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((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
All this means Joe, is that you are
wrong
))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Sandra....can't you can do better than "you are wrong". Why not
address the substantive issues I raised? I demonstrated that people have
translated GREEK words into "believe"/"trust" or "clear"/"good"/"clean", proving
that one does not have to start with a Semitic text in order to create this kind
of variance. What is there to be "wrong" about on that? It's an open
and shut proof that one does not have to start with a Semitic word to get the
kind of English variance that the BoM holds.
In fact, I could use the same variances R Yoseph cited as evidence of a
GREEK origin to the BoM, because the BoM has English variances that we also see
in translations from Greek source texts. And of course words like "Alpha",
"Omega", "Christ", "epistle".....yep... there's certainly more evidence to the
idea the BoM was written in Greek than the idea that it was written in Hebrew or
Aramaic. Of course, since it was written by J. Smith, I know that Greek
was not the underlining text - but that it was written in English instead.
One might conclude that the Greek Primacists of the world would LIKE the
idea of the BoM, because it contains a few traces of "evidence" that Greek was
the language of ancient Israeli tribes in America!!! (NOT) But Messianic
circles resist books that are obviously hellenized like this.
While Rabbi Yoseph has some interesting insights when he's not talking
about BoM, I tend to disagree with RY on most of his BoM teachings. On the
other hand, I think James Trimm's teachings against the BoM are teachings I
do agree with. That series James did on how the BoM conflicts with Torah
is marvelous! The BoM is not very Jewish. It's very
anti-Jewish.
One of the reasons we have 3 or more people on a Beit Din is because no two
people are going to agree on every issue. So no one person's conclusions
can alone be a deciding ruling. My sole opinion should NOT be the final
word in anyone's book. Please do cross examine what I say - check it out
for yourself. It's not necessary for all members of any group to agree on
every issue, but it is necessary that they understand how disagreements will be
resolved. My wife and I don't always agree, but that doesn't prevent our
marriage from being fruitful. If I have one opinion and everyone else on
the Beit Din has another, then my opinion is over-ruled. That's the way it
is suppose to be. We don't have to agree on every small minor issue to get
things accomplished or enjoy fellowshipping with each other.
If the BoM had been written in Hebrew, then we'd expect to see His Name as
"Yeshua", not "Jesus". Instead, there's not a single verse in the BoM that
shows any textual evidence of a Hebrew origin. I have already shown that
the examples RY proposed could just as easily have had a Greek source. So
if you want to allege a Hebrew origin for the BoM, you'll have to go hunting for
some other verses to do it with.
Shalom,
Joe
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2003 8:39
PM
Subject: Re: [bom-debate] the ENGLISH
Origin of the Book of Mormon!
Actually, what 'R' Yoseph was alleging is that the BoM was written
in Hebrew, not Aramaic.
However, either conclusion would be wrong. Let's take a close
look at each parallel.
...I know whom I have believed... (2Tim.
1:12)
...I know in whom I have trusted... (2Ne. 4:19)
Underying
Hebrew: EMUNAH = trust, faith or belief
The use of synonyms in English such as "believed" and "trusted" proves
nothing. What would suggest something would be two words that are NOT
synonymous in English, but come from the same Hebrew word. Synonymous
variants appear in many manuscripts as a normal thing. For example, we see
"place" ({wqmh) used in 2 King 18:25 while "land"
(jr)h) appears in the parallel passage of Isa
36:10. Also, we find that many English translations of the Greek 2 Tim 1:12
have this much variance, none of which ever consulted a Semitic text to
determine wording. We see...
"believed..." is used in the NIV, NASB, Amplified, KJV, ESV,
YLT
"trusted..." is used in the Message Bible and the Worldwide English
Version.
All of these translators translated from the Greek version of 2 Tim 1:12
and none consulted a Semitic text, thus, this variant does little to nothing
to establish a common underlying Hebrew word as producing this English
variant. These words are too synonymous in English for it to matter what
language it was translated from. If such a variance can come from
translations of a Greek text, then this verse does nothing to prove a Hebrew
or Aramaic origin to the BoM.
Now let's examine the 2nd example. The best way to disprove this one is
to simply show the entire verse
...drinketh damnation to himself... (1Cor. 11:29)
...drinketh damnation to his soul... (Mosiah 2:33)
Underlying
Hebrew: NEFESH = soul, life or self
Let's quote this a little fuller...
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth
and drinketh damnation to himself...(1 Cor 11:29)
If he listens to obey
him, and remaineth and dieth in his sins, the same drinketh damnation to
his own soul...(Mos 2:33)
Note that these two passages are not all that parallel. Mosiah is not an
attempt to describe the "Last Supper" in any way. It's discussing a
completely different topic. Yoseph's "proof" assumes Joseph Smith
plagarized, but I'm not convinced that this was a case of plagiarism,
although the other 2 probably were. 1 Cor reads "eateth and drinketh"
while the BoM reads simply "drinketh". So the fact that we have words that
are not synonymous in English but synonymous in Semitic thought is rather
irrelevant when the content is not all that parallel to begin with.
As for the third example,
...the answer of a good conscience toward God...
(1Pt. 3:21)
...answer a clear conscience before God... (Mosiah 2:15)
Underlying Hebrew: PASHAT or underlying Aramaic: PESHITA.
PASHAT/PESHITTA means simple, basic or clear. In Aramaic of the phrase
"single eye" or "good eye" has PESHITTA for "good". Each of these three
examples point to a Hebrew or Aramaic original.
We see here that there are numerous English translations of the Greek
manuscripts that use the following words in this place....
"clear conscious" appears in the Message Bible, Amplified Bible,
CEV
"good conscious" appears in the NIV, NASB, KJV, ESV, ASV, YLT, and
Darby
"clean conscious" appears in the NLT
So we see this variant existing in translations that come from the Greek
with NONE of them consulting a Semitic text. Thus, it's quite possible that
this variant is a result simply of what Joseph Smith felt sounded more
natural with "conscious", rather than any underlying Semitic text being
present.
I see too many differences in Mos 2:33 to conclude Joseph Smith was
plagarizing here. I think its simply a case of two sentences having
reasonable, but not complete, similarities. In the other two cases, while
the similarities in wording are too great to be ignored and too great to not
be obvious plagarism, the variants are found in English translations from
the Greek text alone, without any attempt to consult a Semitic text. So
these verses give us no reason to prefer a Hebrew text over a Greek text, in
that we see Greek texts producing this kind of English variance. Joseph
Smith probably plagarized these verses from memory, but did not remember
them exactly, using reasonable English synonyms in their place.
The real evidence demonstrates that the BoM was written in English, and
often, in bad English. The Book of Mormon sometimes quotes scripture,
and when it does, it is word-for-word what is in the King James, except that
italicized words have been removed. This is a dead giveaway that Joseph
Smith plagarized. In fact, the Book of Mormon even repeats some of the
mis-translations in the King James!!!!!
We see Greek influences....
"I am Alpha (1st letter of Greek alphabet)
and Omega (last letter of Greek alphabet)" (3
Nephi 9:18)
The Aramaic version of Revelations reads
"I am the Aleph (1st letter of Hebrew and
Aramaic alphabet) and the Tav (last letter of Hebrew/Aramaic alphabet)" (Rev 1:8,
Aramaic version)
Why would Greek letters be mentioned in a book written in "Reformed
Egyptian" with a Hebrew undertext, as the BoM alleges was the case?
Obviously, the English wording of the King James influenced the wording of 3
Neph 9:18. Also, we see this wonderful mixing...
"they shall believe in Christ...and look not
forward any more for another Messiah" (2 Neph 25:16)
Now the Hebrew word "Mashiach"/"Messiah" is usually translated into Greek
as "Christos"/"Christ". We find "Messiah" used in scripture where "mashiach"
is in the Hebrew. Many translations of the New Testament use "Christ" where
the Greek has "Christos" but never use "Messiah" in such places. But the
Book of Mormon uses both words with no real pattern, but we would expect it
to use one or the other. We also see the Hebrew "Satan" and the Greek
"devil" mixed and matched with no apparent pattern. Is the text that
preceeded the Book of Mormon Greek or Hebrew? If it's Hebrew or Hebrew
written in Reformed Egyptian, then why do we see "devil" and "satan" both in
the English translation?
We also see the Greek word "epistle" used in the Book of Mormon (Alma
54:4,15, 56:1, 57:1,2, 59:3, 60:1, 3 Ne 3:1-2, Morm 3:4, others).
The original language of the BoM was clearly English. It all came
out of Joseph Smith's wild imagination. If he had put his creative
energies towards being a playright, we might have gotten something useful
out of the man. Instead, we got a work of fiction that belongs where
he claims it came from - buried somewhere out of the way!
Now not only was the BoM written in English, but was often written in BAD
English. AT http://www.connect-a.net/users/drshades/changes.htm they
are putting only a version of the BoM that shows the original with all the
1981 changes crossed out. It's wonderful because it not only shows the
theological changes that had to be made in order to prevent the BoM
from being rejected even by Mormons, but it also shows all the bad english
that was in the original version. Now if the BoM had an inspired
translation, as Smith alleged, then why would all that bad English grammar
be there? For example, check out 1 Nephi 2:13...
"Jews,
which who were at
Jerusalem"
The 1830 version said "which", which is bad grammar. In 1981 they
changed it to "who", which is correct grammar, but not what Joseph Smith
delivered to the LDS Church! Smith seemed to make that mistake a lot
since there's a lot of verses where he did not seem to know which was proper
to use between "which" and "who". Or there's 5:1 where "came" was
changed to "come" in order for the grammar to be proper. Or how about
5:8 where "gave" was changed to "given".
And where's suppose to believe this was an 'inspired' translation?
How could we believe that with all the bad grammar present in the 1830
version? When you read on, you just find example after example of
these kind of erroneous blunders. Sometimes it was a matter of not
being able to spell (like 7:6, where "journied " was changed to "journeyed " But most of the changes were due to simply
bad grammar that would not have been present if G-d had truly given Smith an
inspired translation of this work.
Shalom,
Joe
----- Original Message -----
One of the key elements which brought me to conclude
that the BoM is
authentic was discovered by me while reading a booklet
which was
attempting to disprove the BoM. This booklet was comparing
BoM
passages to the Bible to prove that portions of it were
plagerized.
I was looking at a section which compared NT quotes to BoM
quotes in
an effort to show that the BoM plagerizes the NT even in its
pre-NT
portions. Three of these quotes really caught my attention
because
the read to close to the NT text. What I mean by that is that
they
read just like the NT passage but had only one word different.
This
one word difference between the NT and the BoM passage would
point
to a single underlying Hebrew word. This pointed to the idea
that
both the BoM and the Nt had originally been written in Hebrew!
The
three quote sets are:
...I know whom I have believed...
(2Tim. 1:12)
...I know in whom I have trusted... (2Ne.
4:19)
Underying Hebrew: EMUNAH = trust, faith or
belief
...drinketh damnation to himself... (1Cor.
11:29)
...drinketh damnation to his soul... (Mosiah 2:33)
Underlying
Hebrew: NEFESH = soul, life or self
...the answer of a good
conscience toward God... (1Pt. 3:21)
...answer a clear conscience
before God... (Mosiah 2:15)
Underlying Hebrew: PASHAT or underlying
Aramaic: PESHITA.
PASHAT/PESHITTA means simple, basic or clear. In
Aramaic of the
phrase "single eye" or "good eye" has PESHITTA for
"good".
Each of these three examples point to a Hebrew or Aramaic
original.
by Rabbi Yosef
[ above article can be found here:
http://home.flash.net/~purnhrt/truth/p2275ry.htm
]
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