bible commentary points out: “Here, however, the thought is rather that of one who says the right words at the right time; or possibly the enchanter who has his formulae (the word implies the whisper of incantations, as in Isaiah 8:19) ready at command for all occasions.” This context of the verse requires more explanation than just “diviner.” So there wasn’t really much reason for Joseph Smith to change it from the KJV’s translation “eloquent orator.”
5. Isaiah 5:2
| 2 Nephi 15:2 | Isaiah 5:2 |
| “And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.” | “And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.” |
| Should be: “dug it up.” |
Brown-Driver-Briggs says this should be: “he dug it carefully about.” The Hebrew azaq means “to grub over,” which is a light poking of the earth–presumably to get at the stones that were then gathered out. A loosening of the dirt. So it wouldn’t be correct to just call it “digging” because this was really talking about removing the stones.
The reason KJV translators used the word “fenced” was because the stones which were dug up were made into fences on the sides of the fields. This was before the days of barbed wire which we see around today’s fields. This what “gathering stones” meant; making a fence out of the stones who got from the fields. Such stone fences can be seen through the countryside of England and other ancient lands. Grubbing over the fields and gathering the stones were synonymous with fencing the fields.
6. Isaiah 6:2
| 2 Nephi 16:2 | Isaiah 6:2 |
| “Above it stood the seraphims; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.” | “Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.” |
| Should be only one seraphim, not plural. |
No, plural is correct. Saraph is conjugated to be masculine plural in this verse. In the singular masculine, it usually translates as “serpent.” Also, if this word were singular, how would the rest of the verse make any sense: “each one had six wings”? Each one of one? Joseph Smith and the KJV translators are correct.
7. Isaiah 6:6
| 2 Nephi 16:6 | Isaiah 6:6 |
| “Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar;” | “Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:” |
| Should be only one seraphim, not plural. |
No, plural is correct, same as with the previous example. Saraph is conjugated to be masculine plural in this verse. If this were singular, how would the rest of the verse make any sense: “Then flew one of one seraphim”? One of the single thing? Joseph Smith and the KJV translators are correct.
8. Isaiah 9:1
| 2 Nephi 19:1 | Isaiah 9:1 |
| “Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at (the) first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards did more grievously afflict by the way of the Red Sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations.” | “Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.” |
| Should be: “honor” |
Bible translations are all over the place with this verse. This particular conjugation of the Hebrew word kabad is translated by everybody in 1 Kings 12:10 as “heavy.” Same with 2 Chronicles 10:10, it is translated as “heavy.” Lamentations 3:7 translates it as “weighed down.” In each case, this third-person masculine singular perfect conjugation of kabad means “heavy.” So why does it suddenly become “honor” here in some bible translations?
In various ancient languages, “weight” was synonymous with “honor.” A similar-sounding Phoenician name means “honored one.” It is similar to a Zinjirli word for “honor.” So in certain cases, “weight” is thought to refer to “honor.” The imperative masculine singular conjugation is translated as “glory” in 2 Kings 14:10. So when we look at the context of Isaiah 9:1, we start with the end of Isaiah 8, which speaks of seeing gloom on the earth and being thrust into darkness. Then, Isaiah 9:1 says there will be no gloom, for while in the past he hekal the land, translated as “lightly afflicted,” he will now or in the future hikbid the Way of the Sea. There is a dichotomy here between hekal and hikbid, and some scholars say it is “heavy” versus “glory”–he has afflicted and now will honor. But KJV translators thought it was the other way around–he has lightly afflicted and then did more grievously afflict. This is because “hekal signifies literally to make light.”
Modern translators think that because the rest of the chapter tells of the glorious coming of the Messiah, the future instance of kabad should mean “honor” and the past-tense instance of kabad should be afflict, but the Book of Mormon makes an important change to this verse that complicates it further–it changes ‘Way of the Sea’ to ‘Way of the Red Sea’. This alters the meaning of the verse entirely. Now, instead of the future kabad coming along the Mediterranean coast to Galilee, it is coming along the King’s highway which leads from Egypt to Galilee. This was the route the Hebrews used in their Exodus to the promised land, and the route used in later violent invasions. The only possible translation error with this different meaning in mind is where the period at the end of the sentence should be. Should it be “By the way of the Red Sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations, the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light”? Or should it be as it is shown? It seems like it could go either way: the grievous afflictions come afterward by way of the Red Sea, or the people saw a great light by way of the Red Sea.
9. Isaiah 10:18
| 2 Nephi 20:18 | Isaiah 10:18 |
| “and shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body; and they shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth. “ | “And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standardbearer fainteth.” |
| Should be: sick man |
The Hebrew word here for “fainteth” is the infinitive construct of masas, which means to “melt” or “waste away.” So it is talking about the act of wasting away before a heat source. This is presented as dichotomous to the “glory” of the forest mentioned in the beginning of the verse. The word for “glory” here means “royal might,” and is clearly used figuratively to describe the king of Assyria, mentioned in verse 12, and from verse 19 it appears as if “forest” is a symbol for his armies or his royal posterity. So the word that is translated as “standard-bearer” here clearly has a relationship to this Assyrian army or royal posterity. God’s consumption of the Assyrian armies shall be as the “standard-bearer” wasting away.
The word for “standard-bearer” here is noses, which means “lift up as an ensign.” This is the only occurence of this word in the bible, so it is difficult to determine exactly what it means. It is derived from nosas, which means the lifting of a flag, and in this case may refer to a public display of judgement. Studylight notes: “Taylor (‘Heb. Con.’) says, that it does not appear that this word ever has the signification of a military standard under which armies fight, but refers to a standard or ensign to ‘call’ men together, or to indicate alarm and danger.” Reading the KJV text, I get the same sense that it isn’t talking about the defeat of armies, but of the withering of royal might, the erosion of popularity or royal clout with the people. Maybe “standard-bearer” could give a sense of militarism, but when it is read in context I don’t think it is a problem.
10. Isaiah 11:3
| 2 Nephi 21:3 | Isaiah 11:3 |
| “And shall [not] make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. “ | “And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:” |
| Should be: delight |
It is interesting that in the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon, they included the word “not” at the beginning of this sentence. That is obviously wrong. The Stem of Jesse (Christ) will not be of quick understanding? Couldn’t be right. Oliver Cowdery evidently saw this error after comparing it to the bible and crossed out “not” before it went to printing. If Joseph Smith were just mindlessly plagiarizing from the KJV bible, why in the world would he would add a “not” here? But when you read the Hebrew, you can easily see why this would happen: “Wahariho beyirat Yahweh welo yispowt enaw lemareh.” Translates to: “Breathe/smell fear Lord not judge eye see.” Without punctuation, can you tell where the “not” is supposed to go? I would have done the same thing as Joseph Smith. But when you consider the overall context, it should probably refer only to “judge after the sight of the eyes.”
But this shows the difficulty he had with figuring out this verse. He had some sense that the KJV translation isn’t totally correct. The problem starts with the first word, wajariho, which literally means to “perceive odour.” By implication it means to perceive, accept, smell, or make of quick understanding. Hugh Nibley has written at great length about the Egyptian word for “breathe” and how it relates to the Book of Breathing, which accompanied the Book of Abraham papyrus. The Egyptians thought of breathing as an act of living and gaining knowledge. The Egyptian hw, which we can easily see relates to the Hebrew word being used in this verse wahariho, means to breathe and is an onomatopoeia for the noise of breathing during prayer. Egyptian literature is full of examples of knowledge being gained by perceiving through smell.
I don’t think “delight” is an adequet translation. “Anticipate” makes a little better sense, but the Hebrew appears to speak more to perception of the fear of the Lord and gaining knowledge about it. When you consider the gold plates were written in Egyptian, it makes sense that a word with such unique meaning for the Eygptians would be confusing. Why wouldn’t Joseph Smith go with what the KJV translators put: “quick understanding”? It seems alright.
11. Isaiah 13:21
| 2 Nephi 23:21 | Isaiah 13:21 |
| “But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. “ | “But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.” |
| Should be: wild [demonic?] goat |
Some bibles translate this as “satyrs,” others as wild goats, devils, hairy ones, etc. The Hebrew word saiyr literally means hairy goat, and it is the word Jacob used to describe his hairy brother Esau. Etymologically it means “hairy one.” The problem with translating this as “wild goat” as CES Letter proposes is that there were no goats in Babylon, according to Pulpit bible commentary. Why would goats dance in the ruins of Babylon and how does that speak to the desolation of Babylon after it is conquered?
The dancing of goats refers to the mating practice of male goats, where a he-goat “will rear up on his hind legs and prance about to lure a mate.” This was adopted in religious dancing rites. In Greek temples, the North Star Polaris was called the “sacred goat” at the top of a celestial mountain, and throughout the year as the earth spun, the “six astral goats or goat-men were supposed to be dancing round the chief goat-man or Satyr (Anshar).” Donald Alexander Mackenzie concludes: “No doubt, Isaiah had in mind the belief of the Babylonians regarding the dance of their goat-gods… In other words, there would be no people left to perform religious dances… the stars only would be seen dancing round Polaris.”
The Roman satyrs acquired a goat-like appearance and were identified as faun spirits. The satyrs danced in circles around the processional Festival of Dionysus, their father. The satyrs were “archetypical musicians and choral dancers.” According to Persius there were six satyrs, and as we all know, they were all about partying and having a good time. Sounds to me a lot like the wild goats in this verse. Joseph Smith and the KJV obviously did not know about the Babylonian god Ashnar and his children, but they probably saw the similarity between the Hebrew saiyr and the Greek word satyro , and considered the close similarity of meaning, and figured this might be where the Greek satyr derived. We see the same kind of mythological man-creature described in Leviticus 17:7 and 2 Chronicles 11:15. So this is probably a correct assumption. Even if it some day turns out these words aren’t related, the word satyr closely describes what is being talked about here, so why not use it?
CES Letter changes this from plural to singular, which is incorrect. The word used here is the masculine plural.
12. Isaiah 13:22
| 2 Nephi 23:22 | Isaiah 13:22 |
| “And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces; and her time is near to come, and her day shall not be prolonged. For I will destroy her speedily; yea, for I will be merciful unto my people, but the wicked shall perish. “ | “And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.” |
| Should be: howling beast/Hyena, jackal |
The Hebrew word here, iyim, is “any solitary wild creature and is identical to the exclamation “alas!” Jackals howl a doleful sound, so it is usually referring to jackals. But according to Brown-Driver-Briggs it can be any “inhabitant of desert, ruin.” Why not translate this as “wild beasts” crying in their desolate houses?
Next, the word that gets translated here by the KJV as “dragons” is we-tannim. Scholars say the root word tan translates as “jackal,” and it makes a big difference whether you add -m to the end or -n (nun sofit). Tann-im is plural for “jackal,” while tann-in refers to monstrous serpent creatures, they say. Dictionaries define tan as either “a monster (as preternaturally formed), ie a sea-serpent” and “also a jackal.” It derives from a root the means “to elongate,” which would explain why it would refer to serpents. Scholars noticed that “tann-in” is used in the bible when talking about certain monstrous creatures and “tann-im” when talking about mourning and desolation, and just assumed it must be a jackal doing the mourning. But does tan really mean “jackal” all of the time, or some of the time, or not at all?
The Hebrew letter -n means “fish” in Aramaic and is first mentioned in the bible as “Nun” the father of Jonah, who was swalled by the sea-monster. This explains why adding -n to tan makes it about sea creatures. It makes it a sea-version of tan. But what is tan itself? Who can prove what tan really means? We can only guess, based on the context of bible verses that use this word. It is found in the desert, it is a symbol of desolation (like how we think of ‘vultures’ and ‘rats’ today.) I get the feeling it is of a more general meaning, and that it includes jackals, snakes, and other monstrous creatures. There probably isn’t any English equivalent. But I think land-serpent is a pretty close. The English word “dragon” derives from Greek drakon which means “serpent.” Probably not exactly right, but close.
There are probably better words that could be used, but I can’t blame Joseph Smith for leaving it with what KJV has translated. I think Joseph Smith probably was aware that dragons don’t exist in real life, but recognized that this was the closest English word for whatever the Hebrew was trying to convey.
13. Isaiah 49:5
| 1 Nephi 21:5 | Isaiah 49:5 |
| “And now, saith the Lord—that formed me from the womb that I should be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him—though [thou] Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength.” | “And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength.” |
| Should be: Israel might be gathered unto |
This is incorrect. No, it should not read ‘Israel might be gathered unto Lord.” The Hebrew literally translates to: “Israel gather heavy eye Jehovah.” As we saw from the previous example, “heavy” could mean “honor” in certain contexts. Being called from the womb to be prophet indicates that the “burden” here is indeed an honor, though it is also certainly burdensome, as God is needed to be his strength. Thus, it is translated as “I shall be glorious.” The “eye Jehovah” indicates this is something that will happen in God’s sight. ” I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord.”
Some cholars point out that there is no reason for “not” to be in there, but others say it should. John Gil says it could be translated as: “and shall not Israel be gathered to him?” when compared to similar sentences in the bible. Perhaps it is something more like: “As Israel is gathered, then I will be honored in the Lord’s eyes.” Look at the context. This is about Isaiah being called as prophet. The KJV translation relates it back to Isaiah’s role in Israel’s gathering. I find it interesting that the Book of Mormon printer’s manuscript places “thou” instead of “though,” which was changed to match the KJV apparently because Isaiah is being addressed here, and obviously he is not Israel. But perhaps it was correct to address this phrase back to Isaiah, something like “thou shalt be glorious in the eye of the Lord as Israel gathereth.”
Whichever way it specifically is phrased, I think we all get the general idea: Isaiah has a role in the gathering of Israel. As Calvin said in his commentary: “Although therefore Israel refuse to be ‘gathered,’ yet the ministry of Christ shall retain its glory unimpaired.” The point is, Israel will be gathered, and it will be glorious in the eye of Jehovah. KJV expresses this just fine.
14. Matthew 23:37
| 3 Nephi 10:5 | Matthew 23:37 |
| “And again, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, which [who] have falllen; yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, ye that dwell at Jerusalem, as ye that have fallen; yea, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not.” | “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” |
| Should be: chicks |
CES Letter completely messes these verses up. They apparently try to combine the 3 Nephi verse and the Matthew verse into the same quote and add brackets and strike out text that changes from one verse to the other. But the reality is the verses are completely different. That’s because this isn’t a bible quote. Jesus was not quoting out of the book of Matthew. It is a completely different sermon, given at a different time, to different people. It shouldn’t be on this list.
So it is useless to speculate whether “chicks” is the right translation. Even so, a chicken gathers “chicks” under its wing, not other chickens, so from the context we get the obvious meaning anyway.
Joseph Smith Used KJV For Translation Basis?
No Punctuation – The printer’s manuscript for the Book of Mormon was written without punctuation, and had punctuation penciled in later. But these parts didn’t. Punctuation was evidentally copied from the KJV bible as the press was laid for printing, and there were other changes made to bring the text in conformity with the KJV bible text. As we have seen from some of the examples above, the translation can change greatly depending on where a comma goes.
If Joseph Smith just copied straight out of the KJV bible, why didn’t he include punctution? Why remove punctuation and then add it back in, last-minute? Why did he add changes that were later “corrected” by the printer? Why did some of his changes correct errors that Joseph Smith couldn’t have known about, such as with the second example above: “upon all the ships of the sea”?
Same Words In KJV – But it looks obvious to me that the KJV bible was a very important influence, considering how closely the words match. Would someone on their own just happen to render from the Hebrew the same exact words: “walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes walking and mincing as they go”? I doubt it. There are many other English words he could have translated the original Hebrew to.
Did Joseph Smith get these words from a copy of the KJV bible he had sitting beside him? Or did he remember these words from his personal study of the bible? Or did he just happen to come up with the same English words? It is evident from Joseph Smith’s personal writings that he had deeply studied Isaiah previous to the Book of Mormon translation. Later, he delved deeply into the meaning of Isaiah symbolism. It is likely that the words from his bible reading came to mind as he went through the Book of Mormon translation process. But did he had a bible sitting beside him for reference? I think he very well could have. Why shouldn’t he have? It would have made translating a lot easier. I once sat down to translate a 15th century German book into English. Despite my fluency in German, I found this extremely challenging, and I was relieved when I realized parts of the book were quoting a book that had already been translated into English. With great relief, I grabbed that book and used it as a close reference for those parts.
Does It Matter? – So this makes the entire issue here moot, because Joseph Smith could have accidentally copied over mistranslations from the KJV bible. Could have, but I don’t see any evidence that he did. Some of the translation controversies depend on punctuation, others depend on the meaning of words that scholars frankly can’t be sure about, and in other cases Joseph Smith turns out to have gotten it right. I don’t see any glaring translation mistake that a teenage farm boy from New York with a third grade education and zero experience with speaking other languages should have reasonably caught and corrected.
Skeptics seems to have missed sight of this: Joseph Smith was a teenage farm boy with zero experience translating, who knew nothing of foreign languages, and hardly any education to speak of, and here we have the world’s greatest theology professors arguing about whether a small handful of his translations were precisely correct? Really? How many of these same skeptics making these arguments are able to translate into English the original Hebrew of Isaiah? How many of these skeptics are even bilingual at all? Yet they are going to nit-pick Joseph Smith’s translations. Even if their narrative is true and Joseph Smith did mindlessly copy text over from the bible, is it just coincidence that he accidentally added a phrase that happens to be included distintively in the Septuagint version? Furthermore, if the skeptic narrative were true–that Joseph Smith was a superstitious con-man from a backwards culture–how did a backwards con-man achieve this?
Book Of Mormon Corrects Other KJV Mistakes – Another example can be found in the Book of Mormon’s quotation of Isaiah 4:5. The KJV translates part of it as “a cloud and smoke by day,” but the printer’s manuscript makes it: “a cloud of smoke by day.” The word “of” was later crossed out and changed to “and” to bring it to conformity with the KJV bible before printing. But scholars now agree it should be “cloud of smoke.” Joseph Smith had it right. So it is apparently that if Joseph Smith did use the KJV bible for reference, he corrected parts that showed up different in the gold plates.
What If These Translations Were Dictated In Seer Stone?
“Joseph didn’t translate the Book of Mormon. He put his face in his hat looking at his peep stone and the words appeared. The Mormon god was in effect dictating the words to Joseph… There is no room in this tight process for 1769 KJV edition errors to show up.”
CESLetter.org
CES Letter cites an account attributed to David Whitmer in 1887. The problem with this account is it was published after David Whitmer’s death from old age, published by Antimormons. The stated purpose of the book was to convince Mormons that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet, “drifting into errors after translating the Book of Mormon.” And the quote contradicts what he had told reporters just a few years previously. Each quote about seer stones being used to translate is unreliable, and there is no good reason to think Joseph Smith used any instrument except the Urim and Thummim.
But even if Joseph Smith got a word for word translation from peering through the Urim and Thummim stones, or some seer stones, where did this word-for-word visual translation come from? Was it magic? Was it the Holy Ghost? Or some kind of angelic intervention? It could be that whatever power of spirit achieved this visual manifestation simply put the KJV words. Why couldn’t that be? It could be a counsel of angels settled upon a word and flashed it through the stone, couldn’t it? Maybe they just settled on what was in the KJV? I find it interesting that skeptics are willing to believe the wild speculations of modern scholars on what a word meant 3,000 years ago to the point where a direct translation from God or angels couldn’t possibly vary from it. Nope, tannim couldn’t possibly mean anything but ‘jackals’! Were you there? How do you know?
See Also: Do KJV Bible Errors Appear In The Book Of Mormon?
Thank you to bwv549 for the great research, gathering and analyzing some of these verses! I appreciate the heads up.