Book of Mormon Transliteration

[_mentalgymnast]

None of that answers the specific question...

That is true. I could begin 'the list' starting with priesthood authority, knowledge of the true nature and character of God, restoration and implementation of ordinances and covenants necessary for salvation and/or exaltation, and the additional light and knowledge to more fully understand and appreciate the Atonement of Jesus Christ, etc., etc., but where would that lead?

Nowhere.

Regards,
MG

[_Themis]

Although from where I'm sitting I think that for a person to determine that there isn't a creator/God is a bit shortsighted.

We all make determinations of non-existence of many thing based on a lack of evidence. Why would it be unreasonable for someone to make the same determination about God? Keep in mind my determination about the church not being true is made on a lot of evidence, not really a lack of it.

Open mindedness, I'm afraid, may not in and of itself lead you to a belief in God. Especially if the evidence is not readily forthcoming.

Being open minded never hurts, but being closed minded does. Open mindedness just means one is open to the evidence. Lack of evidence should never result in belief in somethings existence. I remember you failing to provide sensible reasons for believing based on a lack of evidence.

[_honorentheos]

...the information must be soldered in from elsewhere.

Sorry to derail slightly, but for whatever reason I really enjoyed this phrasing and wanted to acknowledge that to Gad.

I'm glad you pointed that out. When I read Gad's words it reminded me of my son, who had a hands on engineering class where in the end he had to solder something onto a computer board. He came home and said, "Mom, there is nothing worse than trying to solder some tiny little piece of crap onto a place where it doesn't want to be."

Brilliant and topical. Excellent!

[_Gadianton]

MG,

Since I've described the Skousen translation committee, you've substantially revised your theory.

Again, it may be the case that much of the translation/transliteration had already been done before the actual period of 'on task' time where Joseph is directly involved. He is then the last piece of the puzzle to receive and transcribe. His mind/brain being the final gate/filter/process to go through.

Again? You say that as if you're reminding me of your position. No, MG, this is the first time you've suggested the bulk of the work having been completed prior to being spoon-fed to Smith.

If Tyndale & Co. (you would have to have some experts that can work with 'scriptural text' (formatting, etc.), Reformed Egyptian and other languages) is involved in the process I would imagine they would have had the time and the expertise to have access to the information on the plates and create the script for the Book of Mormon narrative

Sure, Tyndale lived hundreds of years prior, so plenty of time to cook all this up for feeding to Smith.

But what happened to the amazing quantum network working at speeds that we humans can't comprehend?

I could imagine a 'software program' in which Book of Mormon narrative from the plates, Joseph's language, and the input from the committee are all happening in tandem on the fly.

My contention is that the system/operation in which Joseph, the reference sources (language/structure of the KJ Bible, etc.), and the 'committee' are all working together is complex and running at a processing speed that might equal and/or surpass the processing speed of our computers

LOL! Since we've had from the mid 16th century to the 19th century to get everything translated and ready for the final run through Smith's brain, it sounds like we'll need substantially less processing power. Hey, you can take my word for this one: If all we need is a computer program that can shift input streams from pure KJV text, to a stream of AV, and interject a literal "Curelom" onto the stone here and there to override Smith's modern term, a modern computer can easily handle the task. In fact, it could easily handle doing this for five hundred Smith's in parallel.

With every post, you're totally changing your theory, but you aren't admitting that your theory is evolving, your writing as if you keep revisiting the same consistent points again and again, and we're having trouble keeping up.

One more:

How and when precedence is given to others on the committee vs. Joseph's visual on the stone, who knows?

So when precedence is given to the committee, you're saying that Joseph isn't seeing the committee's override on the stone?

[_mentalgymnast]

MG,

Since I've described the Skousen translation committee, you've substantially revised your theory.

Again, it may be the case that much of the translation/transliteration had already been done before the actual period of 'on task' time where Joseph is directly involved. He is then the last piece of the puzzle to receive and transcribe. His mind/brain being the final gate/filter/process to go through.

Again? You say that as if you're reminding me of your position. No, MG, this is the first time you've suggested the bulk of the work having been completed prior to being spoon-fed to Smith.

After having posted I realized that this was a new twist on things. It does seem that in order to expedite the process of translation that there would have had to have been a significant amount of 'footwork'. I look at your correction as being helpful.

If Tyndale & Co. (you would have to have some experts that can work with 'scriptural text' (formatting, etc.), Reformed Egyptian and other languages) is involved in the process I would imagine they would have had the time and the expertise to have access to the information on the plates and create the script for the Book of Mormon narrative

Sure, Tyndale lived hundreds of years prior, so plenty of time to cook all this up for feeding to Smith.

It seems to make sense that all the work wasn't done at the time Joseph was actually translating.

But what happened to the amazing quantum network working at speeds that we humans can't comprehend?

It's still there...whatever that 'network' was. As I've said, I don't know that we can hope to understand the mechanics of something that we are not familiar with. One hundred fifty years ago there was little or no understanding of neural networks. That being the case, how would we have described (before that time) something we couldn't really get a handle on?

LOL! Since we've had from the mid 16th century to the 19th century to get everything translated and ready for the final run through Smith's brain, it sounds like we'll need substantially less processing power.

I'm totally open to that. But the truth is, we really don't know how much 'processing power' it may have taken. I may be overestimating. I was factoring in God being involved. Although if He was 'on site' during each and every translation session while at the same time answering daily prayers from all over the world (along with everything else He's doing 'in the moment', including improving His golf game), I'd still hazard a guess that there's still a heck of a lot of Godly processing power emanating from whatever source He derives His power. It's mind numbing to even think about.

Hey, you can take my word for this one: If all we need is a computer program that can shift input streams from pure KJV text, to a stream of AV, and interject a literal "Curelom" onto the stone here and there to override Smith's modern term, a modern computer can easily handle the task. In fact, it could easily handle doing this for five hundred Smith's in parallel.

You may be correct. Joseph and the translating committee didn't have access to computers however.

With every post, you're totally changing your theory...

Not substantially. Although I would think that as one is engaged in the process of speculation that there are going to be some adjustments along the way.

...but you aren't admitting that your theory is evolving...

The idea of prior preparation before the actual time period we normally allocate to the translation is something that came up as I gave things a bit more thought.

...your writing as if you keep revisiting the same consistent points again and again, and we're having trouble keeping up.

It's a fun conversation. If I'm moving a bit too fast without backing up and taking things slowly and/or adding clarification, I apologize. Your post pushed me to do so.

So when precedence is given to the committee, you're saying that Joseph isn't seeing the committee's override on the stone?

I don't know. I'd have to give that a bit more thought. I appreciate the questions you're asking. I've had to go back a couple of times and look at things from different angles.

I think one thing we might be able to agree on, and that is, if there was a divinely translated Book of Mormon it's helpful to try and flesh out some of those things that at first glance might seem to be rather simplistic. There may have been a bit more going on that we might think at first blush. Unfortunately I think there are a lot of people that say, "bag this" when they can't or won't take the time to think about things or delve a bit deeper into trying to understand how things might work.

A lot of prima facie investigation. The question is whether or not that is enough. Patience is key.

Regards,
MG

[_mentalgymnast]

It's [been] a fun conversation.

It looks like this thread may have reached the end of its life span. Thanks to those that contributed. It helped me to clarify and readjust some things I'd been thinking about in regards to the Book of Mormon translation. Major takeaway, without God in the mix the whole translation process/narrative basically falls apart. With God, the translation process/narrative has a running chance at staying in the race. Another takeaway is that it is highly unlikely, in my opinion, that it was JUST God and Joseph Smith. I think that there were others involved on the other side of the veil. And lastly, there was...again, my opinion...a good deal of fancy footwork that want into the translation/transliteration process before it ever came to the 'day to day' translation narrative that is recorded.

The fact that Joseph felt comfortable going back through the Book of Mormon and doing a significant amount of editing seems to point towards the fact that there was fluidity in the creative process itself.

Thanks again for the questions, etc.

Regards,
MG

[_Lemmie]

... Why do you need a translation committee to show Joseph Smith the text of the King Jame's Bible? That wouldn't even be "translating". That would be whispering source material into Joseph Smith's ear. And it's a suggestion of primitive and obscene foolishness. Allow me to explain.

Joseph Smith is "reading (nudge nudge) words off a stone" at a rapid pace. Perhaps God is showing him a mental film of sorts of plate content, and Joseph Smith's subconscious chops the images into mentalese, and then translates into Joseph Smith's vernacular and projects words onto a stone within Joseph Smith's minds eye, and Joseph Smith consciously sees the words on the stone and reads them off. Now here come the Isaiah passages. The translation committee opens up a King James Bible -- but there's no time for that. Okay, the translation committee prepares selections of the king james Bible and has them ready to splice into the stream -- but in what format? A kind of virtual format where the words appear the same way as swords and horses appear as images to Joseph, except in this case the images are just concatenations of English letters and so Joseph Smith gets them down exactly. Fine, but why did a committee need to be involved? If the committee is involved in that production, why wouldn't they be the ones preparing the stream of other mental images to show Joseph Smith, such as horses and swords? But if they didn't perform those tasks, then God would certainly have the KJV already virtualized and just splice in the stream of words when he gets to that spot. There is nothing whatsoever in the idea of a "committee" that helps get past the KJV replications.

Speaking of not needing a "committee" for the KJV parts, If I recall correctly even Carmack leaves the KJV parts out of the analysis when he compares Joseph Smith Book of Mormon writings to other pseudobiblical texts. Even he doesn't think a 15th century committee helped Joseph Smith with that part, and he co-invented the 15th century committee idea. It seems obvious to most that Joseph Smith just copied over the KJV parts from a Bible he had on hand.

[_Gadianton]

Even he doesn't think a 15th century committee helped Joseph Smith with that part, and he co-invented the 15th century committee idea. It seems obvious to most that Joseph Smith just copied over the KJV parts from a Bible he had on hand.

Well, MG doesn't in principle have a problem with Joseph Smith copying parts of the KJV, but that contradicts the official version that says Joseph Smith was reading words off a stone. And so, lightbulb! How about the translation committee splice the KJV into the translation? You'd think that would be as simple as the committee (waiting until after 1611 in the spirit world first) lifting the contents from the KJV and putting that into the translation that would play back on the stone.

But that doesn't quite work for MG; it has something to do with a need for Joseph Smith's special connection to the words on the stone. Originally it was like this:

mystery --> translation committee (tight stuff) --> mystery --> Book of Mormon text
mystery --> Joseph Smith mind as filter (loose stuff) --> Joseph Smith subconscious mind projects words onto stone and conscious mind reads off --> Book of Mormon text

How and when precedence is given to others on the committee vs. Joseph's visual on the stone, who knows?

Up until even his very last post he is stumped on this one and maintains that the committee and the visual on the stone are two different channels. How can the KJV get into the Book of Mormon without Joseph Smith reading it off the stone, when all the content in the Book of Mormon came from the stone? That has MG stumped and he'll let us know when he has an idea.

Why not just say the KJV stream was spliced into Joseph Smith's subconscious and triggers a bypass mode so his mind doesn't filter the content?

I outlined that for him -- but apparently MG isn't up for it. But it's not like Joseph Smith's mind is doing a whole lot anyway. Because we got rid of the first mystery, and so the theory evolved to be:

Reformed Egyptian --> committee translates tight stuff (splices KJV etc) --> mystery ---> Book of Mormon text
Reformed Egyptian --> committee translates loose stuff --> Joseph Smith mind --> projects to screen and reads off screen -- Book of Mormon text

If MG can one day accept the KJV signal passes through a clean channel in Joseph Smith's brain so that the English text goes directly to the screen for him to read, then we can get the KJV content into the Book of Mormon. But as it stands at this juncture, the translation committee lifted the KJV text and prepared it to go into the Book of Mormon, but we have to mechanism for actually completing that last step. MG will advise when he figures that final part out.

[_mentalgymnast]

Even he doesn't think a 15th century committee helped Joseph Smith with that part, and he co-invented the 15th century committee idea. It seems obvious to most that Joseph Smith just copied over the KJV parts from a Bible he had on hand.

Well, MG doesn't in principle have a problem with Joseph Smith copying parts of the KJV...

How can we dispute Joseph...in some manner...receiving and/or inserting New Testament ideas and phraseology in the Book of Mormon?

This might be helpful to the readers of this board along with you, Gadianton, if you haven't read it. It's also in audio form if you want to listen.

http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/0/7/1/071b742 ... 0cd2ccad16

https://www.ldsperspectives.com/2018/08 ... ok-mormon/

In this presentation you will read about the intertextuality between the Book of Mormon and the Bible, specifically the KJV of the New Testament.

It's worth the read/listen for those that haven't done so yet.

From the presentation:

Too often when I hear Latter-day Saints talk about the Book of
Mormon, they talk about the Book of Mormon and the gold plates
as if they’re the same text. I wonder if it would be useful for us to
conceptualize them as two different texts. The Book of Mormon
is an English document that was produced in the 19th century by
Joseph Smith, however you want to see translation happening.
And the gold plates are a record that was written 2,000 years ago
by Moroni, by Mormon, and by Nephi. They’re not the same text.
One is a translation of another one.
If we’re comfortable saying that the New Testament is an
antecedent text for the Book of Mormon, for the King James
English 19th century Book of Mormon, then that opens up some
wonderful avenues of inquiry. We can look at how those passages
were understood in the 19th century and say, “Okay, is the Book
of Mormon pushing back against something? Is the Book of
Mormon affirming one of these ideas? What was the impact of
these passages on early converts? How might this have changed
through trajectories of 19th century theology?” Whereas if we just
say, “No, no, no. It couldn’t be. There’s no way the New
Testament was on the gold plates,” that just ends the
conversation. If we see these as two different texts that are related
through translation, then I think that helps us bridge this at least
question of the New Testament in the Book of Mormon a little bit
easier.

You have these clustering of phrases, and sometimes they’ll just
appear in random order, but other times the sequence of those
proximity phrases will follow the same sequence in both the New
Testament and in the Book of Mormon, which, again, suggests to
me that we have a conscious attempt to draw upon the language
of the New Testament in the Book of Mormon.

Now, whether during the process which I've been 'playing with' during this thread integrates New Testament into the Book of Mormon through prior preparation of the committee before the 'day to day' translation' process or it was 'on the fly' as Joseph's mind was working with and acting as filter/conduit for the delivery of the text...or a combination of the two, who knows? That's obviously where we are getting into a lot of conjecture which is pretty much what I've been doing during this thread. But it's interesting and kind of fun to play around with it.

Anyway, Gadianton, as you know the devil is in the details...or in this case, my argument is that God is in the details. There is obviously a lot of speculation and conjecture that goes into looking at the Book of Mormon translation process. And there are two sides to take. With God or without God. We are left to choose between the two alternatives, aren't we?

If you haven't read/listened to this interview on Mormon Perspectives you may find it interesting and helpful to do so.

Regards,
MG

[_I have a question]

I find myself wondering what font was used for the projection onto the rock. Because it seems the italics used in the KJV Bible were replicated when they were transliterated/content mapped/whatever for Joseph to read...not to mention the matching punctuation...