The Interpreter Foundation Podcast

The Interpreter Foundation Podcast
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The Interpreter Foundation Podcast

The Interpreter Foundation is a nonprofit educational organization focused on the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, the Bible, and the Doctrine and Covenants), early LDS history, and related subjects. All publications in its journal, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, are peer-reviewed and made available as free internet downloads or through at-cost print-on-demand services. Other posts on the website are not necessarily peer-reviewed, but are approved by Interpreter’s Executive Board. Our goal is to increase understanding of scripture through careful scholarly investigation and analysis of the insights provided by a wide range of ancillary disciplines, including language, history, archaeology, literature, culture, ethnohistory, art, geography, law, politics, philosophy, statistics, etc. Interpreter will also publish articles advocating the authenticity and historicity of LDS scripture and the Restoration, along with scholarly responses to critics of the LDS faith. We hope to illuminate, by study and faith, the eternal spiritual message of the scriptures—that Jesus is the Christ. Although the Board fully supports the goals and teachings of the Church, The Interpreter Foundation is an independent entity and is not owned, controlled by, or affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or with Brigham Young University. All research and opinions provided on this site are the sole responsibility of their respective authors, and should not be interpreted as the opinions of the Board nor as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief, or practice.

  1. 12 MIN. AGO

    Interpreter Radio Show — November 17, 2024

    In the November 17, 2024 episode of The Interpreter Radio Show, our hosts are Bruce Webster and Kris Frederickson. They discuss Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 50, the “Answering My Gospel Questions” Institute manual, several recent articles in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, and various other topics. You can listen to or download the November 17th broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. These audio tracks are also included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Original air date: November 17, 2024. These recordings have been edited to remove commercial breaks. The Book of Mormon in Context Lesson 50: “May Christ Lift Thee Up” covering Moroni 7-11 Podcast: Download Discussion: The “Answering My Gospel Questions” Institute manual, several recent articles in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, and various other topics. Podcast: Download The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

    52 min

  2. 3 DAYS AGO

    Through a Glass Darkly: Restoring Translation to the Restoration?

    Review of James W. Lucas and Jonathan E. Neville, By Means of the Urim & Thummim: Restoring Translation to the Restoration (Cottonwood Heights, UT: Digital Legend Press & Publishing, 2023). 288 pages. $19.95. Abstract: In By Means of the Urim & Thummim, James Lucas and Jonathan Neville valiantly seek to defend Joseph Smith’s role as the divinely inspired translator, a role that they argue is incompatible with using any tool other than the Nephite “intepreters,” later called the Urim and Thummim. They offer a unique theory to account for the statements of witnesses about Joseph using a seer stone in a hat, arguing that it was a fake demonstration using memorized passages to satisfy onlooker curiosity about the translation process. They propose a translation model in which Joseph did more than just get impressions, but saw an incomplete or literal translation in the Urim and Thummim that left plenty of room for heavy mental effort to turn what he saw into acceptable English. While the authors seek to defend Joseph from what they view as the questionable theories of modern Church scholars, their misunderstanding and misinterpretation of both the historical record and scripture result in some errant assumptions and logical gaps that undermine their well-intentioned work. I appreciate what James Lucas and Jonathan Neville seek to do with their book,1 which is to defend the character of Joseph Smith and [Page 170]the divinity of the Book of Mormon. Through their lengthy efforts to refute what they feel are new apostate theories on the translation of the Book of Mormon, they offer a deeply apologetic book that strives to be scholarly with extensive documentation and analysis. At the same time, the authors somewhat ironically malign the work of Latter-day Saint “apologists” and scholars who disagree with them on the issues they tackle. They are unwilling to let the work of such “academic scribblers” (p. 19n48) subvert what they see as core Latter-day Saint doctrines on the details of the translation of the Book of Mormon. The book, in spite of lofty intentions, often collides with reality. The opening pages will resonate with readers who were taken aback when the Church publicly recognized that two kinds of tools were used in the translation of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith’s history makes it clear that he received an ancient tool with the gold plates known as the “interpreters,” two transparent stones set in a frame somewhat like spectacles that were had among the ancient Nephites, likely related to the two stones received by the brother of Jared (Ether 3:22–28). The interpreters would eventually be called the Urim and Thummim by Latter-day Saints, and that term was then often used to describe how the Book of Mormon was translated. But the historical record adds a complex wrinkle that some Latter-day Saints did not know about. After the loss of the 116 manuscript pages,2 the plates and presumably the Urim and Thummim were taken away from Joseph. After the items were returned to Joseph, multiple witness accounts indicated that he translated with the aid of a different revelatory tool, a seer stone he had previously found.

    1h 20m

  3. 3 DAYS AGO

    Trust Us, We’re Lawyers: Lucas and Neville on the Translation of the Book of Mormon

    Review of James W. Lucas and Jonathan E. Neville, By Means of the Urim & Thummim: Restoring Translation to the Restoration (Cottonwood Heights, UT: Digital Legend Press & Publishing, 2023). 288 pages. $19.95. Abstract: In their book, James Lucas and Jonathan Neville present two major theses relative to translation of the Book of Mormon. The first is that the translation was always done by means of the interpreters that were delivered with the plates. The second is that Joseph Smith was an active participant in the translation process. A theory is laid out for how that might happen. Although this reviewer can agree that Joseph was an active participant in the translation, neither the first thesis nor their explanation of the second thesis can be accepted by those familiar with the historical record. This review requires a disclosure, right up front. James Lucas and Jonathan Neville wrote a book that introduces a theory on how the Book of Mormon was translated.1 I also wrote a book on that topic.2 [Page 136]They include my book in their book’s bibliography and in a couple of footnotes. They didn’t like my book. I return the favor: I don’t like theirs. Nevertheless, I hope to provide an analysis that can transcend my obvious personal involvement in the issues. Well, mostly avoid personal involvement. Lucas and Neville didn’t really say “trust us, we’re lawyers.” I confess that is my translation3 of what they said: “The authors are both attorneys, and the law has long and well-tested criteria for evaluating secondhand or hearsay testimony, which we apply to sources about the origins of the Book of Mormon” (p. 27). This statement is part of the introduction to the first part of the book which takes on historical testimonies to argue that Joseph Smith never used a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon. The assertion is important because they are also asking us to prefer their interpretation to that of trained Latter-day Saint historians. Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat represent the opposition: “Recently, historians of the Joseph Smith Papers Project carefully analyzed all of the known accounts about the translation to document the use of the seer stone.”4 Lucas and Neville are asking us to favor their reading of their selected set of sources over the interpretations of the trained historians who have “analyzed all of the known accounts about the translation to document the use of the seer stone.” Did those trained historians really miss what the lawyers found? That would be astonishing. Perhaps it could be true, but “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” in Carl Sagan’s aphorism.a id="footnote5anc" href="#footnote5sym" title="5. Carl Sagan,

    1h 13m

  4. 5 DAYS AGO

    Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon — Ether 12-15

    This week for Come, Follow Me lesson 48 covering Ether 12-15, we have lecture 110 from Hugh Nibley’s Book of Mormon classes at Brigham Young University, covering Ether 7-14. During 1988, 1989, and 1990, Hugh Nibley taught Honors Book of Mormon classes for four semesters at Brigham Young University. The lectures were video-taped and audio cassettes and printed transcripts were made of the lectures. We believe these recordings will be interesting to listen to and valuable to your Come, Follow Me study program this year. Each week, we will include the lectures covering the Book of Mormon chapters being studied that week. All 112 lectures are immediately available in PDF, audio, video, and electronic formats, as well as in paperback books that are available for purchase. Links for all of the available online sources can be found in the Complete Bibliography for Hugh Nibley at https://interpreterfoundation.org/bibliographies/hugh-w-nibley/lectures/.   Lecture 110: Book of Mormon—Ether 7-14. Also called “Struggle for Power.” Everybody was moving around. (The first few minutes of this lecture were not recorded.) Watch on YouTubeDownload AudioDownload PDF

    43 min

  5. NOV 18

    Interpreter Radio Show — November 10, 2024: Discussion

    The Interpreter Foundation Podcast

    56 min

  6. NOV 18

    Interpreter Radio Show — November 10, 2024

    In the November 10, 2024 episode of The Interpreter Radio Show, our hosts are Terry Hutchinson, Mark Johnson, and John Gee. They discuss Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 49, the recent articles in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship by John, and faithfulness in podcasts. You can listen to or download the November 10th broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. These audio tracks are also included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Original air date: November 10, 2024. These recordings have been edited to remove commercial breaks. The Book of Mormon in Context Lesson 49: “To Keep Them in the Right Way” covering Moroni 1-6 Podcast: Download Discussion: “Verbal Punctuation in the Book of Mormon III—Behold” by John Gee in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship and faithfulness in podcasts. Podcast: Download The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

    55 min

  7. NOV 15

    A Closer Look at Transliterations in Divine Translations

    Abstract: The Book of Mormon contains many words left untranslated by Joseph Smith, such as cureloms, cumoms, senine, and ziff. While some might wonder why these words are left untranslated, a closer examination of the kinds of words that are simply transliterated as well as the frequency at which these phenomena occur provide evidence that Joseph Smith actually had an ancient record that he was translating into English. In this paper, I examine why some words have been transliterated in historical translations of the Bible or other ancient texts and compare these explanations to the Book of Mormon. In the end, I show that the Book of Mormon consistently transliterates the same types of words typically left untranslated in other works in ways that would have been unknown to Joseph Smith. In the Book of Mormon, it is reported that the Jaredites had tamed multiple animals. These are mentioned in a brief list: “And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms” (Ether 9:19). It is generally accepted by Latter-day Saint scholars that the words cureloms and cumoms are transliterations of words on the Book of Mormon plates. They may have been provided by Moroni2, Mosiah2, or by Joseph Smith, none of whom had any functionally equivalent words in their languages to designate these animals.1 Furthermore, while perhaps [Page 122]some of the most enigmatic examples, these are far from the only transliterations in the Book of Mormon. Multiple words are left untranslated in the text with no explanation ever given for this process by the Prophet Joseph Smith. The presence of transliterations may be surprising to readers who assume that the Book of Mormon, translated by the gift and power of God, should, by nature, provide clear English terms throughout the text. However, this assumption is reading something into the text that is not there, and a close look at the transliterated words of the Book of Mormon will show that their presence is fitting for a translation of an ancient text where certain words do not have clear meaning to the translator. Translators can face various challenges when determining whether or not to translate some words. These challenges are, * the low frequency at which the words appear in the text, * the general fact that not all words, especially technical terms, have a one-to-one correlation with words used in different cultures, and * the fact that rare animal or plant names can be a particular source of confusion when translating ancient texts. Frequency of Untranslated Words Untranslated words may generally reflect rare or unusual words in the source text. One example of these rare words would be hapax legomena, or “words (other than proper names) which occur only once” in the text.2 This is especially true of the Book of Mormon, in which various hapax legomena are present, such as the words sheum and neas (Mosiah 9:9). Other untranslated words in the Book of Mormon, including ziff (Mosiah 11:3, 8), cureloms, and cumoms, could technically be categorized as dis legomena, that is,

    27 min

  8. NOV 15

    A Plain Exposition of Book of Mormon English by Means of Short Questions and Informed Answers

    Abstract: Because many questions have arisen regarding the discovery of real early modern influence in the dictated language of the Book of Mormon, some of these are considered and answered in this essay. The answers reflect insights from an exploration of the data that drove the conclusions published in previous papers. Numerous considerations independently indicate that the Book of Mormon was dictated in language that cannot be explained as a mere imitation of King James linguistic style, nor as Joseph Smith’s Yankee dialect. While the reasons for this and the processes that may have led to such results are open for debate, the implications of the data themselves cannot be lightly brushed aside. An examination of the language of the original Book of Mormon text by Royal Skousen (since 1988), and also by the writer of this essay (since 2014), has generated a large amount of unexpected linguistic data that undermine common assumptions about Book of Mormon English and translation, including the assumption that Joseph must have used his own archaic and uneducated grammar in constructing its language. The discovery of a strong current of nonbiblical earlier English in the Book of Mormon was driven by the data, since the initial hypothesis for both Skousen and this author was that its English usage might approximate that of the King James Bible, and that it might be similar to what is found in roughly contemporaneous pseudo-archaic texts. But the data showed otherwise. [Page 108]While discoveries in this area have made some uncomfortable, the data deserve to be considered (text-critical volumes contain analyses of a large amount of relevant data, and later papers may present additional unpublished treatments of the English-language data). Various questions and some objections have been raised in response, some of which seem to ignore much of the data. While we can’t establish exactly why so much nonbiblical Early Modern English is in the text that Joseph Smith dictated, we can answer a number of questions with clarity. Questions and Answers The answers presented here to a number of questions on Book of Mormon English (and translation) are based on extensive research and comparative study.1 Unfortunately, that has not been true of most comments made about Book of Mormon English through time. Thus, there has been an accumulation of layers of underinformed opinions. Some of these are incorporated in the questions found in this essay. In the balance of this essay, I present each question as a heading for ease of reference and follow all the questions with a short summary. Did Joseph Smith speak an ultra-archaic dialect in 1829, at the time he dictated the Book of Mormon? No, his early writings (mainly as personal letters: 1829–1833)2 indicate that he di...

    24 min
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About

The Interpreter Foundation is a nonprofit educational organization focused on the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, the Bible, and the Doctrine and Covenants), early LDS history, and related subjects. All publications in its journal, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, are peer-reviewed and made available as free internet downloads or through at-cost print-on-demand services. Other posts on the website are not necessarily peer-reviewed, but are approved by Interpreter’s Executive Board. Our goal is to increase understanding of scripture through careful scholarly investigation and analysis of the insights provided by a wide range of ancillary disciplines, including language, history, archaeology, literature, culture, ethnohistory, art, geography, law, politics, philosophy, statistics, etc. Interpreter will also publish articles advocating the authenticity and historicity of LDS scripture and the Restoration, along with scholarly responses to critics of the LDS faith. We hope to illuminate, by study and faith, the eternal spiritual message of the scriptures—that Jesus is the Christ. Although the Board fully supports the goals and teachings of the Church, The Interpreter Foundation is an independent entity and is not owned, controlled by, or affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or with Brigham Young University. All research and opinions provided on this site are the sole responsibility of their respective authors, and should not be interpreted as the opinions of the Board nor as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief, or practice.

Information

  • Creator
    The Interpreter Foundation Podcast
  • Years Active
    2012 - 2024
  • Episodes
    81
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    ©2019 The Interpreter Foundation. Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 Unported license.
  • Show Website
    The Interpreter Foundation Podcast

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