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Notations on Joseph Smith Translation manuscripts in which the Prophet’s scribes avow the revelatory nature of the text. Top to bottom: John Whitmer’s statement at the top of the first page of the Old Testament; Oliver Cowdery’s introduction to the revised Creation account; introduction to the account of Adam and Eve after the Fall, originally written by Oliver Cowdery and here transcribed by John Whitmer; Sidney Rigdon’s notation at the beginning of the New Testament. Courtesy of Community of Christ Archives.

Now that we have seen how the New Translation came to be, we can try to describe what it is. First, what did Joseph Smith mean with the words translate and translation? Of course, his Bible revision is a translation, because it is in English and not in the language of the people of the Bible, so there is no problem in using that word—as the Prophet did and as the voice of God does in revelation.[1] In calling it a translation, however, no one is suggesting that Joseph Smith was providing a new rendering from Hebrew and Greek texts. His use of the words translate and translation was consistent with that of his contemporaries. Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary lists “to render into another language” as one of the meanings of translate, but it also lists “to bear, carry or remove from one place to another,” “to transfer; to convey from one to another,” and “to change.”[2] Joseph Smith was translating the Bible in the sense that he was presenting it in a new way, creating it anew from one form to another, changing something old into something new. He also used the verb correct to describe what he was doing with the biblical text.[3] He was “correcting” the Bible, but we have no record of him saying whether that meant he was restoring it to an original form or improving it to be something better.

There are different ways to categorize the changes Joseph Smith made to the biblical text, and several suggestions have been made to do so. The suggestions presented briefly here come in two varieties: some focus on the origin or intent of the content, and others focus on the outcome of the revisions. The merits of the proposed categories can be evaluated only after we become much more acquainted with the New Translation’s content in later chapters.

Origin and Intent

Categories that focus on the origin or the intent would include examples like the following:

Restoration of original text, whether from the Bible or from other ancient sacred records. Latter-day Saint belief includes the idea that the Bible did not arrive in the modern world in its original condition, and Joseph Smith stated that he and his followers believed the Bible to be God’s word “as far as it is translated correctly.” Here he was apparently using the verb translate to include the entire process to “bear,” “transfer,” and “convey” the text from its original utterance or writing to its modern printing.[4] He wrote of “many important points, touching the salvation of man” that had been “taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled.”[5] And the Book of Mormon speaks of a time after the writing of the biblical books during which “many plain and precious things” would be “taken away” from them.[6]

Statements like these suggest to some readers that most or all of the Joseph Smith Translation restores what was originally written in the Bible and then was removed or lost from it. As we will see in chapter 12, the arguments for such a view are not as strong as some think, and in other chapters we will see that many revisions the Prophet made are better explained in other ways.

Restoration of things that were said or done but that were never recorded in the Bible. This category could include things that were never recorded at all, or written texts recorded elsewhere but never included in our Bible and its antecedents. The large additions of text early in Genesis and the many additions to existing biblical dialogue—in sermons and conversations of Jesus, for example—make this an attractive category for describing some of the changes in the Joseph Smith Translation. As an analogy, the Book of Mormon contains a story in which people had failed to include an important event in their written history and were instructed by Jesus to insert it into the account after the fact.[7] Joseph Smith taught that “much instruction has been given to man since the beginning which we have not.”[8] Perhaps the New Translation was a means by which some of that material was brought to our knowledge.

Modernizing and clarifying the text. Joseph Smith did much editing to make the Bible more readable. There are many instances in which he modernized vocabulary and grammar or edited out archaic forms and ambiguities that exist in the King James translation. Some of the modernizing may have included revising passages from their original context and meaning to better serve the needs of latter-day readers. An example may be the several changes of phrases like “Greet one another with an holy kiss” to “Greet one another with a holy salutation.”[9] It is likely that the biblical text here represents Paul’s words correctly, but a cultural translation was warranted to make the text more useful in a modern context.

Editing to harmonize with previous revelations or other Bible passages. The Prophet stated that there were passages in the Bible that did not agree with what God had made known to him, and thus there may be examples in which he changed the wording to comply with revelation he had received.[10] There are several passages that he revised in such a way that they are now more consistent with the revelations of the Restoration and with other passages in the Bible.

Common-sense revisions to correct apparent errors. Some biblical passages seem self-evidently in need of revision, such as the passages in which God sends an evil spirit to drive Saul mad[11] and Matthew’s account of Jesus riding two animals in his triumphal entry.[12] There are many corrections that Joseph Smith made that render the text more reasonable than as it stands in the Bible.

Some may choose to find fault with the Joseph Smith Translation because they do not see correlations between its text and the text on ancient manuscripts. The supposition would be that if the JST revisions were justifiable, they would agree with the earliest existing manuscripts of the biblical books. This reasoning is misdirected in two ways. First, it assumes that extant ancient manuscripts accurately reproduce the original text, and both Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon teach otherwise.[13] Because the earliest Old and New Testament manuscripts date from long after the original documents were written, we no longer have original manuscripts to compare with Joseph Smith’s revisions. The second problem with faulting the JST because it does not match ancient texts is that to do so assumes that all the revisions Joseph Smith made were intended to restore original text. We have no record of him making that claim, and even in places in which the JST would restore original text it would do so not in Hebrew or Greek but in Modern English and in the scriptural idiom of early nineteenth-century America. Revisions that fit in others of the categories listed above are likewise in modern English, “given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language.”[14]

The scriptures give examples of prophets revising, reusing, editing, and adding to the writings of earlier prophets. New Testament authors sometimes used in their own writings passages from the Old Testament in ways that were likely not anticipated by the original writers.[15] And they often reworded them to meet their needs. Matthew and Luke edited and expanded on Mark, Nephi apparently wove his own revelation in and out of the words of Isaiah in order to teach the destiny of his prophetic record,[16] and Moroni put together a lengthy string of Old Testament passages from various diverse contexts to teach Joseph Smith.[17] Mormon and Moroni so thoroughly infused their own inspired commentaries into the teachings of Book of Mormon prophets that it is sometimes difficult to tell whether the prophet or the editor is speaking. Joseph Smith’s labor on the Bible was to make it a living revelation for the Saints of the latter days.

The first two of the five options presented above necessarily require a belief that Joseph Smith was divinely inspired in making the revisions he made, and the third, fourth, and fifth suggest either human or divine intent. There are other ways of looking at the text, however, that require less commitment about the text’s origin and focus simply on describing the nature of its final product.

Outcome

Observing the outcome of the revision process may be a better way to approach the question of what the Joseph Smith Translation is, because it does not presume to determine intentions. Three broad categories seem to be sufficient:

New text without biblical counterpart. The large texts associated with the book of Genesis come to mind with this category—the Visions of Moses,[18] the account of the ministry of Enoch,[19] and the large additions made to Genesis 14, 48, and 50. But there are many more. Throughout the New Translation there are numerous other additions of text with no biblical counterpart. A good New Testament example is the added text at Luke 3:5.

Revisions that change the wording of existing text but not the meaning. Changes of this sort number in the thousands and include those that would be listed also under the “modernizing and clarifying the text” category above. Their effect is to make the text more readable.

Revisions of existing text that change its function and meaning. In some cases the change in meaning is subtle, and in others it is more substantial. In either case, the manuscripts show that Joseph Smith viewed himself as a peer of the biblical authors and did not consider himself bound by their existing words. We will see many examples of this in the following pages.

There is obvious overlap in these attempts to explain or describe what the Joseph Smith Translation contains, and some commentators have suggested categories that touch on both the process and the outcome, in some cases creating several narrowly defined categories of revisions.[20]

The Question

The Bible is not a book but a library. It is a collection of individual works by different authors who usually showed little or no awareness of the writing of the other authors or that their books would one day be part of a greater collection.[21] The Bible is thus better described than it is defined. This may be the best way to look at the Joseph Smith Translation as well. The question that this chapter asks is “What is Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible?” But that may not be the right question to ask. The Prophet spoke of translating and correcting but did not explain the process, so for us it may be best simply to ask what the Joseph Smith Translation does, what it contains, and what we can learn from it rather than what its intentions are and how they were accomplished. The following chapters will illustrate what we see when we open its pages, as we examine the new texts that we encounter in the Old and New Testaments and the revisions the Prophet made to existing biblical passages. Along the way we will revisit all of the questions asked or implied in this chapter, and the discussion started here will continue specifically in chapters 12 and 26.

Notes

[1] For example, Doctrine and Covenants 90:13.

[2] Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828), vol. 2, s.v. “translate.”

[3] “God may correct the scripture by me if he choose,” “Discourse, 13 April 1843, as Reported by Willard Richards,” p. [125], The Joseph Smith Papers.

[4] Joseph Smith, “Church History,” Times and Seasons, March 1, 1842, 709.

[5] Joseph Smith, “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons, August 1, 1844, 592.

[6] 1 Nephi 13:28.

[7] 3 Nephi 23:6–13. I thank Frank F. Judd Jr. for bringing this example to my attention.

[8] The Evening and the Morning Star, March 1834, 143.

[9] Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26.

[10] “[There are] many things in the Bible which do not, as they now stand, accord with the revelation of the Holy Ghost to me.” “Discourse, 11 June 1843–A, as Reported by Willard Richards,” p. [245], The Joseph Smith Papers.

[11] 1 Samuel 16–19.

[12] Matthew 21:2–3, 6–7.

[13] “History of Joseph Smith,” 592; 1 Nephi 13:28; see 13:23–29.

[14] Doctrine and Covenants 1:24.

[15] Examples might include Matthew 2:15 (Hosea 11:1); Acts 2:16–21 (Joel 2:28–32); and Romans 10:13 (Joel 2:32).

[16] See 2 Nephi 27.

[17] See Oliver Cowdery, “Letter IV. To W. W. Phelps, Esq.,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, February 1835, 77–80; “Letter VI. To W. W. Phelps, Esq.,” April 1835, 108–12; “Letter VII. To W. W. Phelps, Esq.,” July 1835, 156–59.

[18] Moses 1.

[19] Moses 6–7.

[20] See Robert J. Matthews, “A Plainer Translation”: Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible—A History and Commentary (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1975), 253; Robert L. Millet, “Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible: A Historical Overview,” in The Joseph Smith Translation: The Restoration of Plain and Precious Things, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Robert L. Millet (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1985), 43–45; Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion, updated ed. (New York City: Oxford University Press, 2103), 55–61; Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds., Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004), 8–10; Kevin L. Barney, “A Commentary on Joseph Smith’s Revision of First Corinthians,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 53, no. 2 (Summer 2020): 57–105.

[21] In this it is very unlike the Book of Mormon.