The Translation of the Book of Mormon - Interview with Royal Skousen
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 มี.ค. 2021
- Since this interview was filmed, Royal Skousen has done much more research that corrects some mischaracterizations of the Book of Mormon witnesses. Consult his recent publications in the Book of Mormon Critical Text volumes for his latest scholarship.
This was Great to watch and listen to ........I had the pleasure of meeting with Cleon Skousen a few times at his home in Salt Lake City many years ago who Royal is related to. ........Very nice Person to visit with.
Thank you for this recording!!
I would love to shake his hand. Brother Skousen, like his Uncle, has done a great job furthering Book of Mormon scholership.
This is apologetics at its best. Royal Skousen is essentially claiming inspiration rather than translation regarding the Book of Mormon.
Listen to it again.
Thank you for this clear and honest academic explanation.
Great job. Thanks for being smarter than the rest of us ;)
Regardless of the mystery of how the text came about, the more important issue is the significance of the content of the text itself.
For Zion
With all due respect to Professor Skousen, in this video he is completely inaccurate with respect to the translation of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith and his primary scribe Oliver Cowdery repeatedly and consistently testified that the Book of Mormon was translated from the plates using the Nephite interpreter device (sometimes called the Urim and Thummim) which was deposited in the Hill Cumorah with the plates. Critical examination in their full historical context of the accounts of Joseph using a seer stone in a hat to translate shows these accounts to be late, secondhand or otherwise completely unreliable. Unfortunately, he and others who promote the seer stone narrative over the scriptural narrative in effect are saying Joseph and Oliver were lying ("misleading" is the term Professor Skousen uses.)
They used both at different times. To deny this is say the work of extremely qualified historical scholars is junk. Smith would sometimes refer to his seerstone as a "Urim and Thummim".
“No one speaks the language” One person speaks the Adamic language here on earth! But I agree the language is represented in the book ❤ VANA
That was the most thorough debunking of the Book of Mormon I've ever seen; no wonder they made him retract his words! What was he thinking?!?
This is so fascinating! I tried to read Royal's analysis and it was way over my head, but this summary is so cool.
It appears that Royal believes that someone was employed by the Lord to translate the Book of Mormon into English at least 100 years before Joseph's life, and that the English translation is what was revealed to Joseph. And the exhaustive research that Royal has done to come to that conclusion is beyond inspirational.
I find it interesting that the method of translation is a sticking point to people. I have to say that I have received promptings from the Spirit in several different ways, and it doesn't matter nearly as much how Joseph translated as it matters that it was done by the power and direction of God.
@@korvaamiko66 That obviously wouldn't be done by the power and direction of God. It is a red herring question.
@@korvaamiko66 Splitting hairs is fine if that's what you want to spend your time on, but God has methods that He uses to work with people. He isn't going to use satanic methods to work with people.
If you are not familiar with the Lord's methods, there are places you could find that out.
@@korvaamiko66 Are you looking to me to define that for you? You are putting a lot of trust in some random youtube commenter.
Since neither you nor I are prophets, the way the Lord will work with us is through the Holy Ghost. If you don't have any information about where to find the description of how the Holy Ghost works, I would be happy to point you to a few scriptures.
@@korvaamiko66 I am actually not introducing another topic. It is all about revelation.
Using a ouija board is not how the Lord speaks to people. It is how satan tries to mimick or imitate revelation from God. satan is constantly working to deceive people. Using a ouija board prevents the Lord from inspiring someone until they have put their hearts right and repented, except that perhaps someone using a ouija board may be inspired to stop. Here is an example from the scriptures that describe it:
Galatians 5
16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
In other words, those who are involved in such things can't be led by the Spirit and must repent before they will be able to be guided in any great way by the Lord.
You are changing the words that I said above. I didn't say that the method "doesn't matter". I said that it isn't "as important as knowing that it is from God". God doesn't always speak to us in the way that we want or expect. I have received many revelations that have been very quiet impressions, whereas I would have preferred a clear, spoken instruction. A person may receive the confirmation from the Holy Ghost that it was from God as stated in Moroni 10:3-5:
3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
You may recognize the Holy Ghost's influence as shown further in Galatians 5:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
These feelings and actions attend those who are living worthily and seeking God's revelation.
@@korvaamiko66 Actually, I just re-read my statement and it is exactly as it was when I posted it 9 months ago. It hasn't been removed, nor has it been edited. I have no idea where you got my "original quote". I certainly didn't write what you are attributing it to me. I am kind of surprised that you would say that about me. It makes me suspect that you aren't being genuine in this line of inquiry.
You can believe what you like about ouija boards, but they are not of God and He won't speak to you using one. He won't speak to you while you are using one, unless He is warning you not to use one or some sort of similar prompting.
If you are sincerely seeking to understand how the Holy Ghost works, please read those passages of scripture and ask God yourself. Sincerely seeking the Spirit is the way one will understand how the Spirit works. Of course, as the Moroni passage explains, you must be seeking "sincerely" - or, in other words, with the full intent of doing what God tells you to do. Otherwise, the answer isn't promised to you.
Great video. Answered many of my own questions. There is another problem with the committee idea and that is they would have to be able to read the reformed Egyptian characters on the plates to be able to translate them in into the English of their day. Now if that is so then why didn't Joseph Smith just be allowed to do that work. My thoughts are that it was a time constraint issue.
Bro Skousen says somewhere else that Joseph Smith transcribed about 10 pages a day and the entire Book of Mormon was done in about 65 working days. Skousen himself in doing translation says that his own translation work takes significantly longer. The entire time that Joseph and Oliver worked on the translation they were under constant threat of mobs trying to get the plates or attack him. So it makes sense that Skousen then believes that Joseph Smith was viewing the already completed translation and reading it out aloud to Cowdrey who wrote it down. The 65 working days then is understood. The work is done, the plates are returned, the book is prepared for publishing. the time for the mobs to plan their disruptive attacks is reduced. The Prophet can now concentrate on preparing the followers for the Church to be restored in about 22 months time.
I think that based on information from scholars, that even with the Urim and Thummin Joseph Smith may have taken many months and perhaps a year or more to do the full translation himself and this would have given much more time for the enemy to be organised and to disrupt the work and certainly would have delayed the Church being restored on April 6, 1830. So much had to be done in such a short period of time, so the Lord prepared the way.
Now then who, (from before 1540 to 1730 AD) would have been the one/s to do the translation from the reformed Egyptian to English? Now of course it could have been any of the Nephite Prophets who would have been resurrected, but it may have been 3 Nephite Apostles who were given the same promise that the Apostle John was given. So could it be that those 3 Nephites living in the time Bro Skousen gives < 1540 - 1730 + AD who would be able to look at the plates and write them down in the English of the day they are living in.
The committee are angelic beings
So now we redefine the word translate.
I mean what else is there to discuss?
I really like the idea of a committee in the spirit world working on the translation up until the middle of the 1700s.
A Course in Miracles was miraculous as well.
Urim and Thummim vs. Seer Stone by Hannah Stoddard….READ IT! You won’t regret it!
She is a right wing apostate who believes Russel M Nelson is a false prophet.
Didn’t the SITH method come from anti’s in 1832 and 1834? Didn’t Oliver and Joseph respond via letter 7 to say no stone only Urim & Thummin interpreters?
Doing my own research.
Seriously?? We have fictional writers today too. However, I do agree that Joseph was probably the only one who could see words in a hat. 😅
What are you implying?
@@michaelhutchings6602 that what he wrote was fictional.
@@CryptosifuHow did he create it? Was there a manuscript or was he doing it whole cloth?
@@michaelhutchings6602 He made it all up, maybe the Spaulding manuscript, and for the King James Bible.
@@CryptosifuWhat historical evidence suggests he had a manuscript or bible to consult during the translation? Did he hide the manuscript in his hat? Why did none of the scribes ever mention this?
Loved this! Where can I find the RLDS story of Emma's brother-in-law?
Just watching this, you ever find out where this story is? Would be interested as well.
@@jwnaugle I never did find it.
You both need to read the Gospel topics essays the church has released on this and many other subjects!
Only a couple minutes in and there are already massive issues. If Vergil could write The Æneid, Dante Il Inferno, Shakespeare Hamlet and Lear, and Milton DICTATE Paradise Lost, a human being most certainly could have written the Book of Mormon, which is not even particularly impressive compared to the works above. And the challenge put forth here is superfluous. Plenty of texts with comparable and superior sweep & scope to the BoM have already been created by the human pen: the Homeric epics, Gilgamesh, Nibelungenlied, medieval romances, renaissance dramas and novels such as El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de La Mancha, among others. And the Book of Mormon has been extensively ‘cleaned up’ since its original publication. It is a much less folksy text than it was at first and has had nearly 200 years of curation.
And redefinition of terms such as ‘translation’ is a weak but standard apologetic canard. It is very clear that it has always been presented as a translation of the plates. Now apologists know they need to throw the plates out so suddenly translation isn’t the right word. These and several other false dichotomies and straw man arguments invalidate most of the thinking here.
Pleas explain in detail the translation (or writing in your view) of the Book of Mormon. Give me some logistical details and names of those involved.
Is this question meant to lead to the conclusion ‘we can’t prove any other explanation other than the official church history so it must be true?’ The official church narrative is already proven false so it is not necessary to prove some negative hypothetical. But here is some food for thought.
The Charles Anthon narrative as the church has presented it for years is debunked. The witness of the 8 and the 3 is riddled with issues which the LDS church has long mischaracterised. The ‘emperor’s-new-clothes’ approach to the ancient record kept in a box and unseen by all except a few unreliable witnesses during a semi-spiritual, ethereal vision, remembered and recounted inconsistently is a mere gossamer thread by which to hang the BoM’s credibility. Even without all that, the text in se is replete with errata (such as translation errors unique to the edition of the Bible in Joseph’s possession) that invalidate it, and the world’s ‘most correct book’ has been heavily edited, including having some of its core doctrines changed.
The original text of the BoM, which has been heavily edited since, had about 269,000 words. If the plates had any fewer words on each one than the modern book edition, you would need well over 600 sheets of metal. I believe 200 words is the highest number ever found on an inscription written on metal. And saying the ancients used metal plate books because there examples of metal inscriptions is like saying we write books on sandwich boards. Joseph describes the plates as 6 by 8 inches long and 6 inches thick. Others described them as even smaller. It just doesn’t add up.
Why did this trickster god set things up this way? A record of an unknown people in an unknown language on a non-existent medium retrieved by magical folkloric tradition translated by occult means as the instrument to restore the fullness of truth. It doesn’t make much sense.
All of this brings us to the broader question of why God would choose such unwieldy instruments to restore the gospel fullness: An egg shaped piece of jasper in a hat, a pair of spectacles, a racist narrative, an abhorrent marital institution, an unknown language, a unique set of records that vanished without a trace. God indeed works in a mysterious way.
@@salvatorecollura2692My challenge remains unanswered.
I take Joseph Smith at his word...I don't think his words should be changed. He said he translated the Book of Mormon by the power of God and with the Urim and Thummim. I believe him. The Doctrine and Covenants sections he received BY THE URIM AND THUMMIM not a seer stone. The headings actually say so. Again I take the Prophet Joseph Smith at his word...and refuse to change them to fit any other narrative.
The broad swath of eyewitness testimony disagrees with your assertion, Kimberly. Every eyewitness to and participant in the translation process (including Martin Harris and Emma Smith, both of whom served as scribes to Joseph in the translation) claimed that Joseph used a seer stone to translate, and some of them stated that he also used the Nephite interpreters. The only exception to this was Oliver Cowdery, who wrote that Joseph used the "Urim and Thummim" to translate, but it’s not entirely clear if he meant JUST the Nephite interpreters, or if he was also describing ANY seer stone Joseph used.
@@MrWhipple42 I am aware of the information you site and I could site things to refute the claims also. I spent 10 years studying the life and teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith to write a book. At the moment there are two camps of scholars that have different thoughts and can produce some type of documentation. I love the Prophet Joseph Smith and I tend to take him at his word. God Bless
@@kimberlyolsen9416: You’re not "taking Joseph at his word"; you’re interpreting what he wrote or what others wrote that he said.
Nothing left in writing "speaks for itself." Everything has to be interpreted in light of all the available evidence. The view that Joseph only used the Nephite interpreters and never used a seer stone ignores an entire mountain of evidence in favor of an oversimplified view that’s driven by tradition and dogmatism, not the historical record.
@@MrWhipple42 easy Mr Wipple, you can’t change feelings with facts. ◡̈
@@brianhartman3186
Wow, was that reductive?
Like Sister Kimberley, I also don't think the SITH theory explains all of the evidence.
Brother Jonathan Neville advocates for *multiple working hypotheses* and makes an alternative case that the evidence allows for the possibility that there was a demonstration that Joseph staged for the six. Since he was forbidden at that time to show the Urim and Thummim and The Plates, he used a Stone In The Hat as a placeholder and then recited the demonstration portion that he knew by heart.
My opinion is the *multiple working hypotheses* is more reasonable than what too many academics are doing. In my opinion doctors and scholars should be humble in their sacred work, always remembering the principle taught in 2nd Nephi 27: 16 "And now because of the glory of the world and to get gain will they say this and not for the glory of God."
Therefore I really respect that brother Royal here was capable of humility to discharge his ego and correct his error he spoke about at the end of his presentation. Wouldn't our carrying of *multiple working hypotheses* help more of us to follow his example?
Stone in a hat......lolololololololololol
That actually makes far more difficult for the critic to explain the origins of the Book of Mormon.