The above video is the same as the video that appears in Part I in this series of blog posts that I am writing in response to Jonathan Neville’s comments on various aspects of the Book of Mormon translation. In that post I had made a general observation about Jonathan Neville’s theories. I just went back and watched it again, and noticed a specific statement he had made in that video (and which he has repeated in several other interviews and comments he has made) that requires a more specific reply. Joseph Smith is reported to have said that the Title Page of the Book of Mormon was a “literal” translation of what was written on the last page of the gold plates. The full text of the Title Page (copied from: The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, Edited by Royal Skousen, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009, Link) is as follows:
“THE BOOK OF MORMON
“An account written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi.
“Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, written to the Lamanites, which are a remnant of the house of Israel, and also to Jew and Gentile, written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation, written and sealed and hid up unto the Lord that they might not be destroyed, to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof, sealed up by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile, the interpretation thereof by the gift of God.
“An abridgment taken from the book of Ether also, which is a record of the people of Jared, which were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people when they were building a tower to get to heaven, which is to shew unto the remnant of the house of Israel how great things the Lord hath done for their fathers, and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever, and also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.
“And now if there be fault, it be the mistake of men. Wherefore condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ.”
At around the 1:24:42 timestamp in the above video, the following exchange takes place between Oak Norton and Jonathan Neville:
Oak Norton:
“Yes I love the idea of, you know, he has got multiple words, and it is a direct translation—these are things that, you know, growing up in the last decades of my life, I had never really thought about until you know, hearing some of what you present; and the idea of, like, okay, it is a literal translation; and now you have got to make sense of it, and turn that into a sentence—makes a ton of sense if you know, three, five, ten years later, he goes, Yes, I think I could improve that, now that I understand the doctrine better, and I understand what they were trying to say; let me modify this a little bit. That makes total sense so well and you know.”
Jonathan Neville:
“What is interesting related to that is, the idea that he knew the difference, he knew what a ‘literal translation’ was; and how would he have known that, if he was just reading words off his stone; because he said, the Title Page was a ‘literal translation,’ taken from the last leaf of the plates. So when we read the Title Page, it is basically a series of phrases, that it is not really a complete sentence; and so it is different from most of the rest of the text. And it does have some conjunctions, that presumably he added. So you can see how he would just say, I am just going to say what the Title Page says, and dictate it off; but the rest of the book he knew was not a literal translation. He could have said, ‘The entire translation is a literal translation;’ but he didn’t do that. He distinguished, and said only the title page was a literal translation.”
That is a misreading of what Joseph Smith had said, with regard to the translation of the Title Page. When Joseph Smith identified the Title Page as a “literal translation,” his intention was not to imply that the rest of the Book of Mormon wasn’t. It appears that at that time some question had been raised as to whether the Title Page was part of the original text of the Book of Mormon, or whether it was a modern composition by Joseph Smith himself (or someone else) made at that time, and added to the book. What Joseph Smith was trying to emphasize was that the Title Page was in fact part of the original text of the Book of Mormon itself, translated into English. It is not something that he had composed himself. This is what he said (emphasis added):
“I wish also to mention here, that the Title Page of the Book of Mormon is a literal translation, taken from the very last leaf, on the left hand side of the collection or book of plates, which contained the record which has been translated; the language of the whole running same as all Hebrew writing in general; and that, said Title Page is not by any means a modern composition either of mine or of any other man’s who has lived or does live in this generation.” (The Joseph Smith Papers, History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834]).
What Joseph Smith was trying to emphasize was that the Title Page was an integral part of the Book of Mormon text, translated into English. It was not a modern composition by himself or someone else. His aim was not to differentiate between how the Title Page was translated, and how the rest of the Book of Mormon was translated—one being “literal,” and the other not being “literal”. The most logical conclusion to be drawn from his statement is that the Title Page is a “literal” translation like the rest of the Book of Mormon is—not the opposite. He is not making a distinction between how the Title Page was translated, and how the rest of the Book of Mormon was translated. Jonathan Neville seems predisposed to arriving at the opposite conclusion to the most logical one, in just about every historical reference to the translation of the Book of Mormon that is out there! I wonder why?
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