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Passages Translated Twice

Joseph Smith translated Matthew 26:1–71 and 2 Peter 3:4–6 twice, and in both cases it appears that the duplications were done inadvertently.[1]

The original dictated manuscript of Matthew (NT1) was created while Sidney Rigdon was serving as the Prophet’s scribe. The two men worked on Matthew in the spring of 1831 until they left for Missouri on June 19. The text ends abruptly at Matthew 26:71 in the middle of a sentence, perhaps suggesting that they had reached that point shortly before their departure.[2] Beginning in March of the same year, John Whitmer transcribed the Old Testament chapters revised by then and subsequently the New Testament chapters as well. In doing so he created Joseph Smith’s final texts on manuscripts OT2 and NT2. Whitmer likely finished making the Matthew copy after the Prophet and Rigdon had left for Missouri, but for reasons unknown he never completed it. He did not copy all of the dictated manuscript but stopped at the bottom of one of its pages, in the middle of the first verse of Matthew 26.

Joseph Smith’s two revisions of Matthew 26:27–28, from April–June 1831 (above) and September 1831 (below). The Prophet dictated the earlier translation to Sidney Rigdon and the later one to John Whitmer. Courtesy of Community of Christ Archives.

In September, after his return from Missouri, Joseph Smith began working on the New Testament again, this time with Whitmer as his scribe.[3] But because Whitmer had not copied the previous translation of Matthew 26 onto the new manuscript, and because NT1 had already been replaced and set aside by that time, it appears that both he and Joseph Smith forgot that the chapter had been translated already. Thus, they began at Matthew 26:1 and translated the chapter again.[4] NT1 was retained among the Prophet’s papers, but it was not used further in the Bible revision. The text on NT2, like the rest of the text on that manuscript, was refined further and prepared for publication.

In March 1832 the Prophet revised 2 Peter, working again with Sidney Rigdon. He dictated verses 4–6 of chapter 3 and then on the next two pages dictated a revision of the entire chapter from the beginning.[5] There is no way to tell how much time elapsed between the two translations, but it appears that the three revised verses on the previous page were simply overlooked.[6]

The duplicate revisions provide us with a unique opportunity to examine how Joseph Smith brought about the New Translation. In a sense they give us the necessary components of a controlled test on how the process worked—two independently produced revisions of the same texts. Our focus here will be on the Matthew text, which is much longer than the three verses of 2 Peter 3, but what we can observe in Matthew is consistent with what we also find in the verses of 2 Peter.

The two translations of Matthew 26 include evidence of the whole range of translation instincts we have seen in previous chapters, and both revisions approach the text in the same ways. Although there are differences between the two revisions, the differences are not in technique or philosophy. Both are valid parts of the New Translation. Of the seventy-one verses in the duplicate texts, Joseph Smith made changes in forty-five verses in NT1 and in thirty-five verses in NT2, so for reasons that we do not know, he was more inclined to revise the text during his first pass through it than during his second. Both revisions include literary refinements and modernizations of the language, but those are slightly more common in NT1, which has more revised verses. Following are some examples:

Both revisions make unique contributions, as is seen in these examples:

The most remarkable thing about the two translations is the similarity between them. Of the thirty-five verses the Prophet revised in NT2, he revised thirty-one of them in NT1 as well. In the majority of cases in which he added substantive content to the text, he added it in both of the new translations. Often he added the same thought to both translations, yet he rarely expressed that thought in the same words, and sometimes it was not even inserted at the same location in the text.

In the following example, both revisions add a clause at the beginning that creates a transition from the words of the disciples to the words of Jesus. Both add words of Jesus stating that the woman who anointed him would be blessed, but in NT1 the Prophet added those words at the end of verse 13, and in NT2 he added them in verse 12.

In the following example, both revisions add words to identify the bread and wine of the sacrament as being “in remembrance” of Jesus’s body and blood. Of the Gospels in the KJV, Luke is the only one that contains those words, but the JST adds them to Mark and to both of the translations in Matthew. But here the words are not added in the same way. Also in this passage, Joseph Smith added the element of bearing witness of Jesus to both accounts, but in NT1 he inserted it early in verse 28, and in NT2 he placed it at the end of the verse.

A similar situation is found in the account of Jesus’s suffering in Gethsemane. As we have seen elsewhere, the JST frequently adds words to aid in the flow of the narrative. In the example below, an insertion to both revisions states that the disciples continued to sleep, as Jesus had instructed them. In NT1 the Prophet placed that insertion in the middle of verse 45, and in NT2 he placed it at the beginning of verse 46.

It appears that both times Joseph Smith translated Matthew 26, his thoughts frequently rested on the same matters, and impressions came to him that passages needed to be revised or reinforced. It is appropriate to ask why the changes were usually not made in the same words and sometimes were inserted in different locations. The Prophet himself gave us a key when he stated that the Holy Ghost gives “pure intelligence,” which serves in “expanding the mind” and “enlightening the understanding.”[7] Under the spirit of revelation, “you feel pure intelligence flowing unto you” that can “give you sudden strokes of ideas.”[8] Perhaps it would be reasonable to propose that as Joseph Smith was working his way through Matthew 26, dictating the text to Sidney Rigdon in the spring of 1831 and again to John Whitmer the next fall, impressions came to his mind in the form of pure intelligence, enlightened understanding, and sudden strokes of ideas—but not necessarily in English words. Responding to those impressions, he sometimes needed to supply the words himself that caused the verses to communicate the intended ideas. This would explain why the duplicate translations are verbally different, even when they address the same inspired thought.

Passages Translated Three Times

In chapter 14 we saw several examples of what might be called harmonizations, in which Joseph Smith revised passages in light of other parallel passages. There are more examples, however, of him revising parallel passages to not resemble each other. The synoptic Gospels contain many passages in which the three writers record the same event or the same conversation, often using many of the same words in doing so. But often those accounts are parallel in message but differ in word choices, sometimes significantly. Such examples show, perhaps, that the meaning is more important than how it is conveyed, something that seems to be confirmed by many examples in the JST. Through parallel passages in the Gospels, we thus have three versions of many of Jesus’s deeds and sayings. In the majority of cases, it appears that Joseph Smith revised the wording in those passages without any consideration of the parallel passages, resulting in more disharmonization in the New Translation than harmonization. In some instances, he made revisions in one or two of the Gospels but not in all three. In some cases where he did make changes, the resulting texts are quite different, as in these examples:

Just as we saw with the two translations of Matthew 26, in some cases smaller JST revisions, apparently made independently, arrive at the same thoughts—though not necessarily in the same words. In the story of the rich young ruler, the disciples ask Jesus who can be saved. In all three Gospels Jesus says simply that it is not possible for humans on their own, but God is able to make things possible. As we see below comparing the KJV passages with Joseph Smith’s revisions, the New Translation adds to Mark and Luke the element of trusting in riches, and in all three it adds the element of forsaking the things of the world.

Matthew 19:26

Mark 10:27

Luke 18:27

Each of these resulting verses weaves new ideas into the existing words of Jesus, and each brings the verse alive and fits beautifully within the context of the story.

Inspiration and Prophetic Agency

The revisions Joseph Smith made in the duplicate translations and in synoptic passages are highly instructive with regard to the nature of the New Translation and the process by which it was created. Yet it is important not to generalize too broadly from the revisions of these passages. They only show us how the Prophet revised Matthew 26, 2 Peter 3, and a few other passages, and the Joseph Smith Translation includes many kinds of texts and may represent a variety of prophetic approaches to revising them. The remarkable new texts of the Visions of Moses and other additions to Genesis give the impression that they were revealed largely in verbal completeness, with little influence from the mind of Joseph Smith. But that does not seem to have been the case with the texts discussed here. Among other things, they seem to show that much of the revision of the Bible was not at all like the revelation of those Genesis texts and even less like the translation of the Book of Mormon, where God revealed English words visually to Joseph Smith.[9] The revised words in the duplicate and synoptic translations seem, in contrast, to show an interplay between inspiration and Joseph Smith’s prophetic agency.

Notes

[1] For a fuller explanation of these translations, see Kent P. Jackson and Peter M. Jasinski, “The Process of Inspired Translation: Two Passages Translated Twice in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible,” BYU Studies 42, no. 2 (2003): 35–64.

[2] Matthew 26 is found on NT1, pages 59–63.

[3] The date September 26, 1831, is written at the top of the page, immediately before the translation of Matthew 26.

[4] Matthew 26 is found on NT2, folio 2, pages 1–4.

[5] 2 Peter 3 is found on NT2, folio 4, pages 145–47.

[6] It cannot be ruled out that Joseph Smith’s intention was to strike out the first translation of the three verses and replace them as he revised the whole chapter.

[7] “Discourse, between circa 26 June and circa 2 July 1839, as Reported by Willard Richards,” p. 18, The Joseph Smith Papers.

[8] “Discourse, between circa 26 June and circa 2 July 1839, as Reported by Willard Richards,” p. 21. I thank Richard D. Draper for bringing these statements to my attention in this context.

[9] Royal Skousen, “How Joseph Smith Translated the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7, no. 1 (1988): 22–31; Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, “Firsthand Witness Accounts of the Translation Process,” The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon: A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, ed. Dennis L. Largey et al. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2015), 61–79.