Joseph Smith translation of bible

[updown]

I have a number of questions:
Question #1:  What is the correct title of Joseph Smith translation of bible or the correct way to refer to it.  I was “told” the “Inspired version” is not correct title.
Question #2:  
I have always been told Joseph Smith did not translate some parts of the bible.  Where is it officially written on LDS.org what parts of the bible were not translated by Joseph Smith.  I want a reference that has some official authority to it and not a well-intentioned opinion.
I have found a number of informative articles about Joseph Smith translation on LDS.org.  None that I read answers this.  I did not find this in the reference section of the bible published by our church.  Perhaps the answer is easy to find and I am not good at searching.  
Question #3:  
D&C 91:1–6 says it is not needful to translate the Apocrypha.  In one of the articles on LDS.org about the Joseph Smith translation the article mentioned Joseph Smith translated the Apocrypha.  What does this mean?  The article says Joseph Smith did translate the Apocrypha.  
Question #4:  
If Joseph Smith did translate the Apocrypha, is it available with easy access online anywhere?
Thank you in advance for your kind efforts in answering my questions.
 

[Vort]

2 hours ago, updown said:

Question #1:  What is the correct title of Joseph Smith translation of bible or the correct way to refer to it.  I was “told” the “Inspired version” is not correct title.

The "Inspired Version" is the title given by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS, now called the Community of Christ), who owned the copyright. In LDS circles, we generally just call it the "Joseph Smith translation", or "JST". That is how it is referred to in the footnotes of our 1980-version scriptures. I see nothing wrong with using the term "Inspired Version".

2 hours ago, updown said:

Question #2:  
I have always been told Joseph Smith did not translate some parts of the bible.  Where is it officially written on LDS.org what parts of the bible were not translated by Joseph Smith.  I want a reference that has some official authority to it and not a well-intentioned opinion.

I would think the easiest thing to do would be to look and see where the translations were made. I doubt the Church has ever officially said, "Joseph translated this and this and this but not that or that or that." We have been told that the JST was not completed in the full sense, so the fact that Joseph didn't translate this or that book doesn't necessarily mean anything.

2 hours ago, updown said:

Question #3:  
D&C 91:1–6 says it is not needful to translate the Apocrypha.  In one of the articles on LDS.org about the Joseph Smith translation the article mentioned Joseph Smith translated the Apocrypha.  What does this mean?  The article says Joseph Smith did translate the Apocrypha.

I would take the obvious gloss: God told Joseph, with his gift of translation, that he need not translate the Apocrypha, but did so anyway, at least a few things. This was apparently allowed as long as God did not explicitly prohibit it.

2 hours ago, updown said:

Question #4:  
If Joseph Smith did translate the Apocrypha, is it available with easy access online anywhere?

I do not know. What I do know is that the Google search engine is an amazing resource.

[updown]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

look and see where the translations were made.

How would anyone know where Joseph Smith was when he made these translations?  The author of the article I linked to actually examined the original translations.  He did not mention these contained any geographic references.  

1 hour ago, Vort said:

the fact that Joseph didn't translate this or that book doesn't necessarily mean anything.

It means something to me.  I think it is important.  That is why i asked the question.  I think it is an obvious question to know what Joseph Smith did not translate.  The author of the article I linked to would know since he examined the originals.  I think leaving out what parts were not translated is a strange omission for that author.  I would try to contact him but he would be dead by now.

The reason i think this question is important is not just the changes Joseph Smith made.  What is important is the text he inspected and did not revise.  I know the process for translating the bible was different than the translation done for the Book of Mormon.  I accept for myself the JST is correct including the text he did not revise even though the church does not accept JST officially.  I wish i knew what text was inspected and not revised.  It is obvious this question is not important to church scholars.  I am the only one that thinks that is important

[zil]

Welcome back, @updown!  (Sorry, can't answer your questions - just wanted to say welcome back.)

1 minute ago, updown said:

How would anyone know where Joseph Smith was when he made these translations?

I think he meant "where the JST differs from the KJV" - where in Bible, not where geographically.

3 minutes ago, updown said:

It means something to me.  I think it is important.  That is why i asked the question.

I think the point was that if the translation itself was deemed incomplete, and (for the sake of argument), the Book of Bob didn't get any changes done, but the Book of Matthew did get some changes done, we cannot conclude from these two facts that the Book of Matthew was fully done, nor whether the Book of Bob was perfect as-is or yet to be done.  Since the work was said to be incomplete, there's no telling whether Joseph might have gone back and reworked something he'd already done.

(Those are my guesses, anyway.)

Hopefully someone with more knowledge in this area can come and shed a little more light, if not give complete answers.

[Vort]

25 minutes ago, updown said:

How would anyone know where Joseph Smith was when he made these translations?  The author of the article I linked to actually examined the original translations.  He did not mention these contained any geographic references.

I meant where in the text, not where in North America.

25 minutes ago, updown said:

It means something to me.  I think it is important.  That is why i asked the question.

Of course. But the point is, if Joseph Smith did not offer a "translation" of some particular passage, chapter, or book, that is not solid evidence that he thought the passage/chapter/book was correct as written. It may mean nothing more than that he didn't get around to it.

If Joseph offered a "translation" of one part of a verse or chapter or book and left another adjacent part as is, then perhaps it's reasonable to infer that the part left alone was sufficiently "correct" in his mind. That seems reasonable, though not a given. Beyond that, I don't think we can infer much (if anything) based on what Joseph did and did not "translate".

EDIT: @zil understood me perfectly. What she said.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Vort

[Vort]

26 minutes ago, updown said:

I wish i knew what text was inspected and not revised.  It is obvious this question is not important to church scholars.  I am the only one that thinks that is important

I would disagree; it's not at all "obvious" that Church scholars don't think it's important. Rather, I would suggest that they think something similar to what I said: It's not a logical inference to state that Joseph left thus-and-such book alone because it was correct as written. Unless Joseph actually said such a thing, no such inference can reasonably be drawn. For this reason (I believe), scholars simply don't go down that trail. Much too speculative.

[Guest]

@updown,

Welcome to the forum.

Joseph Smith himself mentioned that there isn't any one way to read a verse.  We are all aware of personal interpretation.  Many of the smaller changes didn't mean to imply that the KJV was incorrect, but that it was ambiguous as written. So he added clarifications/commentary.

He quoted directly from the KJV many times without alteration because it really was fine as written for the particular sermon.  The altered wording was not necessary when you had someone there to expound.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Guest

[person0]

23 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

He quoted directly from the KJV many times without alteration because it really was fine as written for the particular sermon.  The altered wording was not necessary when you had someone there to expound.

For example:  In the JST we read:

Quote

Joseph Smith Translation Appendix (emphasis added)

The Lord is not responsible for Pharaoh’s hardness of heart. See also JST, Exodus 7:3, 13; 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8, 17; each reference, when correctly translated, shows that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

Exodus 4:21
And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand, and I will prosper thee; but Pharaoh will harden his heart, and he will not let the people go.

Compare that to the KJV, which reads:

Quote

21 And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go. (emphasis added)

In recent studies, I have learned that an ancient ancient Hebraic form of emphatic prose was to state something that God allowed to happen as thought it were something that he caused to happen.  They would have understood this back then, but the average reader today would not know this.  Hence, the JST serves as useful clarification which, to your point, would not actually be needed when a speaker is presenting the text with the appropriate exposition.

Edited September 10, 2018 by person0

[Guest Scott]

Quote

I have always been told Joseph Smith did not translate some parts of the bible.  Where is it officially written on LDS.org what parts of the bible were not translated by Joseph Smith.

As far as I know it isn't officially written which parts were not translated.  What is written is that most of the translation was completed by 1833 and there were periodic changes until 1844.  

Study aids aren't considered official doctrine, but the Guide to the Scriptures does say the following:  

Although Joseph completed most of the translation by July 1833, he continued until his death in 1844 to make modifications while preparing a manuscript for publication. Though he published some parts of the translation during his lifetime, it is possible that he would have made additional changes had he lived to publish the entire work. 

Source:

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/joseph-smith-translation-jst?lang=eng

This and all other sources I know of say that it is possible that he would have made additional changes in the future if he lived longer.   The key words are possible that he would have, so I don't think there is a position as to whether or not the work was finished.  

Somewhere in the Church archives, I read that Joseph Smith did claim to have finished the translations in the Old Testament for history, law, and poetry, which would cover Genesis through Ecclesiastics, but I haven't found anything claiming that the rest was finished (which doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't).   Unfortunately, although I wrote those notes in my Bible almost 30 years ago, I didn't write down which document they came from.  I still have the Bible with the notes in it though.   I wrote down the information in my Bible itself, which I still have.   When I get home, I can scan the notes if anyone is interested.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Scott

[Just_A_Guy]

16 hours ago, updown said:

I have a number of questions:
Question #1:  What is the correct title of Joseph Smith translation of bible or the correct way to refer to it.  I was “told” the “Inspired version” is not correct title.
Question #2:  
I have always been told Joseph Smith did not translate some parts of the bible.  Where is it officially written on LDS.org what parts of the bible were not translated by Joseph Smith.  I want a reference that has some official authority to it and not a well-intentioned opinion.
I have found a number of informative articles about Joseph Smith translation on LDS.org.  None that I read answers this.  I did not find this in the reference section of the bible published by our church.  Perhaps the answer is easy to find and I am not good at searching.  
Question #3:  
D&C 91:1–6 says it is not needful to translate the Apocrypha.  In one of the articles on LDS.org about the Joseph Smith translation the article mentioned Joseph Smith translated the Apocrypha.  What does this mean?  The article says Joseph Smith did translate the Apocrypha.  
Question #4:  
If Joseph Smith did translate the Apocrypha, is it available with easy access online anywhere?
Thank you in advance for your kind efforts in answering my questions.
 

Updown, it’s been about 8 months since I listened to this podcast episode; but I think you’d enjoy it.  

Edited September 10, 2018 by Just_A_Guy

[mordorbund]

@updown Are you looking for something like this?

Quote

The JST states that “the Songs of Solomon are not inspired writings.”

 

[Jeremy A]

The Pearl of Great Price contains two JST extracts: Moses and JS--Matthew. The Book of Moses expands what is told in Genesis. Further, some of those expansions are part of a translation of the Bible. Two examples: The Book of Moses expands why Cain killed Abel, and it adds more details about Enoch, a descendant of Seth. (Do not confuse with Enoch, son of Cain.) Even in the JST excerpts in Genesis, not all the extra details are completely covered, so that's why there's a book of Moses. Joseph Smith--Matthew is an excerpt of Matthew 24, I believe.

The one article linked to on LDS.org is also what's in the Bible Dictionary under JST. I agree with that text. Use it as a guide. As for the Apocrypha, I didn't think he even worked on it, so it would be interesting to see; however, after reading the entry about the Apocrypha in the Bible Dictionary, it's something to read but be very careful about. Recently, I just wrote a bunch of questions about the Apocrypha and what's lost. (Remembering the answers is a different story, however.) It's a fascinating read. One book in particular mentioned a story that had inconsistencies and thus would be a book that I don't need to read.

I wanted to say more things about the JST, but I can't remember them, so I'll stop here.

[myrmidon]

I am waiting on this paper to come out- 
http://jur.byu.edu/?p=21296

[Jeremy A]

That's a great paper to read, and it just scratches the surface. The JST has been fascinating since I realized it existed in the footnotes of the Bible before the 2013 reprinting. I've used it for some of the trivia questions I have written.

[Traveler]

My opinion.  There are problems with the Bible.  It all begins with the ancient manuscripts of which there are thousands.  With all that ancient text that we have there are none that are classified as originals - there are not autographs or autograms.  The term autograph should be obvious - that is a manuscript written by the hand of the author.  The term autogram is a little more subjective - but mostly it means written in the same era and style of an authgraph.  Language evolves causing things to change both in meaning and grammar.  Generally it is believed that the first 5 books of the Bible were originally penned by Moses but the styles and formats are so widely divergent that experts doubt it to be so.  I believe it is possible that what we have today are abridgments (similar to Mormon's offering of certain scripture text in the Book of Mormon).   Because there are abridgments and commentary added to scripture by prophets - I do not believe we should think of scripture as literal history.  Not that things did not happen in history but that scripture is intended to be a "living" source of revelation in the same manner that G-d is a Living G-d and that the Church is a Living Church.

It would seem that some would have a coronary if G-d were to add revelation (line upon line upon line and precept upon precept upon precept) to a revelation that he had previously given.  That if G-d revealed through a prophet significantly more detail about the Eden Garden epoch - they would outright reject it claiming it to be a contradiction rather than a more complete understanding.  Especially if the revelation gave better understanding to symbolism and metaphor - fearing that updates to history would mean that what was believed previously was fantasy. 

The longer I live and the more I live - the more I understand that I do not know all that much about anything.  I will use the Book of Revelation as an example - I was asked once about a particular commentary on the Book of Revelation.  I admitted that as much as I have studied the Book of Revelation I do not understand hardly a verse of it.  But having read the particular commentary - I was convinced that I was light years beyond what the author thought it all meant.  

Some day I believe we will see many things clearly - and in that day I think we will realize that what we thought was history was hardly (not at all) enough to call history.  And what we call revelation were just drops of the ocean of divine knowledge.

 

The Traveler