No. I'm talking about
grammatical errors relative to the Early Modern English ('King James English') that the BOM seeks to imitate. You are responding with irrelevant points about punctuation and now about mistakes in quoted portions of the Bible that appear in the BOM. These are not the same thing at all.
With due respect, this is because you do not know the nature of the problems with the BOM's attempt at King James English, and are being presented only the most faith-promoting explanations, which attempt to lay the blame for Joseph Smith's errors on the source material.
I don't even use the KJV myself, but I know from previous exposure to it that it does not use pronouns incorrectly (relative to the usage of the time/that stage of English) like the BOM does. Again, please go back to my other post with the link to my earlier post about this back in May. I shouldn't have to repeat the same thing over and over when it's already there.
This is an example of a type of grammatical error that shows that the person receiving the 'inspiration' or however you'd put it simply does not know how to use this variety of English. It's not about punctuation or carried over from quoted portions of the Bible, but something that occurs in the 'original' portions of the BOM with a frequency that rules out occasional slip ups or interference from Joseph's own manner of speaking or writing (read: it's a
deliberate attempt to sound like King James English, but it doesn't succeed).
Then why were those errors (those which are supposed to be from the quotation of the Bible) unique to the edition of the Bible with which Smith was most familiar (the 1769 edition of the KJV owned by the Smith family)? The infamous CES letter
has a whole section on this (and includes responses to FairMormon's rather tepid defense).
Pretty strange, right? Are we to believe that the ancient writers of the BOM had access to a specific printing of the Bible from 1769, despite the fact that the BOM narrative itself ends c. 400 AD?
You said: "I don't even use the KJV myself, but I know from previous exposure to it that it does not use pronouns incorrectly (relative to the usage of the time/that stage of English) like the BOM does."
Chapter and verse please.
You said: "Pretty strange, right? Are we to believe that the ancient writers of the BOM had access to a specific printing of the Bible from 1769, despite the fact that the BOM narrative itself ends c. 400 AD?"
They had the plates of Laban and they taught from them (the Old Testament).
"There are several problems with the idea that Joseph simply copied passages from the Holy Bible.
1) Witnesses to the translation process are unanimous that Joseph did not have any books, manuscripts, or notes to which he referred while translating. Recalled Emma, in a later interview:
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 [Joseph] 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.
[14]
Martin Harris also noted that Joseph would translate with his face buried in his hat in order to use the seer stone/urim and thummim. This would make referring to a Bible or notes virtually impossible:
Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine...
[15]
2) It is not clear that Joseph even
owned a Bible during the Book of Mormon translation. He and Oliver Cowdery later purchased a Bible, which suggests (given Joseph's straitened financial situation) that he did not already own one.
[16]
3) It is not clear that Joseph's Biblical knowledge was at all broad during the Book of Mormon translation. It seems unlikely that he would have recognized, say, Isaiah, had he encountered it on the plates. Recalled Emma Smith:
When my husband was translating the Book of Mormon, I wrote a part of it, as he dictated each sentence, word for word, and when he came to proper names he could not pronounce, or long words, he spelled them out, and while I was writing them, if I made a mistake in spelling, he would stop me and correct my spelling, although it was impossible for him to see how I was writing them down at the time. .?. . 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 was afraid I had been deceived." He had such a limited knowledge of history at the time that he did not even know that Jerusalem was surrounded by walls.
[17]
Emma also noted that
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.
[18]"
From:
Book of Mormon/Translation Errors from the KJV - FairMormon
