In their zeal to prove that the Mormon church has always been at war with Eastasia, er, I mean has always been open about the rock in the hat translation method, they quote all 4 references to this method in official church publications in the last 40 years in footnote 26 of the essay on Book of Mormon translation:

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng#26

One of these references is to this 1977 Ensign article by Richard L. Anderson:

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1977/09/by-the-gift-and-power-of-god?lang=eng

So far so good.

And on to the next paragraph in the essay, where they want to prove that Joe didn't consult a Bible while reading from his hat:

'The scribes who assisted with the translation unquestionably believed that Joseph translated by divine power. Joseph’s wife Emma explained that she “frequently wrote day after day” at a small table in their house in Harmony, Pennsylvania. She described Joseph “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.” According to Emma, the plates “often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth.” When asked if Joseph had dictated from the Bible or from a manuscript he had prepared earlier, Emma flatly denied those possibilities: “He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.”'

Of course, the KJV translation errors and Bible anachronisms in the BoM can only lead to the logical conclusion that Joe simply copied from the Bible when it suited him, which is exactly the conclusion Anderson comes to in his 1977 Ensign article:

'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.”'

I guess the essay wasn't fact-checked...

"Joseph’s wife Emma explained that she “frequently wrote day after day” at a small table in their house in Harmony, Pennsylvania. She described Joseph “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.”

I think this statement alone is a big problem. Emma only served as scribe for a fraction of the "translation" of the 116 pages, right? If she was writing for hours on end, day after day, how many days would it take her to write the portion that she actually wrote? 2 days?

This, and other lies she told about Joe's polygamy, make me wonder if Emma was in on the con from the beginning. D&C 132 reads like a death threat, so she was probably afraid to speak up or try to leave him later on.

Bows head and says, "Yes."

Remember also Emma's statement about how Joseph Smith couldn't
even write a coherent letter and was so uneducated when the Book
of Mormon was being produced.

Of course we have things in Joseph Smith's handwriting from this
time that shows good penmanship (better than mine) and a good
grasp of language and grammar.

We are to believe that Joseph Smith was this uneducated country-
bumpkin at age 24, but was this educated, articulate guy at age
26.

Yes, I wouldn't trust Emma for anything.

Strenthening the Members Committee: Fact-checked? What's that?

So God revealed part of the Book of Mormon which sounds exactly like a mistranslation of the KJV, word for word, but which is actually a true revelation straight from God. So coincidentally, the KJV mistranslation is in fact what God really wanted to say all along because it's exactly the same as the direct and inspired section of the BoM that reads like the mistranslation of the KJV.

What the fuck are these people smoking? They are so desperate to be right that they are making utter fools of themselves.

What I find interesting about this

“If his translation was essentially the same as that of the King James version, he apparently quoted the verse from the Bible.”

Is that this would go agasint everything I was ever taught about it all. "NO way JS copied ANYTHING from the bible. Why would he need to? He was translating from the most correct book. (the Plates)"

yet...I guess some bible verses in KJV is ok too.


*** I have to add.... This is why I LOVE this site! I always find new little things I didn't know. Or a different way to look at things. Thanks everyone who has input! ***



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2014 04:15PM by wanderinggeek.

Why claim gold plates at all? It appears they weren't necessary. Possibly why they can't be found.

So I am reading over this "By the Gift and Power of God."

And this entire thing is messed up.

First this:

“Day after day I continued uninterrupted to write from his mouth as he translated, with the Urim and Thummim, or as the Nephites would have said, ‘interpreters,’ the history, or record called ‘The Book of Mormon.’” 6 (A fraudulent pamphlet published in Cowdery’s name later attempted to throw doubt on his testimony of translation, but no serious student now accepts the document.) 7

I love how they just say stuff with out backing it up. On the "no serious student now accepts the document" remark. I went to refence 7. And this is the source for this:

7. See R. L. Anderson, “The Second Witness of Priesthood Restoration,” Improvement Era, Sept. 1968.
The refrence was another article by another church member. They state so many things like they are fact, but yet they are just coming up with them off the cuff. But if you ask a TBM, "Oh look, it has a reference and everything. It must be a fact."


Second thing I noticed in this article...

"One document explicitly says that the translator placed the Urim and Thummim over the characters on the plates,"

So here they are acting like he "used" the plates and not a magic stone. And of course is "Samuel W. Richards, a seasoned missionary and administrator in the Church." So it must be true...but wait...what about the stone in the hat?

I KNOW I KNOW, Richard Lloyd Anderson must be speaking as a man.

We've seemed to have missed an obvious lie in the following statement of Emma's...

She described Joseph “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.”

Utter bullsh!t.

I challenge ANYONE to sit for TEN MINUTES with their face in a hat so that no light can enter.

Apparently Emma hadn't heard of suffocation.

I challenge any TBM to recreate what Emma has described.

It is an impossible feat.

Couldn't have happened.

Hats in those days could kill you with the chemicals.

The term mad as a hatter derives from people in the hat making industry getting high on the fumes of their hats.

Emma lied about Joseph not using a pre-prepared text and she also lied about his practice of poligamy. She was maintaining the stories they had set up together. It's obvious she was a part of the con from the begining. It's even possible that she authored a part of the Book of Mormon.