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Joseph Smith's Bible version
- Thread starter gnostic
- Start date
FFH
Veteran Member
Becky was referring to the LDS edition of the King James, which we as LDS use, which is the King James word for word, but includes the Joseph Smith Translation footnotes, for reference, if someone wants to compare the JST to the King James.BruceDLimber said:
The LDS church does not own the rights to print the Joseph Smith Translation of the BIble, and most LDS generally don't own it or use it.
I have a copy of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, which I prefer to refer to as the Joseph Smith Inspired version, rather than the JST. The Community of Christ (formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) owns the copyrights to this. They have also published a book which compares the King James and the Joseph Smith Inspired version side by side.
I have read the Joseph Smith Inspired version from cover to cover and have thoroughly studied it, including the book which compares the King James and the JST side by side and there are major and very minor changes. Altogether, aside from the fact that Song of Solomon has been eliminated, if you took all the changes made and compared them to the King James, I think it would only fill no more than 15 pages of text of a book that is well over a 1000 pages.
Bruce, you were obviously referring to the full blown Joseph Smith Translation, when you responded to Becky's statement, which you are correct in stating that the Joseph Smith Inspired version has eliminated the Song of Solomon.
The Joseph Smith Inspired version has eliminated the Song of Solomon because Joseph Smith has stated they were not inspired writings.
Other than the Song of Solomon, 99% of the King James was left as is, with only 1% added or changed, but in that 1% contain many plain and precious things pertaining to our salvation, which have been restored and expounded upon in the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. See link: Joseph Smith Translation
Many of the changes made to the King James can be read by clicking on this link: Selections from the Joseph Smith Translation
When the RLDS church was subsidized it had to make a bunch of changes, and one of those had to do with the idea of Joseph Smith being a prophet. Basically, this other church told them to stop believing in prophecy, revelation, the Book of Mormon and a bunch of other stuff, and the RLDS church said OK. I'm not sure exactly what they still own, but we have enough access to be able to put out a CD ROM with all the texts and photocopies of the original manuscripts.
gnostic
The Lost One
Where did most of these corrections occur?dan said:
In the OT? Genesis?
In the NT? The gospels? Letters?
What sort of correction?
If JS made changes to the OT, then how close is it to the Hebrew Tanakh? Can any corrections be made without the original Hebrew (mostly the OT) or Greek texts (for the NT)?
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Just as an example:gnostic said:
1 Samuel 16:23 reads, "And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him."
In the Joseph Smith Translation, the words "from God" have been removed. That particular example came up in our Old Testament class in Sunday School today, and is typical of most of the changes in the text.
Good grief! Your "above average" vocabulary notwithstanding, the poor guy dropped the "l" in "bowdlerize" (after Thomas Bowdler). Give him a break.Katzpur said:
gnostic said:
There were more corrections in the OT than the NT, but that is to be expected; it's a much larger manuscript.
We believe the translation to be inspired, so (if that's true) the original texts aren't necessary.
Sometimes whole chapters were changed. Often the words italicized in the KJV translation are removed or changed to make clearer the text. We already mentioned the Song of Solomon being demoted. Stuff like that. If you go to this website: http://scriptures.lds.org/jst/contents you'll see some examples of changes that are too big to put in the footnotes of the Bible. A brief summary is found here: http://scriptures.lds.org/bdj/jsphsmth
It really pisses me off that I like you so much ...Katzpur said:
Be that as it may, any religion or philosophy or friendship would be well served having you as an advocate. Now get up off the floor ...Katzpur said:
gnostic
The Lost One
But how can he make correction on the OT if he is only relying on translated text, instead of using the Hebrew text of the OT, thus the Tanakh?
I'd admit that the KJV is far from the best translation, because it is still using Middle English, not modern English.
In the new English translation of the Jewish bible (Tanakh - A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1985, by the Jewish Publication Society (JPS)), don't rely on KJV, but on the Hebrew text. There is older JPS translation posted at Sacred Texts site, 1918, but this rely on rephrasing the KJV to modern English, instead of a true translation.
Maybe someone should compared Joseph Smith's version to that of latest translation from JPS.
I'd admit that the KJV is far from the best translation, because it is still using Middle English, not modern English.
Katzpur said:
In the new English translation of the Jewish bible (Tanakh - A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1985, by the Jewish Publication Society (JPS)), don't rely on KJV, but on the Hebrew text. There is older JPS translation posted at Sacred Texts site, 1918, but this rely on rephrasing the KJV to modern English, instead of a true translation.
The evil spirit that came from God, remains unchanged in this new translation from JPS.1 Samuel 16:23 said:
Maybe someone should compared Joseph Smith's version to that of latest translation from JPS.
What an interesting question. What type of serious student would ask such a thing?beckysoup61 said:
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
What most people (maybe even most LDS people) do not realize is that Joseph Smith did not use the words "translated" and "translation" to describe a literal rendering of a text from one language to another. The word "transmission" would probably more accurately describe the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. In other words, he edited, rephrased and interpreted the Bible according to what God revealed to him. Our eighth Article of Faith states, "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly." In describing our belief in the Bible, Joseph was pointing out that not only were there inherent problems in translating the Biblical texts into another language, the available manuscripts have also been modified (either intentionally or not) by those who copied them throughout the ages. Consequently, we do not have any of the original manuscripts. What we do have is certainly better than nothing, but it is neither complete nor a 100% accurate record of what was penned by the ancient prophets and apostles. What this gets down to is that we believe Joseph's translation was accomplished by revelation, and not by scholarly knowledge of any ancient language. He used only an English text in the process.gnostic said: