3 Ne. 12:22

[_ClarkGoble]

Are you arguing that god inspired Joseph Smith to write what Clarke wrote? So god plagiarized Clarke? This is not a logical argument.

A common view of inspiration in the Church is finding a truth in other writings and having that confirmed or clarified. So yes, if Joseph is consulting Clarke and likely other resources as part of studying it out, then God can inspire him to select from those if the Holy Ghost confirms it.

I'm surprised this is so shocking to people. This sort of thing is in so many testimonies and lessons of how as a practical matter people rely to the spirit I assumed you'd all be familiar with it. Maybe it's not as widespread as I assumed. That's certainly how I was taught way back when young in Family Home Evening lessons. Usually D&C 9 is paired with D&C 88:118 in these lessons.

Are you arguing that because he sometimes uses Clarke's words, and other times doesn't, it can't be seen as plagiarism?

I'm saying using the term "plagiarism," while a nice bit of rhetoric, tends to miss what is going on.

What in the ever living ____ does any of this mean???

Restoring texts means restoring a particular series of words. Restoring meanings means giving accounts of theology, narratives and the like which may not have been part of the original text or to clarify how typical lay members would read the KJV. An example of the latter would be how the KJV translated passages about God repenting which Joseph usually changed so God wasn't doing that. Now from a textual standpoint we'd say Joseph gets it wrong. From correcting a common misreading then he got it right.

[_Runtu]

It seems that people are divided on this point. You see believers taking both positions. I don't think there's consensus here.

Of course from a fraudulent model it's moot too since many (most?) fraudulent models need Joseph sneaking prewritten notes in and hiding them in his hat so the scribe doesn't know he's dictating previously written material.

The problem with the idea of a KJV Bible is why the variations from it when say extended Isaiah passages are quoted. If he's simply reading it we'd expect different errors I think.

The biggest problem I'd think here is for the unconscious model - say like Taves variation on that. If it's unconscious would he refer to a Bible?

I assume he had the Bible at hand, as that is what the text strongly suggests. I don't understand why he would need to sneak in prewritten notes and hide them in his hat.

[_Fence Sitter]

I assume he had the Bible at hand, as that is what the text strongly suggests. I don't understand why he would need to sneak in prewritten notes and hide them in his hat.

That's my point to Clark above when he said in regards to the JST translation:

Further I'm sure his scribes were aware of when he was using Clarke in the New Testament phase.

AFIK there is no mention of his scribes observing he did consult Clarkes or Dicks in doing so.
So one the one hand, lack of mention of the Bible by his scribes is used as evidence Joseph Smith didn't use a Bible while he translated the Book of Mormon, but on the other hand, when claims of plagiarism show up for the JST we can just assume he did have a reference text in front of him and it is no big deal.

Now perhaps Clark is fine with Joseph Smith having a Bible on hand during the Book of Mormon translation so this rebuttal does not affect him, but certainly he can see that how doing one sort of apologetic negatively affects another. And it is just like this throughout the defense of Mormonism. It is a reason Mormon apologetic scholarship is not taken seriously anywhere outside of faithful circles. There is no coherency, no unified theory that accounts for everything, and much of what does account for individual items, destroys apologetic in other areas. Clark's defense of the Book of Abraham is a classic example of this. And now his defense of Clarke in the JST cast doubt on the "no Bible present during the Book of Mormon translation" claims by others.

[_Lemmie]

Are you arguing that god inspired Joseph Smith to write what Clarke wrote? So god plagiarized Clarke? This is not a logical argument.

A common view of inspiration in the Church is finding a truth in other writings and having that confirmed or clarified. So yes, if Joseph is consulting Clarke and likely other resources as part of studying it out, then God can inspire him to select from those if the Holy Ghost confirms it.

I grew up in the lds church as well, and while you could find truth in other peoples writings, no, it was never taught that that meant you could represent their work as your own.

I'm surprised this is so shocking to people. This sort of thing is in so many testimonies and lessons of how as a practical matter people rely to the spirit I assumed you'd all be familiar with it. Maybe it's not as widespread as I assumed. That's certainly how I was taught way back when young in Family Home Evening lessons. Usually D&C 9 is paired with D&C 88:118 in these lessons.

I expressed no shock at how people are inspired. I was specifically talking about Joseph Smith representing other people's work as his own.

Are you arguing that because he sometimes uses Clarke's words, and other times doesn't, it can't be seen as plagiarism?

I'm saying using the term "plagiarism," while a nice bit of rhetoric, tends to miss what is going on.

Clarke, you use the rhetorical technique above quite a bit to avoid answering a question. I specifically pointed out your errors in defining plagiarism, explained why, and asked you specifically if you were excusing using someone else's work without attribution, because it wasn't done in every instance.

In what way does defining plagiarism as plagiarism "tend to miss what's going on"?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

It was a conceptual emendation, Lemmie. Sheesh.

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

What in the ever living ____ does any of this mean???

Restoring texts means restoring a particular series of words. Restoring meanings means giving accounts of theology, narratives and the like which may not have been part of the original text or to clarify how typical lay members would read the KJV. An example of the latter would be how the KJV translated passages about God repenting which Joseph usually changed so God wasn't doing that. Now from a textual standpoint we'd say Joseph gets it wrong. From correcting a common misreading then he got it right.

Do you even understand the words that you're using any more?

No one is restoring anything. Text restoration is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservat ... d_ephemera

- If we're talking about the Book of Abraham we're talking about a literal translation of the papyri.

OR, to get away from that, the papyri are mnemonic devices to be a catalyst for god-given inspiration.

BECAUSE you haven't proven that anyone in the past would take Egyptian characters and use them to mean each character is really a narrative.

- If we're talking about the Book of Mormon we're talking about transmission because the Official Church Story is Joseph Smith looked at the iStone in a hat and the words appeared which he dictated to scribes.

That is 100% straight from God's bosom to Joseph Smith's dome via the iStone. Absolutely zero wiggle room with that one.

- If we're talking about the JST then we're just talking about inspired fiction because the JST is so off-base about virtually everything that I don't want to waste your time giving you a bulletized list of its errors.

What you're doing is as bad as what MG does. You're making a bunch of assertions with no proof, you're using words that make no sense in context to the point I think you're trying to make, and the position you're taking is so convoluted and so out there I can't possibly see how God would take this route to get His truth out there. Like. What's the point? It's so absurd that it would by default necessitate disbelief.

- Doc

[_Philo Sofee]

I'm not trying to jump on yo and dog pile on you Clark, but when you say this

Restoring texts means restoring a particular series of words. Restoring meanings means giving accounts of theology, narratives and the like which may not have been part of the original text or to clarify how typical lay members would read the KJV. An example of the latter would be how the KJV translated passages about God repenting which Joseph usually changed so God wasn't doing that. Now from a textual standpoint we'd say Joseph gets it wrong. From correcting a common misreading then he got it right.

I disagree with your assumption. Sincerely I do. Is it a common misreading so therefore Joseph Smith is right? It is different than what a traditional theological guess about what God can and does do and cannot and does not do, but different does not mean it was wrong and Joseph Smith correctly interpreted its meaning into a correct thing. That is the assumption I disagree with. There are many places in scripture where God changes his mind, which is what repentance is.

[_ClarkGoble]

]I disagree with your assumption. Sincerely I do. Is it a common misreading so therefore Joseph Smith is right? It is different than what a traditional theological guess about what God can and does do and cannot and does not do, but different does not mean it was wrong and Joseph Smith correctly interpreted its meaning into a correct thing. That is the assumption I disagree with. There are many places in scripture where God changes his mind, which is what repentance is.

I'm not quite sure what your objection is. Is it to the theological point Joseph is apparently making or is it to the text/meaning distinction?

Do you even understand the words that you're using any more?

No one is restoring anything. Text restoration is this:

I think you're being more than a tad pedantic here. The issue is whether the translation represents a fairly word for word translation from an original ur-text or represents something else. So when I talk about restoration of a text, it's that notion of a pure original text that is translated in a fairly tight manner relative to the original text.

But if it would help I can try and narrow the senses with translation1, translation2 and so forth the way we often do proper nouns.

If we're talking about the Book of Abraham we're talking about a literal translation of the papyri.

OR, to get away from that, the papyri are mnemonic devices to be a catalyst for god-given inspiration.

BECAUSE you haven't proven that anyone in the past would take Egyptian characters and use them to mean each character is really a narrative.

I don't think I've ever attempted to make the claim the papyri has the Abraham text. So perhaps you're just misreading me?

I get that picking the right words is important. However the problem with the word translate as you are using it is that it presupposes that it's the papyri being translated. It's quite possible, again using your particular semantics, to say there was a transmission of a translation for instance, in which case surely translation is a reasonable word to use. But again, I'm not even arguing for there being some ur-text for the Book of Abraham.

I grew up in the LDS church as well, and while you could find truth in other peoples writings, no, it was never taught that that meant you could represent their work as your own.

Oh, ok I understand your position better now. Your objection isn't over the content but the identification of the catalyst for the content.

To that I can but say that a person who apparently didn't even have formal grade school education let alone an university education such notions almost certainly would have been alien. To him it's much more of a question of Clarke or related texts as catalysts. That might include emendation of the text largely following Clarke but without identifying Clarke since to Joseph the main issue is the Holy Ghost confirming it. If that makes sense.

Clarke, you use the rhetorical technique above quite a bit to avoid answering a question. I specifically pointed out your errors in defining plagiarism, explained why, and asked you specifically if you were excusing using someone else's work without attribution, because it wasn't done in every instance.

I'm the no 'e' Clark. <grin> I understand what you are saying better now. Again I'd just say that just as in the ancient and medieval world that wasn't a rule people typically followed, I'm not sure applying it to the ignorant Joseph Smith is applicable. It presupposes that normative rules of academia apply here which I don't think they do. Even in the late 18th and early 19th century unattributed quotes was fairly ubiquitous. Ben Franklin is probably the best known example with his almanac. While copyright and related issues certainly were known, the idea that short phrases ought to be attributed in probably more than a little acontextual to the rural environment in question. I don't know the nuances of attribution and copyright in the 1830's, but I know it typically was far more open than today. So while "plagiarism" has an obvious rhetorical effect, I'm not sure it's terribly helpful in understanding what's going on.

AFIK there is no mention of his scribes observing he did consult Clarkes or Dicks in doing so.
So one the one hand, lack of mention of the Bible by his scribes is used as evidence Joseph Smith didn't use a Bible while he translated the Book of Mormon, but on the other hand, when claims of plagiarism show up for the JST we can just assume he did have a reference text in front of him and it is no big deal.

I thought we did know not only that a Bible was used by Joseph during the process but often even which Bible. So I must be missing something here. I think what's interesting about the Clarke reference is that it wasn't mentioned but can easily be inferred.

[Guest]

To that I can but say that a person who apparently didn't even have formal grade school education let alone an university education such notions almost certainly would have been alien. To him it's much more of a question of Clarke or related texts as catalysts. That might include emendation of the text largely following Clarke but without identifying Clarke since to Joseph the main issue is the Holy Ghost confirming it.

Nice to be able to read Smiths mind. Smith plagiarized Clarke and claimed it as his own "revelation". No amount of esoteric wordplay or claims to know what Smith thought is gonna change that.

[_Fence Sitter]

AFIK there is no mention of his scribes observing he did consult Clarkes or Dicks in doing so.
So one the one hand, lack of mention of the Bible by his scribes is used as evidence Joseph Smith didn't use a Bible while he translated the Book of Mormon, but on the other hand, when claims of plagiarism show up for the JST we can just assume he did have a reference text in front of him and it is no big deal.

I thought we did know not only that a Bible was used by Joseph during the process but often even which Bible. So I must be missing something here. I think what's interesting about the Clarke reference is that it wasn't mentioned but can easily be inferred.

I agree Clarkes can be easily inferred but evidently the same reasoning does not apply to Biblical passages we find in the Book of Mormon.

According to Fairmormon.

Nobody ever reported seeing a Bible, because Joseph was looking at the stone in the hat in full view of witnesses
The witnesses of the translation are unanimous that Joseph did not have a book or papers, and could not have concealed them if he did have. Since much of the translation was done via Joseph's seer stone placed into his hat to exclude the light, it is not clear how the critics believe Joseph concealed a Bible or notes in the hat, and then read them in the dark.

Emma Smith described this portion of the translation:

Q — [Joseph Smith III]. What is the truth of Mormonism?
A — [Emma]. I know Mormonism to be the truth; and believe the church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.
Q —. Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?
A —. He had neither manuscript or book to read from.
Q —. Could he not have had, and you not know it?
A. — If he had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.
Q. — Could not father have dictated the Book of Mormon to you, Oliver Cowdery and the others who wrote for him, after having first written it, or having first read it out of some book?
A. — Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate a coherent and wellworded letter; let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon. And, though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, . . . it is marvelous to me, “a marvel and a wonder,” as much so as to any one else.[3]
NOTE: Some Mormon scholars believe that the passages in the Book of Mormon which match, for the most part, the wording of similar passages in the King James Bible, indicate that Joseph Smith simply used the wording from the Bible as he dictated. If this is the case, he clearly received that wording as part of the revelatory process, since the witnesses confirm that there was no book or Bible present at the time. For more information see Ensign (Sept. 1977): "If his translation was essentially the same as that of the King James version, he apparently quoted the verse from the Bible"

See here

Notice how Fair paints is as "the critics" who believe Joseph Smith used a Bible. I guess that makes you a critic Clark.