Joseph Smith’s “new translation” of the Bible (D&C sections 71, 73–75, 77, 86, 91, 113)

by Mike Parker

(Mike Parker is a long-time FAIR member who has graciously allowed us to use materials he originally prepared for the Hurricane Utah Adult Religion Class. The scripture passages covered in his lessons don’t conform exactly to the Come, Follow Me reading schedule, so they will be shared here where they fit best.)

Class Notes

Additional Reading

• Kent P. Jackson. “Was Joseph Smith Influenced by Outside Sources in his Translation of the Bible?” 2022 FAIR Conference. This presentation demonstrates that recent claims of plagiarizing from Adam Clarke’s Commentary are wrong.
• Kent P. Jackson. “New Discoveries in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.” Religious Educator 6, no. 3 (2005): 149–60.
• 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. This article demonstrates how Joseph Smith translated the same passage from the New Testament twice, and got different results each time. (This is evidence that the Joseph Smith Translation is not a restoration of a lost, ancient original text, at least in all of its parts.)
• David Tayman. “The Joseph Smith Translation: Inspired Targum and Pseudepigrapha For Latter-day Saints.” ImprovementEra.com (via Archive.org), 24 March 2010. Tayman explains why he believes the JST is best understood as a modern, revealed expansion of the Bible, rather than a restoration of an ancient text.
• Kent P. Jackson. “Joseph Smith’s Cooperstown Bible: The Historical Context of the Bible Used in the Joseph Smith Translation.” BYU Studies 40, no. 1 (2001): 41–70.
• Nicholas J. Frederick. “Section 77 and Book of Revelation Scholarship.” Religious Educator 22, no. 2 (2021): 46–71. Section 77 contains Joseph Smith’s inspired answers to questions posed to him about the symbols in the book of Revelation. Frederick compares Joseph’s interpretations to those in commentaries on the book of Revelation published between 1817 and 2014.
• Some Latter-day Saints have interpreted D&C 77:6 to mean that the earth is only 6,000 years old. The scriptures, however, “do not say how old the earth is, and the Church has taken no official stand on this question.” (Encyclopedia of Mormonism 2:431) See also Morris S. Petersen, “I Have a Question: Do we know how the earth’s history as indicated from fossils fits with the earth’s history as the scriptures present it?,” Ensign, September 1987, 28–29.

 

 

Mike Parker is a business and marketing analyst with over twenty years’ experience in the financial services and cellular telephone industries. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Management Information Systems from Dixie State University (now Utah Tech University) of St George, Utah. He also has eight years’ experience in corporate training and currently teaches an adult religion class in southern Utah. Mike and his wife, Denise, have three children.

 

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