The Bible in the Book of Mormon?

[curtishouse]

I just saw a passage through one of my Mormon groups on FaceBook and they mentioned this verse. It confused me though. When was the Second Book of Nephi originally written? I know the term "Bible" couldn't even have come about until the 300s AD since that is when the Bible was canonized after all. Let's just get to the Scripture and maybe someone can help me understand it a bit more. Thanks!

"And because my words shall hiss forth—many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible." - 2Nephi 29:3

[ozzy]

True, the Nephites didn't have the term 'Bible.' However they were still well aware of the record of the Jews (having a copy themselves) and the term 'Bible' was probably just the best translation of the reformed egyptian word used. Its kind of like at the end of Jacob where 'Adieu' is used. It's not that they had it, it just that its the best representation that we have for the idea that they were trying to convey.

[Dravin]

I just saw a passage through one of my Mormon groups on FaceBook and they mentioned this verse. It confused me though. When was the Second Book of Nephi originally written? I know the term "Bible" couldn't even have come about until the 300s AD since that is when the Bible was canonized after all. Let's just get to the Scripture and maybe someone can help me understand it a bit more. Thanks!

"And because my words shall hiss forth—many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible." - 2Nephi 29:3

Some context, in 1 Nephi 13 saw the coming forth of what we would call the Bible. So Nephi was aware of what we would now call the Bible.

That said as the work (the Book of Mormon you are reading) is a translation it is entirely possible (probably in my mind) that Nephi didn't use an English word that was derived from Greek. I suppose he could have used a different language equivalent, keep in mind at it's core bible means book. Or simply Joseph Smith was inspired (or decided knowing the context) to translate it that way because while Nephi didn't say "Bible" that is what he meant (the collection of Jewish writing that we English speakers would later call a Bible).

You run into a similar situation with the use of the word Christian or Jesus Christ. Those are Greek terms adopted into English, neither language would necessarily have been familiar to the authors of the books you find them in. It is an artifact of the translation process if you will, in the strictest sense Nephi (or any of the other authors) never penned a single word you are reading in that copy of the Book of Mormon you are reading. They wrote something in a different language which was then translated (by the gift and power of God) into the English language. So you get things like this.

Edited October 6, 2010 by Dravin

[curtishouse]

Thank you both for your quick responses. A translation issue definitely does make a lot of sense as the gold plates were being translated from reformed Egyptian into Joseph Smith's current dialect. Just calling them "books" would do a grave disservice to the Bible I believe and I can't think of another word that would come as close to describe the Bible than the word used.

Another question though? Are all writings from the Bible coming from Jewish authors? I'm aware that everything in the OT is but what about the writings from the NT?

[jayanna]

Well, I do know that the Bible is referred to as the stick of Judah (Jewish)

and the Book of Mormon is the stick of Joseph, and that we should put them together.

There is a pretty hefty prophesy about this in Ezekiel 37 around v. 17-19.

p.s. Most Latter-Day Saints I know are of the tribe of Ephraim, including me. :)

[curtishouse]

Well, I do know that the Bible is referred to as the stick of Judah (Jewish)

and the Book of Mormon is the stick of Joseph, and that we should put them together.

There is a pretty hefty prophesy about this in Ezekiel 37 around v. 17-19.

p.s. Most Latter-Day Saints I know are of the tribe of Ephraim, including me. :)

Awesome passage! It makes so much sense when you read it from the LDS position. :)

[captmoroniRM]

It is key to remember that as translator, Joseph's job was to find the best words to correctly transfer the meaning or the idea from one language to the next. When translating, there is never an exact word-for-word translation. Many idioms or phrases may not translate well. When translating, Joseph would have understood Nephi writing about a bible, and would have known it was a bible. The best word to describe it in english, that Joseph would have been familiar with is the Bible. Others already mentioned Jacob's use of a french word.

The same happens in Alma where Moroni writes that the followers of Christ were known as Christians. Some might find this as an anachronism, but in translating, he would have understood that the best way to translate the reformed egyptian name used for followers of Christ to be "Christian."

To quote the article "The Book of Mormon - Artifact or Artifice" by Orson Scott Card,

The appearance of lawyers in the Book of Mormon is assumed by many to be proof that this is an American artifact. After all, Joseph Smith and his family had plenty of reason to have a low opinion of lawyers, and the references to lawyers in the Book of Mormon are hardly flattering.

But there is nothing uniquely American about lawyers. The Romans had lawyers, too, and that the Roman pattern of lawyers was a lot more like what the Book of Mormon used than any American lawyers that Joseph Smith was acquainted with. That is, a lawyer like Zeezrom seemed to be effective, not because of more skillful manipulation of law, but because of his persuasiveness and personal influence. He would take someone under his protection and speak as personal advocate. With Zeezrom on your side, you would win, not because he understood the law, but because of his rhetoric and his reputation for power. Furthermore, the prosecution of Alma and Amulek seemed to originate with the lawyers themselves as the complainants, while Alma and Amulek had no defense attorney, but rather spoke for themselves. It doesn't follow the American pattern.

Naming. In fact, the only thing that makes Zeezrom and his ilk seem American is the fact that Joseph Smith translated the Nephite word for the role they played in Nephite society as the English word lawyer. And this is exactly right. If Joseph Smith was receiving the pure knowledge of what Mormon meant as they wrote, he would still have to put it down in English. In a few rare cases, the idea he was trying to translate had no English equivalent, and so we find cureloms and cumoms. But most of the time, there was some English word that came to Joseph Smith, a word that was close enough to convey the idea. As with all translation, though, the words are never exact and never can be. It is the most correct translation possible, but a perfect translation is not possible. So for Joseph Smith to apply the word lawyer to an advocate in a legal system that was not very close to the American legal system can be misleading, but it is still the most correct possible translation given the language that the Prophet had available to him at the time.

In fact, the very lack of exotic names supports the genuineness of Joseph Smith's translation. Science fiction writers and critics are quite aware of a long tradition of what James Blish called "shmeerps." Blish pointed out how silly it was that most science fiction writers, when trying to show an alien fauna, would produce a creature that looked like a rabbit and acted like a rabbit and was treated like a rabbit, and yet it was called a "shmeerp." This is ludicrous, of course. People migrating to a new land with strange plants and animals will use familiar names for the new creatures. Thus the English immigrants to America called the bison "buffaloes" and referred to maize as "Indian corn" and finally just "corn," even though in England that word had been a generic term for grain. The English felt no need to come up with new names for items that were "close enough."

Surely the Nephites followed the same pattern, using old words for new objects. Thus, if in fact there were no horses in America at the time of the Book of Mormon, the Hebrew word for horse could still quite readily be applied to some other animal that functioned like a horse. Furthermore, the language Mormon wrote in may well have been an ideographic language, in which case it would hardly matter what the spoken word for a particular animal was, as long as Nephite writers had agreed to use the old "horse" ideograph to refer to that animal. Thus it is no more surprising that the word "horse" appears in the Book of Mormon than that the word "buffalo" was used in a nation where there were no buffaloes, but only bison.

[jayanna]

The first 2 times I read the Book of Mormon, I read it side-by-side with the Bible, following the footnotes on the bottom of the page. I learned a lot doing that. Every time it mentioned a Bible reference, I started flipping to that.

I always had a hard time understanding most of the Bible when I was growing up, even though I had an English teacher for a mom, and a college reading level since I was 9. I found opposing explanations so confusing, especially when I asked questions at the different churches I went to and got so many different answers for the same passage of scripture. Now that I read the Book of Mormon and Bible together it makes so much more sense to me.

Put that together with prayer, and you cannot fail to learn something.

[jayanna]

Surely the Nephites followed the same pattern, using old words for new objects. Thus, if in fact there were no horses in America at the time of the Book of Mormon, the Hebrew word for horse could still quite readily be applied to some other animal that functioned like a horse. Furthermore, the language Mormon wrote in may well have been an ideographic language, in which case it would hardly matter what the spoken word for a particular animal was, as long as Nephite writers had agreed to use the old "horse" ideograph to refer to that animal. Thus it is no more surprising that the word "horse" appears in the Book of Mormon than that the word "buffalo" was used in a nation where there were no buffaloes, but only bison.

Actually, here is something I found very interesting during the Rose Bowl Parade one year...Curly horses...are believed to possibly be native to the Americas. Though ancient pictures were painted of them in China. They have curly hair, are very docile and are hypoallergenic :) There has been some evidence as to their existence in South America. oh, and they're pretty

[Faded]

Thank you both for your quick responses. A translation issue definitely does make a lot of sense as the gold plates were being translated from reformed Egyptian into Joseph Smith's current dialect. Just calling them "books" would do a grave disservice to the Bible I believe and I can't think of another word that would come as close to describe the Bible than the word used.

Another question though? Are all writings from the Bible coming from Jewish authors? I'm aware that everything in the OT is but what about the writings from the NT?

The trouble you'll have here is what you consider to be a Jew. The word Jew is derived from Judah, so in one sense only the tribe of Judah counts as Jews in the modern sense. On the other hand, all tribes are to some degree represented among the current ethnic Jewish people (though the overwhelming majority are of the tribes of Judah and Levi), so you might use the word "Jew" to refer to any person of Israelitish descent. Not all of the books of the Bible were written by members of the tribe of Judah. Many writings are associated with prophets to the Northern Tribes, and some of those prophets may have been carried away with the Ten Lost Tribes. So the answer to the question depends entirely upon whether you consider the Ten Lost Tribes "Jews."

I can say this much. Every book of the Bible is written by Israelites with the exception of Job who was not Jewish, and in Jewish tradition is the son of Utz, who was the son of Nahor, the brother of Abraham. So at the traditional accepted date of the events of the Book of Job, there were no Israelites because Jacob likely hadn't even been born yet. In any case, Job would have been Jacob (who became Israel)'s second cousin.

All authors of the New Testament were Israelites, and in the modern context, Jews. It is quite interesting that none of the New Testament was written by Gentiles but it's 100% true.

Edited October 6, 2010 by Faded

[Jamie123]

I've always thought the use of the word "Bible" was strange. Also the word "Church" is used in passages supposedly written before Christ, when the "Church" did not yet exist. I remember asking the missionaries about this once, but I couldn't seem to make them understand what I was asking. I guess if you've been brought up with the BoM, you don't think about these things so much.

But as for "Bible", I suppose it may be like the word "Lucifer" used in Isiah. Lucifer is Latin for "Light Carrier" (Lux+Fero), but Isiah wrote long before the Jews had any contact with the ancestors of the Romans, so how could he have used a Latin word?

The fact is that Isiah never did use the word "Lucifer". That word entered the Bible much later in the time of St. Jerome, when the Latin Vulgate was written. The Hebrew translates literally as something like "Light Bearer Son of the Morning", alluding to Venus as the Morning Star. Since the Romans at that time called Venus "The Light Carrier" - "Lucifer" in their language - that's the word Jerome chose.

A while ago I wrote to Shawn McCraney after hearing him rubbish the BoM for containing "a Greek word". I suggested that Joseph Smith might have chosen a Greek word as the best representation of whatever concept the original Egyptian attempted to convey. His reply was "possible, but not very likely", and then went on to talk about other flaws in the BoM.

[Jamie123]

(Duplicate post - sorry)

Edited October 6, 2010 by Jamie123

[curtishouse]

A while ago I wrote to Shawn McCraney after hearing him rubbish the BoM for containing "a Greek word". I suggested that Joseph Smith might have chosen a Greek word as the best representation of whatever concept the original Egyptian attempted to convey. His reply was "possible, but not very likely", and then went on to talk about other flaws in the BoM.

Can't let intellectual honesty get in the way of a good bashing with Shawn. What I find remarkable are the "problems" found in the Book of Mormon are also prevalent in the Bible. When you point this out, I've discovered that many I've encountered wonder why you have to "change the subject" and start "mocking the Word of God." What would this world be without irony?

[Blackmarch]

I just saw a passage through one of my Mormon groups on FaceBook and they mentioned this verse. It confused me though. When was the Second Book of Nephi originally written? I know the term "Bible" couldn't even have come about until the 300s AD since that is when the Bible was canonized after all. Let's just get to the Scripture and maybe someone can help me understand it a bit more. Thanks!

"And because my words shall hiss forth—many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible." - 2Nephi 29:3

well there are two things to consider-

1) this comes from a prophecy of a future time - so it's possible that Nephi had insight to some of the language that would be used.

2) and/or Nephi used wording and concepts that was best translated by using the word Bible (which I think is more likely IMO)

Bible means "The Book", which came from the word Biblia, which means "the Books".

[Blackmarch]

Thank you both for your quick responses. A translation issue definitely does make a lot of sense as the gold plates were being translated from reformed Egyptian into Joseph Smith's current dialect. Just calling them "books" would do a grave disservice to the Bible I believe and I can't think of another word that would come as close to describe the Bible than the word used.

Another question though? Are all writings from the Bible coming from Jewish authors? I'm aware that everything in the OT is but what about the writings from the NT?

For the NT the 4 gospels source is Jewish...

Beyond that I'm not entirely sure, I know most of the apostles were jewish by birth, but i can't remember if all of them were. After the 4 gospels the NT is mostly a collection of letters that were sent from the apostles to the chhurch in different areas to keep the church on track.

[rameumptom]

Another question though? Are all writings from the Bible coming from Jewish authors? I'm aware that everything in the OT is but what about the writings from the NT?

All the writings are theoretically from Jews, though some did not live in Israel. In fact, some of the Old Testament writings (Daniel, Ezekiel, etc) were written in Babylon. And there are different ancient versions of the OT books from Babylon, Palestine (Israel) and even Egypt.

Luke and Mark were Jews, but probably not from Israel. Several of Paul's letters are considered by scholars to have been written by others. These could even have been written by Gentile Christians.

[brittrossiter]

** snip **

Luke and Mark were Jews, but probably not from Israel.

** snip **

Whether or not Luke was Jewish is a matter of some controversy, given Paul's apparent omission of Luke from a list of people "who are of the circumcision" (see Col. 4:11; Paul doesn't get around to conveying greetings from the seemingly-uncircumcised Luke until Col. 4:14).

[Justice]

Or, the easiest possible explanantion could be that Nephi was shown the future and saw the Bible, and therefore called it what we would call it.

Personally, I've always preferred the explanation that Joseph Smith just used the word he knew it by.

Simple.

[ozzy]

On the subject of only Jewish writers, as Rameumptom pointed out, some of the letters of Paul may have been written by later Gentile Christians. Unless I am mistaken, even if Paul wrote them, he was Roman which, again assuming I am not mistaken, means he wasn't Jewish. Unless you count his baptism which I would think at this time would qualify him as a Gentile Christian, not a Jew.

[curtishouse]

On the subject of only Jewish writers, as Rameumptom pointed out, some of the letters of Paul may have been written by later Gentile Christians. Unless I am mistaken, even if Paul wrote them, he was Roman which, again assuming I am not mistaken, means he wasn't Jewish. Unless you count his baptism which I would think at this time would qualify him as a Gentile Christian, not a Jew.

I'm pretty sure that Paul was a Roman citizen but Jewish in descent. I recall a passage about him calling himself the Pharisee of Pharisees or something like that and he was present as a child when Stephen was stoned to death by, presumably, some of his family members and others.

[Faded]

I'm pretty sure that Paul was a Roman citizen but Jewish in descent.

You are correct. Either Paul's father or somebody further back had become a Roman Citizen. (I think it was his father.) The whole point of becoming a citizen was to gain greater rights and privileged within the Roman Empire. So Paul was born as both a Jew and a Roman Citizen.

I recall a passage about him calling himself the Pharisee of Pharisees or something like that and he was present as a child when Stephen was stoned to death by, presumably, some of his family members and others.

It doesn't say he was a child per se.

Acts 7:58

And cast [stephen] out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.

Acts 22: 20

And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him.

"Young man" would more likely mean somebody who was of adult age. It would be a fair guess to say he was about 20 years old, but we can't know for certain. So not a little child by any stretch of the imagination, and certainly not an innocent bystander. He was part of the angry crowd of people that killed Stephen. He was the guy that held everyone's coat while they did the deed -- so while Saul did not personally participate in stoning Stephen to death, he fully consented to the murder and would have helped, but somebody had to hold everyone's coat. This paints a dire picture of Saul prior to his conversion, and demonstrates how big of a 180 he pulled when he became the apostle Paul.

[ozzy]

I see, sorry I wasn't aware of his Jewish side.

[spamlds]

A humorous article I wrote about "exact" translations. I think you folks will enjoy this one.

'Biting the wax tadpole' and other translation errors (part one) - National LDS Church | Examiner.com