025 What Do We ACTUALLY Know About the JST?

Episode Transcript
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Scott Woodward (00:05):
Aside from his Book of Mormon translation project, Joseph Smith
engaged in at least three other scriptureproduction projects that we know of.
The first was his ambitious Bibletranslation project we now know
as the Joseph Smith Translation.
The second was the printing of hisown revelations, which we now know
as the Doctrine and Covenants.
And the third was his project oftranslation which commenced after

(00:27):
he acquired Papyrus scrolls fromEgypt, which culminated in what we
now know as the Book of Abraham.
Today begins a new series in which wewill consider each of these fascinating
projects in turn, including the pointsof controversy connected with each.
In this first episode, we begin ourexploration of Joseph Smith's translation
of the Bible, or the JST for short.

(00:49):
When did it begin?
Why didn't we get this intoLatter-day Saint Bibles until 1979?
What does the word “translate” meanin this context in light of the
fact that Joseph Smith didn't knowHebrew or Greek during this project?
And what are some common assumptionschurch members often bring to the text
of the JST that may not be warranted?
I'm Scott Woodward, a managing directorat Scripture Central, and my co-host

(01:13):
is Casey Griffiths, also a managingdirector at Scripture Central.
And today Casey and I dive into our firstepisode in this series dealing with Joseph
Smith's translations and revelations.
Now let's get into it.

Casey Paul Griffiths (01:35):
Well, hello, Scott.

Hi, Casey.

How we doing?

Good.
Here we go.

Here we go.

Yeah.
Starting a new series, and we'regoing to call this series what?
We're calling this Revelationsand Translations or
Translations and Revelations.
Something like that.

That's the idea.
And this might be alittle ambitious of us.

Yeah.

But we're going to try and give you an overview and
an introduction into what the JosephSmith translation of the Bible was.

Yeah.

How it affects Joseph Smith's prophetic calling,
affects his revelations, particularlythe ones in the Doctrine and Covenants.
And we might even get really ambitious andtry for the Book of Abraham, here, too.

Yeah.
I don't see why not.

Casey Paul Griffiths: Yeah, let's go for it. (02:14):
undefined

Yeah.
Now, we have done a whole serieson the Book of Mormon translation.
We felt like the Book ofMormon deserved its own series
because of its significance.

Yeah.

Now, besides the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith had some other major
scripture production projects, right?

Right.

Two translation projects, JST and the Book of Abraham,
and one project of printing hisEnglish revelations in book form,
the Book of Commandments, which thenbecomes the Doctrine and Covenants.

Yeah.

Is that a fair way to summarize his other
translation and revelation projects?

Mm-hmm.
That's fair.
And we also, in doing this, are hopingto address the idea that Joseph Smith
translated the Book of Mormon, andthen we're off to the races, when in
reality, he finishes translating theBook of Mormon and almost immediately
starts his next big translation project,which is to translate the Bible.

Yeah, so today, JST.

Today, JST.
That's the focus.

Cool.

So we're going to set up the timeline there, but first I
want to give you a little introductionto how Joseph Smith felt about the Bible.

OK.

So here's a couple quotes
to the church and other priesthoodleaders talking about the Bible.
He said, “He that can mark the power ofomnipotence inscribed upon the heavens
can also see God's own handwritingin the sacred volume, the Bible.
He who reads it oftenestwill like it best.

Love it.

So Joseph Smith loves the Bible, and when you go
back and look at his discourses, it'sclear that, at least when he's putting
together the whole picture, he's usingprimarily biblical scripture to do so.
One of the conundrums of Joseph Smithis even though he's the instrument
in bringing forth the Book of Mormonand the Doctrine and Covenants, he
doesn't quote from them very much.

Yeah.

It's kind of like they're there, and he hasn't
quite figured out how to use them yet.

Uh-huh.

But he loves the Bible, and when he gives a
discourse, particularly near theend of his life, he's much more
likely to quote from the Bible thanfrom these Restoration scriptures—

Yeah.

—that he's part of bringing forth.

Yeah.
His language seems to be lacedwith biblical expressions in his
preaching, in his discourses.
He often isn't citing passages, buthe's, like, using Pauline phrases.
He's quoting a little bit of John, buthe just kind of weaves—you can just
see it's in the fabric of his thought,biblical passages way more than Book
of Mormon or Doctrine and Covenants.

Yeah.
And I mean, that's understandable, right?
The Book of Mormon and theDoctrine and Covenants are new.
The Doctrine and Covenants is super new.

Yes.

And it takes time for them to kind of
circulate into church consciousness.
But I would argue that today the averagechurch member is probably more likely to
be familiar with and quote from the Bookof Mormon than we are from the Bible.
In fact, I remember when I was servingin a bishopric a couple years ago, we
wanted to incentivize our kids to readthe scriptures, and the program was

(04:58):
to read the Book of Mormon every year.

Uh-huh.

And I came back and argued, “Well, shouldn't they be reading
what they're studying in seminary?”

Mm-hmm.

And a lot of people were like, “Do they
really need to read the Bible?
And in particular, the Old Testament?”

Uh-huh.

It was one of those things where, “Yeah, the Book of
Mormon's essential, the New Testament'sreally good, and the Old Testament,
if you have time and can get to it—

Oh, boy.

–great.” That's not how Joseph Smith would've seen it.
Joseph Smith saw our church as the NewTestament church restored, but I think
he also has these deep connectionsto the Old Testament and the House of
Israel, and it's probably not correctto say that he was just thinking
of us as the New Testament church.
He's thinking of us as the extension ofthe promises made to the House of Israel,

(05:39):
which is primarily Old Testament stuff.

Yeah, and sometimes I almost feel like it's a misnomer to say
that it's the Restoration of the NewTestament church, because of all the
key players that bring back keys, right?
Pun unintended, but likeMoses: Old Testament.

Elias, Elijah (05:55):
Old Testament.

Peter, James, and John (05:57):
New Testament.

John the Baptist (05:59):
New Testament.
But what's he restoring?
Aaronic Priesthood.
Old Testament, right?

Yeah.

I think if you kind of lay it all out, it's a hodgepodge.
It's got Old Testament elements.
It's got New Testament elements.
The church has plenty ofBook of Mormon elements.
Doctrine and Covenants 20, like, thefirst kind of handbook of instructions
for the church, was based primarily onthe Book of Mormon, the way they did it:
their liturgy, their practices, theirprayers, the way that they baptized,

(06:25):
the way they did the sacrament, right?
That kind of stuff is very muchbased in the Book of Mormon.

Yeah.

So saying it's a New Testament church is accurate as

long as there's a comma there (06:33):
New Testament Church comma and Book of
Mormon Church and Old Testament.
There's all these elements kind ofrushing together in the dispensation
of the fulness of times is howJoseph and John Taylor and others
envisioned the church, right?
We're not kind of committingto one time period.

Yeah.

It's a confluence of all the time periods, as it were—

Yeah.

—coming together.

And that's the best way to look at it.
Now, that's the first point we wantto make is that Joseph Smith loves
and reveres the Bible—the whole Bible.
Every part of it.

Yes.

Second, Joseph Smith doesn't hold the Bible up on a
pedestal the way some other people do.

Yeah.

I don't think Joseph Smith would ever say, “Every
word in the Bible is correct.
The Bible's inerrant.” JosephSmith's classic quote on the Bible

is this (07:15):
He says, “I believe the Bible as it read when it came from
the pen of the original writers.
Ignorant translators, carelesstranscribers, or designing and corrupt
priests have committed many errors.”Boy, there's a lot to analyze there,
but he's saying there's some thingsthat altered the Bible accidentally.
There's some things thataltered the Bible deliberately.

(07:35):
Some of these things were maliciousand were intended to obscure the truth.
Some of them were innocent mistakesthat just happen when a work is
complex as the Bible is passeddown from generation to generation.

Yeah.

But he wouldn't be the sort of person who said “There's no
errors in the Bible at all.” He would'vebeen the sort of person that said, “The
Bible is the foundation, but it needsto be looked at with a critical eye
where a person is carefully consideringthe overall message but also the minor
contradictions that are found withinthe Bible and finding a way to harmonize

(08:08):
those two so that you don't have yourfaith built on a false foundation.”
His faith was in revelation and God.
The Bible's one of the mostimportant ways we access that—

yeah.

—but the Bible itself should not be the
object of devotion, would probablybe the way he explained it.

Yeah.
Excellent.
And I wonder if he felt so much confidencein approaching the Bible that way,
knowing that it's brimming with God'struth, but also that it's not inerrant.
I wonder if the reason he could dothat is because he was a prophet
who also produced scripture.
It's almost like when you get your PhD.
And you realize once you get yourPhD what it means to have a PhD.

(08:47):
There's something to that in terms of,like, you work hard to learn how to
research and how to, like, read sourcesand how to do the kind of work that
it takes to produce good scholarship.

Yeah.

But it also gives you a humility, where you understand
that there's no sacred scholarship.
Like, everything is ableto be scrutinized, right?

Yeah.

All scholarship can be challenged, can be questioned
methodologically, findings-wise, like—

Yeah.

—once you play on that level, once you are in the group of
the PhD folk, you're a peer who cannow sort of question and challenge
in a—hopefully a productive way.
And I feel like maybe by analogy,Joseph, since he plays in the realm
of prophet, he plays in the realm ofscripture production, that he both
admires and understands what scriptureis, its strengths and power, but also

(09:32):
some of the complexities and challengesand the fact that it's not fully
inerrant and can always be upgradedand can always be improved upon.

Yeah.

There's always ways to help God's truth become more clear and
to be communicated more powerfully.

So I think he has both of those (09:46):
the respect for what scripture is and the
humble recognition that it's stillimperfect and ever subject to improvement.
And maybe he has the confidenceto add to scripture because he is
also a scripture-producing prophetwho plays in that realm, you know?

Yeah, and that quote seems to show that he has faith
in God, but he recognizes the foibles ofhuman nature and that the Bible has been
passed down and preserved by human people.
That opens the door forchanges and alterations, some
deliberate and some accidental.

Yeah.

Let's dive into the history here.

Yeah.
How does this come about?
So the Book of Mormon iscompleted about June 1829.
So when does the JST begin, andhow does that sort of come about?

OK.
So July and August and September,Joseph Smith is shopping around.
He's trying to find someoneto print the Book of Mormon.
Gets turned down by several people.
He actually gets turned down by E.
B.
Grandin, the person who—they initiallyapproach a printer who's in Palmyra.
That's close to home base, right?

Yeah.

Because Grandin's cost estimate is way inflated.
Grandin really highballs him.

Yeah.

And Joseph Smith approaches several other printers.
It doesn't work out, so he goes back toGrandin and just kind of has to bite the
bullet and say, “Yes, he's ripping usoff, but we're going to go ahead.” So the
manuscript is sent to Grandin, and whileGrandin is printing it, it seems like
this second translation project starts up.
The main evidence for this is thereis a Bible, Kent Jackson calls it

(11:27):
Joseph Smith's Cooperstown Bible,that Joseph Smith and Oliver
Cowdery actually purchased from E.
B.
Grandin.
So Grandin's got the print shopon the second and third floor.
On the first floor it's a bookstore.
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowderygo in and purchase this book.
I've seen this book.
It's stored in the Community of ChristTemple in Independence, Missouri.
And in the front cover of the book,there's a note, I believe it's in

(11:51):
Joseph Smith's handwriting, wherehe writes, “The book of the Jews and
the property of Joseph Smith, Jr.
and Oliver Cowdery, boughtOctober 3, 1829, at Egbert B.
Grandin's Bookstore, Palmyra,Wayne County, New York.” And
guess how much they paid.
They even note the price down at thebottom: $3.75, and then underneath
the price, “Holiness to the Lord.”

That's awesome.

They purchase this Bible, and this is the
Bible that they're going to useduring the translation process.
So this follows them from place to place.
We move through several scribes.
We start out with Oliver Cowderyas the primary scribe, just the way
he was with the Book of Mormon, andthen when Oliver Cowdery gets sent on
his mission in the summer of 1830 orfall of 1830, Sidney Rigdon shows up.

(12:36):
Sidney Rigdon is a convertOliver Cowdery makes.
Sidney Rigdon becomes the scribe,and it appears that Sidney
Rigdon remains the scribe for theprimary period of translation.

Hmm.

That's one thing I should note is that the Joseph Smith
Translation, as we know it today,actually exists in several forms,
and most of these forms are ownedand conserved by Community of Christ,
formerly known as the Reorganized Churchof Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In 2001 they changed their name toCommunity of Christ because a lot of
Joseph Smith's sons joined this church.

Mm-hmm.

They retained primary custody of the Bible.
And then the second form are theJoseph Smith translation manuscripts.

So the translation takes on two forms: Joseph Smith and his scribe are going (13:14):
undefined
through this Bible they purchasedfrom Grandin, and they're making
notations in the text, but JosephSmith is also dictating the changes
to the Bible, and they're keepingmanuscripts that have those in them.
So you take what's in the Bible, andyou take what's in the manuscripts,
and you combine them together, andthat's what fundamentally forms the

(13:37):
basis for what we call the JosephSmith Translation of the Bible.

Yeah.

Which—I should also specify Joseph Smith
Translation is a modern term.

Yeah.
JST.

It was invented in the 1970s.
It's not even a term that really Communityof Christ members are familiar with.

Yeah.
They call it the—what?
The inspired version?

They call it the inspired version.
We invented the term JSTfor footnote purposes.
The term that shows up in thescriptures, specifically in section
124 of the Doctrine and Covenants,verse 89, is the new translation.
New translation.
We thought about NT as a footnotewhen we were incorporating the JST

(14:15):
into our Bible, but you could seewhy NT would be confusing, right?
That'd be confusing.
And so they invented the term JST.

IV's kind of weird, too, in the inspired version.

Yeah.

IV, NT...

That could be a Roman numeral, right?

Yeah, totally.

“Star Trek IV” or something like that.

Yeah.

But basically JST—Joseph Smith
never referred to it as that.

Yeah.

That probably would've been seen
as a little egotistical—

Right.

—on his part, but when it came down to it—and we received
the full JST, and that's another thingthat we need to talk about is The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hasportions of the JST, mostly what's found
in the Pearl of Great Price, that's theBook of Moses and Joseph Smith—Matthew,
from the time Joseph Smith publishes them.
But the entire JST, meaning theBible and the manuscripts, we don't

(15:01):
actually get access until the 1970s.
That's when Community of Christ opensthe door, lets us go in and look at it
privately, and the leadership of thechurch makes the decision to incorporate
it into the Latter-day Saint editionof the Bible that comes out in ‘79.

So the reason that the Community of Christ had all the original
manuscripts is because when JosephSmith died, the manuscripts stay in the
possession of his wife, Emma, right?
For more than 20 years, until, what?
1867 or something, when she gives thatmanuscript to her son, Joseph Smith
III, and then it is ever after in thepossession of the Reorganized Church

(15:37):
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,who then becomes Community of Christ.
So they've got it.
They've got it the whole time, right?
Because Brigham Young leaves Nauvoo,the Saints go west, so Emma stays back.
And so, essentially, we left the JosephSmith Translation, right, in Nauvoo.
And so we don't really haveaccess to it until when?
You said 1970s?

The 1970s, yeah.

Tell us that story.

Well, Emma and Brigham have some conflicts,
right, after Joseph Smith's death.

Right.

And this is one of the sore points, actually,
is that Brigham is saying the newtranslation belongs to the church.
And Emma is saying, “These aremy husband's private papers.
They belong to me.
I'm his wife.” And they're never able toquite settle it, so for the next hundred
years or so, 150 years, really, the JSTto a member of our church is the Book

(16:23):
of Moses and Joseph Smith—Matthew, and—

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

The RLDS church does take the manuscripts and publishes
the complete inspired version of theBible in the 1860s, but since we can't
see the manuscripts and check theirmath, we don't really trust them.

Yeah.

We don't know if they've done it accurately, if the
changes have been made with fidelity.

Mm-hmm.

And so we don't really accept the J S T until we have a
chance to go in and look at it ourselves.
And by the way, the RLDS Communityof Christ still has this stuff.
It's housed in their templein Independence, Missouri.
You used to, a couple years ago,be able to walk into their library
and say, “I want to see the JST,”and they'd bring it out for you.

That's awesome.

I photographed it a ton for a book that I was
working on at the time, and I wasalone in a room with it for, you
know, five hours taking pictures.

Wow.

I guess I could have slipped it under my jacket and run out.

Casey, you would never.

I would never.
Yeah.
Where would I sell it?
No.
It's actually really coolto be able to see it.
And they were super generous.

Yeah.

Now in recent years, they've become a
little bit more protective ofit, so you can't just walk in—

Yeah.

—and ask for it now.
But all the JST manuscripts havebeen photographed and are placed
on the Joseph Smith Papers sitealong with the marked Bible as well.
So you can see everythingthat we're talking about.
You don't have to go to Independenceand go into the library.

No, we're able to get it in the 1970s because of
the relationship that Robert J.
Matthews has with the Community of Christ.
Is that correct?

That's correct.
So there's this tradition of acrimonybetween the two churches, right?
They're both claiming they're thechurch organized by Joseph Smith.
They're the true church.
And that continues through the 1960suntil this little seminary teacher named
Robert Matthews comes onto the scene.
Robert Matthews had heard JosephFielding Smith in a radio address quote

(18:27):
the Joseph Smith translation, and itwasn't the JST he was familiar with
that's in the Pearl of Great Price.
It was a completely different passage.

Mm-hmm.

And that kind of sparked Robert Matthews to say, “What
is that?” And he had a keen desireto go and look at the manuscripts
for himself and kind of verify.
So he starts writingto Community of Christ.
He keeps asking them, “Can Icome and look at the manuscripts?
I'm a nice guy, I promise.” And theanswer continually is no until 1967,

(18:54):
when Community of Christ gets a newhistorian, a guy named Richard Howard.
Dick Howard.
Dick Howard's still alive.
I interviewed him last year.

Wow.

And Richard Howard kind of comes into his job
without these past animosities thata lot of RLDS members had felt.
So to Robert Matthews’ surprise,Dick Howard contacts him and says,
“Yeah, we'd love to have you comeon in and see the manuscripts.” So
Robert Matthews goes to Independence.
He spends several summers just sittingthere, looking through the manuscripts,

(19:27):
copying down all the changes, verifying,checking them against the Inspired
Version of the Bible that the RLDS hadalready published, and then he comes back
and reports to the First Presidency andbasically tells them, “Yeah, it seems
like everything's legitimate here.”

Yeah.

“It seems like the changes are all accurate.
Would we be interested in obtainingthis?” Because at the time, the
First Presidency and the Twelve wereengaged in a project to produce a new
edition of the scriptures, includingthe first Latter-day Saint version of
the Bible published in English thathas Latter-day Saint footnotes, cross
references with Restoration scripture.

Still King James version, right?

Still the King James version.

But just with footnotes that cross reference over to the Book
of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price.

Yeah, that's right.

Kind of interconnecting the scriptures in the footnotes.

Yeah.
So Robert Matthews negotiates thiswith Community of Christ, the First
Presidency and the Twelve participate,and actually they give us the rights
to use it for the high price of $1.
Woo.
We pay a single dollar sothat it's all above board.
And then I wouldn't say that all thefootnotes are part of the scriptural
canon, but they're part of thescriptural helps that are added there.

Right.

And nowadays, 40 years later, we don't even blink when
someone says, “Well, the JST footnote saysthis.” That's just how we do things now.
You and I grew up withthis version of the Bible.

Yeah.

And I have heard some older people still be
kind of queasy about using the JST.
They're a little cautious about it.
And I think one of the things we'regoing to argue is we should still
maybe be a little cautious about theJST, because members of the church,
in their enthusiasm to embrace it,have maybe made some assumptions that
Joseph Smith himself did not make.

Yeah.

So if we're talking about what it is and what it
isn't, that might be something thatwe need to kind of walk through.

OK.
Let's talk about that.
So Joseph begins this project inlate June 1830, when Moses 1 was
received, and from there he'scooking through the Old Testament.
March 1831, then he's commandedto switch to the New Testament.
He goes to July 1832 through the NewTestament, finishes the first round

(21:31):
of the New Testament, reviews, revisesfrom July 1832 to February 1833,
finishes the New Testament by Februaryof ‘33, goes back to the Old Testament.
July of 1833 he is done withanother round of Old Testament.
That's pretty quick.
So that's three years,basically a three-year project.
So the question becomes, like, whatdid Joseph Smith think he was doing?

(21:53):
What was the Joseph SmithTranslation of the Bible in his mind?

Yeah.

That's the big question.

Yeah.

A question we never fully get an answer to, by the way.
And a few other intriguing questionsthat come up are questions like,
did he use seer stones like hedid with the Book of Mormon?
Was he using Greek and Hebrew texts?
Was he trying to restore theBible back to its original form?
And in every case we have noevidence for any of those.
That he used seer stones, no evidence.
Doesn't seem like he did.

Yeah.

Greek or Hebrew texts involved, no evidence
that he was doing that.

Yeah.

Was he restoring the Bible back to its original words or form?
That's what I kind of grew up believing,that he was restoring the Bible
back to its original form, right?

Yeah.

Putting back the plain and precious things that had been
taken out, or something like that.
And what's surprising is JosephSmith never says that, either.
So I don't know that it's fair for usto say or to claim that the Joseph Smith
Translation is something that JosephSmith himself was not claiming or that
the Lord in the revelations of theDoctrine and Covenants was not claiming.
The Lord never says that.
Joseph never says that.

(22:52):
So it's interesting to thinkabout what the Joseph Smith
Translation was not, right?

Yeah.

As we look at it, though, we can see some of what Joseph was doing.
For instance, we can see that itwas an inspired adding to the Bible.
Sometimes he took away.
Oftentimes he's clarifyingbiblical passages.
Other times he's actually justrephrasing or modernizing things.

Sure.

And other times there's interpretation.
And then sometimes there's justentire passages, like whole chapters,
that are put in that were not there.
So it's clearly not—he's notcorrecting any phrases or verses
when we get entire chapters, likeMoses chapter 1 or Moses chapter 6.
Like, the whole Enoch story,like, a hundred and, what,
sixteen verses are added to theEnoch story, which is amazing.

(23:33):
There's only, like, six or seven verses inthe Bible about Enoch, and we get, like,
so much in Moses 6 and 7 about Enoch.

Yeah.

And so I guess we should just be careful to watch our
assumptions about what the JosephSmith Translation is or isn't, because
if we're not careful we can getourselves into a little bit of trouble.
Can I share an example of how that works?

Yeah.

For instance, I'm going over to 3 Nephi 14:1.
Let's do this.
This is a classic example.

At the end of that verse it says this: “Verily, I say unto you, Judge not, (23:58):
undefined
that ye be not judged.” End of thought.
And then Jesus goes on to verse2, “For with what judgment ye
judge, ye shall be judged.” Cool.
Now you go to Matthew chapter7, which is the equivalent over
there of the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew chapter 7:1 starts like this: “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” same (24:15):
undefined
thing the Book of Mormon said, right?
But then there's a footnote.

It says JST, and it says this: “Now these are the words which (24:24):
undefined
Jesus taught his disciples thatthey should say unto the people.
Judge not unrighteously, that yebe not judged; but judge righteous
judgment.” So let's pause thereand kind of grapple with this.
The Book of Mormon itself doesnot have Jesus saying what the
Joseph Smith Translation says.

(24:44):
So if Jesus's intent was to say, “Judgenot unrighteously,” then why didn't he
say that in the Book of Mormon text?
If I think that what Joseph Smithis doing is restoring the original,
then we've got ourselves a problem.
Does that make sense?

Yeah.

We've got ourselves a problem, because now the Book of Mormon
is in error, or at least in contradictionto the JST of Matthew 7:1, right?
If Joseph Smith is going throughand correcting errors, and
that's all he is doing, then nowwe've got ourselves a conundrum.
But Joseph Smith never claimedthat that's what he was doing.
You see how important it's towatch our assumptions on this?

Yeah.

And so the fact is that the JST of Matthew 7:1 differs from
the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 14:1.
That's the fact of the matter.
So now, instead of being forced tointerpret that fact as a problem, because
we're locked into the assumption thatJoseph Smith is only correcting errors
that have crept into the Bible, what ifwe instead see his role as one divinely

(25:36):
authorized to insert interpretationsand clarifications into scripture?
When we understand it that way,then this becomes just a great
example of him doing just that.

Yeah.

Now, that actually fits really nicely.
What does Jesus mean, “Judgenot, that ye be not judged”?
Are we not supposed to judge?
Doesn't he say just a few verses laterthat you're not supposed to cast pearls
before swine and give holy things to dogs?
Doesn't that require us to make ajudgment of who's a dog and what's holy,
and—you know, you can see that this cancause some angst as to what Jesus means.
Well, there's a nice little footnote,Joseph Smith Translation, “Judge not

(26:07):
unrighteously, that ye be not judged,”but do judge righteous judgment.
I think that's a great example,kind of a case study of what the
Joseph Smith Translation is insome parts and what it is not.
I don't think that's a case of Josephrestoring something Jesus actually said,
but rather a great example of Josephhelping to interpret the meaning and
the intention behind Jesus's words.

In defining what it is and what it isn't, even the word
translation is maybe a little misleading.

Yeah.

We want to be clear
he knows Greek or Hebrew, or that hehas access to the original documents.
Now, he does learn Greekand Hebrew later on.

He studies it, yeah.

But it's after the primary period of translation.

That's right.

So here's a few statements from
some of the foremost experts.
This is Kent Jackson—

Yeah.

—who's probably studied this as much as
anybody except for Robert Matthews.
Kent Jackson said, “The Joseph Smithtranslation was not a translation
in the normal sense of usingancient Hebrew or Greek text and
rendering them in a modern language.
Instead, the prophet was recastingthe text into a new form by means of
inspiration from the Holy Spirit.” Soit's not a traditional translation.

Yeah.

And like you said, in some senses he could
be restoring the original text.

Yeah.

He could be commenting on the original text.

Yep.

He could be enlarging the original text.

Uh-huh.

The way Robert Matthews said it was, “The
spirit apparently suggested manyenlargements, backgrounds, and additional
concepts not found on the page.
Thus, the term ‘translation,’ whenreferring to Joseph Smith's translation
of the Bible, differs somewhat fromwhat one normally thinks of when one
thinks of translating languages.”

Yeah.

But we'll use the term “translation” because that's what
Joseph Smith used when he referred toit, even though it's clear looking at it
that's not just what it's supposed to be.

And the Lord even refers to it that way, right?
In Doctrine and Covenants 124:89 thatyou've referenced, he gives instruction
to “publish the new translation of myholy word.” Like, he uses that word.

Mm-hmm.

But that word is—I'm thinking of Princess Bride,
where, “I do not think that wordmeans what you think it means.”

“I do not think it means what you think it means.”

We use the word translation to mean from one
language to another, like you knowthe base language, and then you
translate it into a new language.
But maybe a word that would bemore comfortable for us would be,
like, “inspired interpretation,”something like that, right?

Yeah.

Inspired interpretation of the text.

Yeah.
Let me give you another examplethat I think is instructive, OK?

Yeah.

Malachi 4:5-6.
One of the most famous passagesin all of scripture, right?

Yeah.

In the Old Testament the texts reads as follows
will send you Elijah the prophet beforethe coming of the great and dreadful

day of the Lord (28:53):
And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,
and the heart of the children to theirfathers, lest I come and smite the
earth with a curse.” Now, in the JSTmanuscripts, Joseph Smith comes across
this passage and makes no changes.

No changes.

Leaves it exactly the way it is.
And that actually lines upwith the Book of Mormon.

Yeah.

In the book of Mormon, the Savior
is talking to the Nephites.
He says, “You guys don't have what Malachisaid, and it's really important.” So he
quotes a large portion of Malachi 3 and4 to them, including this passage, and in
the Book of Mormon it appears preciselythe same way that it appears in the
King James Version of the Old Testament.

No changes.

No changes.
No changes.
Now, if you go toDoctrine and Covenants 2—

Yeah.

—Moroni appears to Joseph Smith, and he quotes this passage
as well, with some significant changes.

Major changes.

Doctrine and Covenants 2 reads as follows:
“Behold, I will reveal unto you thepriesthood by the hand of Elijah the
prophet, before the coming of thegreat and dreadful day of the Lord.
And he shall plant in the hearts ofthe children the promises made to
the fathers, and the hearts of thechildren shall turn to their fathers.
If it were not so, the whole earthwould be utterly wasted at his coming.”
Those are some huge changes, right?

Yeah.

That are incredibly significant.

Yeah.

And clarify greatly exactly what the Malachi
passage was talking about.

So would you say there that Moroni is giving an
inspired interpretation of analready correct rendition of Malachi?
Like, he's taking a passage that'salready correct, as verified
by Jesus in the Book of Mormon.

Yeah.

And now he's adding an inspired interpretation to that text.

Yeah.
I would say D&C 2 is Moroni'scommentary on Malachi 4:5-6.

Yeah.

Now flash forward from D&C 2, which is one of the earliest
things Joseph has taught, to D&C 128.

Yeah.

So in D&C 128, Joseph Smith had now met with Elijah.
He's received the priesthood keys,and he's explaining how the sealing
power connects generations, andin explaining it, he quotes, guess
which passage, Malachi 4:5-6.
He quotes the King James Version, hequotes the Book of Mormon version,

but then look at this (30:57):
In verse 18 of section 128, he says, “I might have
rendered a plainer translation to this,but it is sufficiently plain to suit
my purpose as it stands.” Now, when hesays, “I might have rendered a plainer
translation,” in my mind he's saying,“I could have told this to you the way
Moroni told this to you, but you get thegist from what's here, meaning Malachi

(31:20):
4 is correct, 3 Nephi 25 is correct.
Doctrine and Covenants 2, whatMoroni says to him, is correct.
You get the point.

Yeah.

It's just that in Joseph Smith's mind translation
wasn't necessarily rendering it from itsoriginal language into a new language.
It was interpreting the passage, too.

Yeah.

So the way he uses “translation” in section 128 seems
to indicate that Joseph Smith himselfbelieves that this is what he's going for,
that it's a recasting of the text, likeKent Jackson says, using the inspiration
and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Yeah, and it seems like Joseph just has this approach to scripture
that scripture's very flexible, especiallywhen you're inspired by the Lord.
I like how he said it there, that “thisis plain enough to suit my purposes,”
but if he had a different purpose, maybehe would take it from a different angle,
and I actually have a few examplesof him doing this with that passage.
Can I share?

Mm-hmm.

So here's when he does change it to suit his purposes.
For instance, in March of 1844, he'scommenting on Elijah, and he says,
“What is the office and work of Elijah?
It's one of the greatest and mostimportant subjects that God has
revealed.” And then he says, “That heshould send Elijah to seal the children
to the fathers and the fathers to thechildren.” He totally just changed
“turn the hearts of” to “seal,” right?

(32:29):
He just did it right thereto suit his purposes.

Yeah.

Another time he said, “Elijah shall reveal the covenants
to seal the hearts of the fathersto the children to the fathers.”
Now he just added a little more.
A third time, he quotes it in Nauvoo.
He says, “God shall send Elijah theprophet, and he shall reveal unto them
the covenants of the fathers with relationto the children and the covenants of the
children in relation to the fathers, thatthey may have the privilege of entering

(32:53):
into the same in order to affect theirmutual salvation.” Joseph understands
that passage so richly that as he'spreaching, he'll use different angles.
He'll come at it at differentangles, sometimes use the word
“seal” when it suits his purpose.
Sometimes use the word “covenants,”that Elijah's going to reveal
covenants to turn children and fatherstogether to seal them together.

Mm-hmm.

And so he just seems to be very comfortable doing that.
Doesn't feel like he's doing anythingout of bounds as a prophet of God.

Yeah.
And you used the word “flexible.”I'd probably use the word
“living” when it comes to JosephSmith's approach to scripture.

Oh.
What do you mean?

Well, Joseph Smith doesn't approach the
Bible like it's a corpse, right?
Like, don't disturb anything.
Leave it at peace.
He approaches the Bible like it's a tree,like it's still growing, it's dynamic,
its appearance changes from time to time,and that through his prophetic gifts,
he's able to find new interpretations.
In other words, he wasn'tidolizing the text.

(33:48):
He's seeing the text for whatit is, a dynamic revelation, and
seeing himself as a revelatorwith an inspired calling from God.
He sees the right to interpret thetext, to add to the text, if so
necessary, and to clarify what certainthings in the text mean as well.
It's not a relic that you can't touch.
It's something that you can climbthrough and play around and pluck an

(34:09):
apple off of and all that kind of stuff.

And as you engage with it, it starts to produce
more revelation in your mind.

Yeah.

Revelation begets revelation.
The revelations of the ancients inspirea prophet, seer, and revelator, a modern
one, to now take it to the next level.
I feel like we see that with Paul,like the way that Paul handles
the Old Testament or the way thatJesus handles the Old Testament.
I feel like he does that.
He's building on the old tobring about the new, and it's
dynamic, and it's living, andit's moving and it's—I like that.

(34:39):
It's like a tree.

Maybe we're pushing the tree analogy too far, but
it occurs to me you could also, youknow, take a seed from the tree and
grow a new tree or something like that,that it's this living chain of custody.
It's not dead.
It's something you can still kind ofplay around with and learn from, and that
you don't have to just kind of put in amausoleum and pull out every once in a

(35:00):
while to prove that it exists, but it'sa living, dynamic thing that still feeds
and blesses and helps people around it.

Totally.
Yep.

One of the biggest challenges we have is that even though
we know Joseph finishes at least oneround of translation, because I've
seen in the manuscript when they write,“Finished this day, July 3, 1833.”

Yeah.

That's when he finishes the Old Testament,
because like you mentioned, hepauses, does the New Testament,
then goes back to the Old Testament.
He never actually publishes the JST.
He tries very earnestly, multipletimes, and I'm guessing if he had
been able to publish it, he would'veincluded a kind of explanatory note
like he does with the Book of Mormonand the Doctrine and Covenants to
say, ”Here's what I was trying todo.” because he never gets to do that.

(35:54):
Without that, we're speculatingas to what he's trying to do.

Yeah.
To claim that we fully understand whatthat project was about is to overstate
what the sources allow us to say.

Yeah.
But scholars like Kent Jackson have said,“Well, maybe he didn't leave a definitive
statement as to what the JST was supposedto be, but we can look at what's there
and we can kind of work backwards fromthat to give ourselves a few pictures
as to what he was trying to do.
So this is from Kent Jackson's greatbook on the Joseph Smith Translation

(36:25):
that actually has the manuscripts.
I'd purchase it just for this openingintroduction, where Kent Jackson says,
“I'm not Joseph Smith, but having examinedthe manuscripts, I think here's some
of the things he was trying to do.” Solet's walk through each one of these.

OK.
Let's hear them.

You're welcome to agree or not agree.
I'll share my interpretations.

OK.

But Kent Jackson says there's at least five things
that the JST appears to be, OK?

Yeah.

Number one: In some cases the translation was
a restoration of the original text.

Let's pause right there.

Yeah.
OK.
OK.

I love Kent Jackson.
He's an incredible scholar.
I guess my question to him would be,“What's your evidence that the JST is
partially a restoration of original text?
Wouldn't we need to find an originaltext and compare it to Joseph's
translations to be able to reallysay the JST restored original text?
I mean, in the absence of any originaltext, in the absence of Joseph

(37:18):
Smith himself claiming that thisis what he was at least partially
doing, how could we know that?
So that's my only question is, like, howdo you know it's restoring the original
if we don't have a copy of an original?
So.

And I mean, the example Kent Jackson cites is Moses
1, which is the Book of Genesis.
It's the earliest example ofthe Joseph Smith Translation.
It's the first thing thathe produces as part of it.

Yeah.

It is impossible to find an original
copy of the Book of Genesis.
It's just not going to happen, right?

Right.

It's so old that it goes back so far, and the earliest
manuscripts of those are probably theDead Sea Scrolls found at Qum'ran.

Right.

Which even those are copies of copies.
The Dead Sea Scroll community,Qum'ran community, came
from about first century AD.

Yeah.

I agree with Kent Jackson.

OK.

Because of the way Moses 1 presents itself.

Mm-hmm.

Moses 1 presents itself as a clear prologue to the book of
Genesis that explains that Moses, beforehe began to write the creation story, met
with God and spoke with God and had allthese sublime truths about the Plan of
Salvation made known to him right there.

Incredible truths.

Casey Paul Griffiths: Incredible truths, right? (38:24):
undefined

Yeah.

So if it's a restoration of the original
text, which you're right, that'san assumption that we're making—

That's an assumption.
I think as long as we acknowledgethat, that's good, right?
If we just say, “This could bea restoration of original text,”
like, as long as we can just keepit a little tentative like that, I
feel super comfortable with that.
Yeah.

OK.
Fair enough.
If you read through Moses1, Moses encounters Jesus.
The Son introduces himself.

Yeah.

Moses encounters Satan, which is a major game changer, too.
Satan doesn't actually appear in theKing James version of the Book of
Genesis; a serpent tempts Adam and Eve.
It doesn't say whether ornot it was Satan or not.

Yeah.

The Book of Moses clarifies, no, it's Satan, and
Satan was there, and the antagonistswere all lined up at this point.

Yeah.

It also creates this—and this is maybe my favorite thing
of all—expansive view of the universeand God's work within the universe.

Yeah.

Moses is shown worlds without number.
Moses is shown the grandeur of theuniverse, but then clarified in the
most quoted scripture in all of GeneralConference, Moses 1:39, “This is my
work and my glory—to bring to pass theimmortality and eternal life of man.”

God's mission statement.

God's mission statement, right there in what I think
is the earliest chapter of scripture.

Mm-hmm.

So first thing, the JST is, Kent Jackson is saying,
is a restoration of the originaltext, or what it appears to be.
OK.

OK.

Second thing, he says the JST at times served
to restore what was once said ordone but was never in the Bible.

OK.

And the example he cites for this is the
JST of Genesis 14:25-40, whichis backstory on Melchizedek.
You'll note that in the King Jamesversion of the Bible, Melchizedek
just kind of shows up out of nowhere.
He's the king of Salem.

Yeah.

And at that point in the story, Abraham's our main
protagonist, and Abraham's the guy.
He's doing everything the Lord wantshim to do, but all of a sudden,
Abraham pays homage to Melchizedek.
Melchizedek is presented as if he'sthe person in charge of Abraham.

Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths: Abraham pays tithes to him. (40:22):
undefined
Melchizedek blesses Abraham.
And Kent, I think, is correctin saying that this material's
never in the Bible as we have it.

Right.

It may have been in the brass plates that the Nephites had,
because the text that we're talking abouthere shows up in the Book of Mormon in—

Alma 13, right?

Alma 13.
Yeah.
It seems like Joseph Smith saw thattext in Alma 13 and said, “This
would be real useful for a personthat's reading the story of Abraham
to know who Melchizedek is and whyMelchizedek is such an important
figure.” And so he just takes that over.
But Kent's saying this probablywas never in the Bible.
Joseph Smith just saw it as a way toclarify and sharpen the story a little

(41:01):
bit so that Melchizedek's appearancehas a little bit of background to it.

Yeah.
I love that.

So that's the second thing, OK?

Third thing (41:08):
he says, “The JST at times consisted of editing to make the
Bible more understandable to modernreaders.” So some changes make it look
like Joseph Smith was trying to producea more readable Bible that didn't
have all the archaic things in it.
For instance, in the archaic KingJames version, there's the word “wot.”

Yeah.

“Wot.” W-O-T.
For instance, in Exodus 32:[23], it says,“We wot not what has become of him”—

Wot.

Joseph Smith changed this particular passage to,
“We know not what has become of him.”So the word “wot” is something that
doesn't get used very much, though.
I'm going to try and work itinto a conversation today.

Most people wot not what that means.

I wot not what I'm doing.
Joseph Smith just says, “No.
Most people wouldn't talk that way.
No.”

Yeah.

And I will add, little changes like this make
me feel a little bit better about,in my scripture study breaking out a
different translation that updates thelanguage a little bit, because it seems
like Joseph Smith was OK with that.

Sure.

He's actually trying to do it himself.

Yeah.
Totally open to that.
Yeah.

Yeah.
In other places, the JST replacesambiguous pronouns with proper names.
For instance, in Genesis 14:20, the KingJames version reads, “and he gave.” The
JST just simply clarifies, “and Abramgave.” It clarifies that the “he” there
is Abram, which could have been confusing.

Yeah.

So that's the third thing
to make a more readable Bible.
The fourth thing might be controversial,but it also seems like he was trying
to correct the inconsistenciesthat exist within the Bible.
He's trying to make changes thatbring biblical wording into harmony
with truths found in other parts ofthe Bible or in modern revelation.

(42:51):
For instance, a scripture thatgets quoted to us all the time:
“No man hath seen God at any time.”

Uh-huh.

Which is super confusing if you've read the Bible, right?

Yeah.
Doesn't he appear to Moses and—

Yeah.
“The Lord spake unto Moses face to face,as a man speaketh unto his friend.”
That's scripture mastery, right?

Yeah.

I memorized that in seminary.
How do you reconcile speaking face toface as a man speaks to his friend with
“no man hath seen God at any time”?

Yeah.

Joseph Smith takes that passage and alters it so it read,
“No man hath seen God at any time excepthe hath born witness of the Son,” which
clarifies the God we're talking abouthere is the Father, and the “he” bearing
witness of the Son is the Father, too.
In other words, if you want to know ifyou've seen God the Father, God always
appears and bears witness of the Sonwhen he appears, if that makes sense.

Yeah.
Yeah.
That would be a clarification of the text.

That'd be a clarification of the text.
There's tons of other examples, too.
For instance, the Book of Exoduson multiple occasions says,
“and God repented,” which, whoa.
If God can do evil, A, and B, repent,that is a major theological game changer.

Yeah.

The JST just changes it simply to read, “Pharaoh
repented of the evil.” Pharaoh is a human.
He's capable of evil.
He can repent.

Yeah.

God is not capable of evil, and God can't repent
because he doesn't sin, basically.
So he's cleaning up some of themessiness that sort of crept into
the Bible in that particular sense.

Potential theological problems.
But I think in the Hebrew there,like, God just shoos, right?
He shoos, he turns awayfrom his intention.
He's just turning.
But when it's translated “repent,”it sounds like God did something
wrong that he needs to correct.
But I think the Hebrew's fine with shoo.

Yeah.

Yeah.
So that'd be Joseph cleaning it up sothat there's not the potential stumbling
block there for English readers.
Would you say that's fair?

Yeah.
And in some ways he'smaking the text more simple.
In some ways he's makingthe text more complex.

Mm-hmm.

Partially because when you read through
the King James Bible, too, you'llnote there's italicized words.

Right.

Those italicized words were not in the original text.
The King James translators had to add themin to make certain phrases make sense.
So, for instance, in John chapter 5,Jesus is talking to the woman of Samaria,
and he says in the King James text,“For God is a spirit,” is italicized.
Joseph Smith, in almost every instance,crossed out the italicized words.

Interesting.

They weren't part of the original text, so that passage in
the JST reads, “God is Spirit,” which is alittle bit more complex, but it also opens
up a number of possibilities that we like.
For instance, God can be embodied.
God is Spirit.
That's part of his character.
It's not the whole sumof what makes him up.

Yeah.

Now, finally, at time[s] the JST includes changes
helpful to modern readers that werenot written by the original authors.
That's what Ken says, OK?

Like what?

Casey Paul Griffiths: For instance, Bruce R. (45:47):
undefined
McConkie, who we see as aconservative theologian, to put it
mildly, would look at some passagesin the Bible, for instance, the
Book of Genesis, the material inthe JST, and say both are true.
Both these translations can be true.

Like the Malachi passage, like you mentioned earlier.

Yeah.

That would be a good example, like, both of them are true.
The way that it's in the King Jamesversion is true as backed up by Jesus
in the Book of Mormon, but Moroni couldalso add some stuff, and Joseph Smith
felt liberty to do so as well in Nauvoo.

Yeah.

Not written by the original author, but that's OK.

Yeah.
In this case, we would say it'sprophetic commentary on what's in the
Bible or prophetic interpretation.
It's not the original text.
It's Joseph Smith inserting himself intothe text to kind of say, “Look at this.
Have you thought about this?”

Yeah.

A prominent example would be Romans 13.
Paul is writing concerning the Saints‘obligation to submit to secular powers.

Mm-hmm.

The JST rewrites this passage to apply it towards
cooperation with church authorities.
It's likely that both passagesare correct, and the JST
revision is a revelation intendedto instruct modern Saints.

Interesting.

It could be commentary as well, which—I'm interested
in Joseph Smith's commentary on the Bible.
That's something I definitely wantto read, but it seems like, you know,
working backwards from what we have, theJST is all these things simultaneously.
It's supposed to place back truthsthat have been removed from the Bible.
It adds new clarificationsthat have come from additional

(47:11):
scripture like the Book of Mormon.

Yeah.

It's supposed to clarify the Bible
and make it easier to read.
It's supposed to correct the doctrinalinconsistencies in the Bible, and it's
also intended to be a commentary onthese vital texts within the Bible,
sometimes applying the text in new andinteresting ways in modern settings.

And all of this is us looking at the text, saying,
“It seems like this is what it'sdoing,” and so we wonder if that
was Joseph Smith's intentions.

Yeah.

But we don't have Joseph ever explaining his intentions.
So all of this, what we're doing today,what Kent Jackson's doing, is trying to
work backwards from what we do have andthen make some tentative conclusions.

Yeah.
And working backwards from where weare, there's also a couple interesting
conclusions to come to here, too.

Yeah.

Joseph Smith, for instance, does not give equal
emphasis to all books of the Bible.
There's some books thatreceive way more changes.

Yeah.

Most prominently in the Book of Genesis.

Genesis, yeah.

Than other books that receive absolutely no changes.
The examples of this would beRuth, Ezra, Esther, 2 John,
3 John, Philemon—no changes.

Huh.

Other books receive major changes, among them Genesis,
Exodus, Psalms, Isaiah, Matthew, Luke,Romans, 1 Corinthians, Hebrews, James,
2 Peter, and the Book of Revelation.
Major changes there.

Interesting.

The manuscripts themselves are 450 pages long.
So a lot of changes contained in there,and adding up the numbers, Joseph
Smith makes changes to about 1,300verses in the Old Testament and about
2,100 verses in the New Testament.
So he changes the New Testamentmore than the Old Testament.
That makes sense.
I would say, for instance, the otherJST that was with us the entire time,

(48:55):
prior to the 1970s, Joseph Smith—Matthew,which is his translation of Matthew
24, which is this prophecy theSavior makes about the Second Coming.

Yeah.

Now, the original Matthew 24 is confusing, because at times
Jesus is talking about the destructionof the temple of Jerusalem, which
happens AD 70, and at other times he'stalking about the end of the world.

Yeah.

By the time Joseph Smith is done,
Matthew 24 is doubled in size.
It's so different that we kindof had to make it its own thing.

Yeah.

But the main changes clarify, “This is when I'm talking about
the destruction of Jerusalem, and thisis when I'm talking about the end of the
world, which is really helpful to a modernreader to kind of be able to sort out
the difference between those two things.

So you mentioned that about 1,300 changes in the Old Testament,
about 2,100 in the New Testament.
What's interesting is that of thosechanges in our current edition
of the scriptures, we only haveprinted about one third of those.
Do you want to comment on why we've onlygot about one third of those changes?

Yeah.
The short answer is space.

Yep.

Not all the changes were of doctrinal significance.

Right.

Some of them, like we said, were just to clarify, and
in the text in the 1970s, when we gotaccess to the manuscripts, we actually
are producing this new Latter-day Saintedition of the Bible, and they had to
pick the most important ones, so RobertMatthews said passages of doctrinal
significance were given precedence.

And those show up in several ways: the footnotes, which everybody's (50:19):
undefined
kind of familiar with, the JSTappendix, where the bigger changes
are found that aren't already inthe Pearl of Great Price are there.
And this must have been really difficult.
They have to prioritize.

Yeah.

Now, I should add that the 2013 edition of the
Bible adds in a ton of JosephSmith Translation references.

Because we're no longer bound by space, right?
Because now we have digital.

Yeah.

We've got the digital app.
You could just put that in there.

Yeah.

So we've got—how many additions do we have in the 2013?

Oh my gosh.
I haven't counted them up.

There's a lot.

They published a list here, and when I'm teaching
this, I put all of them up on aPowerPoint, and it takes two slides—

Yeah.

—with very small text to cover all of them.
And then I say to my students,“and I expect you to have all these
memorized for the exam,” and it'sscary for them, I guess you'd say.

Yeah.
Yeah.
These will all be on the test.
That's right.

Yeah.
I'm joking when I do that, buta number of significant changes.
And they do actually delete one JSTchange, because that's the other problem,
too, is the manuscripts are relativelyclear when Joseph Smith makes changes,
but we're also going off the markedBible, and if you look at the marked
Bible, there's some places where there'sa definite change—in fact, Joseph Smith

(51:31):
and his scribes have this whole complexsystem of marking within the Bible—but
there's other places where it's nottotally clear that they made a change.
It could be an ink blotbecause they closed the book
when the ink was still wet.

Oh, geez.

It could be an errant phrase.
And so some of these changeswe weren't really sure were
changes, so we took a conservativeapproach towards them as well.
These are the ones that were doctrinallysignificant and that we were absolutely
sure were deliberate changes to the Bible.

Yeah.
That's awesome.
I want to make a statement or comment,a little more speculative here,
but what I think was going on, areyou open to some speculation here?

Sure.
Yeah.

I think it's true that this project was intended to help clarify
and give us maybe a more readable andclear and doctrinally sound Bible,
adding to what was already a great text,but just adding some prophetic help
to that, but I think that's secondary.
I think that was the Lord'ssecondary purpose in inviting
Joseph Smith to do this project.

(52:28):
And it's clear that the Lord is wantinghim to do this as early as, like, D&C 26.
The Lord is the one that'sprodding Joseph along.
This is his next translation project.
The church has been organizedin April, and by section 26, the
Lord is now saying, “All right.
Now, time to get movingon this next project.”

Yeah.

And I think the reason number one—so reason number
two, help us get a better Bible.
But reason number one, I think, isthat as Joseph Smith continues to
read carefully in the Bible, Josephis going to be tutored, and he’s
going to start asking questions.
Joseph Smith is a great question asker.
He's going to start asking questionsof the text, and those questions

(53:05):
are going to serve as a springboardto additional key revelations.
So I think primarily, reason numberone that Joseph is commanded to do
this project, is so that he willask the right questions so that
God can reveal more revelations.
If you look at the nature of the Doctrineand Covenants, it's interesting that
about half of our Doctrine and Covenantsrevelations came during this time period

(53:27):
that Joseph was translating the Bible,many of them actually coming directly
from the Joseph Smith translation.

Yeah.

D&C 29, D&C 45, D&C 65, 74.
76 is the “Booyah” that we all love.
77, 86, 93, 132.
These are clearly all Joseph Smithasking questions after having read the
text that then lead him to additionalrevelations that become very significant.
All these revelationshave something in common.

(53:54):
They are doctrinally rich, andthey nearly always deal either
with matters of eschatology, likethe end-of-the-world-type stuff,
or matters from the ancient past.
They're very different thanthe kind of early types of
questions that Joseph was asking.
If you look at the beginningof the Doctrine and Covenants,
people are asking, “Hey, Joseph,how can I assist in the work?
What does the Lord want from me?”And Joseph says, “I don't know.
Let's ask.” And we get alot of repetition, right?

Yeah.

D&C 4.
D&C 12, 14, 15, 16.

15 and 16 are exactly like each other, yeah.

Identical.
Because the question was the same.
So as the questions get more interesting,the revelations get more rich.
And what is going to be theimpetus for Joseph asking more
interesting doctrinal questions?
The Bible translation.

Yeah.

So as Joseph translates the Bible, he's led to
ask important questions, the answersto which were recorded and published
in the Doctrine and Covenants.
I believe the Joseph Smith Translationacted as a springboard to additional
Doctrine and Covenants revelations,which the Lord wanted to give, but
he needed Joseph to ask the rightquestions, and the best way to get
him to do that is to get his nosein the Bible and have him thinking

(54:59):
very carefully over every word, whichinevitably is going to lead to questions.
And as we said earlier, revelationwill now beget revelation.
The revelations in the Biblewill be the springboard for
Joseph to get more revelation.

Yeah.

I think that's highly significant and probably primary.
And that's my speculation.
That's the primary purpose.

Well, and it seems like “translation”—another word
to use for what Joseph Smith did was“scripture study.” It forced him to
engage intensely and deeply with the text.

Yeah.

So you can see this when he's translating the Book of Mormon.
The appearance of John the Baptistis sparked, according to both Joseph
and Oliver, by their study of ascriptural passage, probably 3 Nephi 11.

Yeah.

And so it's not surprising that the end result here might
not have been to build a better Bible.

Right.

It was to get Joseph's nose into the book and get
him to study really carefully, lineby line, every word of text, and that
produces a number of revelations.

Yeah.

In fact, I think that's going to be
the focus of our next episode—

Yeah.

—where one of the most interesting things to do is to
track the translation by the revelationsthat are in the Doctrine and Covenants.
This period of the summer of 1830until the summer of 1833, when the
first major phase of translation takesplace, is where most of the Doctrine
and Covenants is received as well.

That's right.

And so next time we're going to try and draw a line
between what were they reading andwhat were they translating and what
revelations did it produce, and showhow the Doctrine and Covenants and the
JST are intertwined with each other.
They're not really separate books.

Much more than I understood 10 years ago.
The more I study this, themore I'm just absolutely
convinced that this is the case.
Yeah, that'll be a fun episode.
So, yeah, next time, let's do that.
Let's look at the interrelationshipbetween the Doctrine and Covenants
and the Joseph Smith translation.
That'll be a blast.

Alright.
We'll see you then.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters.
Next week we continue this series byexploring the fascinating relationship
between Joseph Smith's Bible translationefforts and several revelations
of the Doctrine and Covenants,highlighting the compelling process
of how scripture begets scripture.
Today's episode was produced byScott Woodward and edited by Nick

(57:18):
Galieti and Scott Woodward, with shownotes and transcript by Gabe Davis.
Church History Matters is a podcastof Scripture Central, a non-profit
which exists to help build enduringfaith in Jesus Christ by making
Latter-day Saint scripture and churchhistory accessible, comprehensible,
and defensible to people everywhere.
For more resources to enhance yourgospel study, go to scripturecentral.org,

(57:41):
where everything is availablefor free because of the generous
donations of people like you.
If you are enjoying Church HistoryMatters, we'd appreciate it if you
could take a moment to subscribe, rate,review, and comment on the podcast.
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