Reader comments: MormonTimes.com: 'In their own language' - translating in the LDS Church

5 comments  |  Read story

Herman | 7:58 a.m. Aug. 30, 2008
Joseph Smith "translated" the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price (Book of Moses and Book of Abraham) by the gift and power of God. He had no language skills or computers or anthing of the sort.

Are these people translating by the gift and power of God? If not, then we can only believe in the non-English translations of the scriptures "as far as they are translated correctly." We have no guarantees that these other version of the scriptures ARE translated correctly!

If they are NOT translating by the gift and power of God, but are instead using their language skills, computers, and such, and these translations are believed to be "true", then why can't we believe the Bible to be the word of God without the caveat: "as far as it is translated correctly?" Afterall, the translators of the King James Bible were FAR SUPERIOR in their education, language skills, and abilities than these translators today! Plus they had access to original documents! The translators today have no access to the original Gold Plates, nor the original papyrus of Abraham's book, nor the original Book of Moses!
To Heman | 10:40 a.m. Aug. 30, 2008
It is strange how one can believe in an omnipotent God and then try to understand how it is that He needs people like you to explain Him, speak for Him and look to you for interpretations. Why can't you let Him speak for Himself. I really do not care what you think.
Herman | 10:56 a.m. Aug. 30, 2008
Right back at ya', 10:24.

And we must wonder why this omnipotent God needed people like Joseph Smith to try to explain him, speak for him, and provide interpretations?

Why would omnipotent God need Thomas Monson?

He doesn't. So I listen directly to God and ignore these charlatans who claim to speak for him. You should, too.
Comments continue below
Elvis | 1:08 p.m. Aug. 30, 2008
I agree it is time to get the churchs out of God's business and stop leading people astray. Forget all the false churches and get a direct line to God. You don't need all the religious phonies, they should go get real jobs and stop exploiting good people.
Jim J in Cedar Rapids | 3:35 p.m. Aug. 31, 2008
It is unfortionate that so many believe the Holy Bible we hold today is translated directly from the ancient manuscripts that contained the written words of the Savior, apostles, ancient prophets, and many others who documented their times. The fact is, and is readily proved to those willing to research, that the biblical scriptures of today were written from copies of copies of copies. Misquoting Jesus by Ehrman is one such study by a biblical scholar. Scribes wrote many of the words of Paul, Timothy, Matthew, Peter, James, etc. Jesus, who spoke Aramaic (and his original words were not written down at the time), had his words translated from twelth century copies of the ancient Greek gospels that were written years later. The King James Version contains Jesus' words twice translated from Greek and from the Latin Vulgate where Greek versions were not available.
God has always used prophets to reach his people, and that has not changed in today's time. The heavens are not closed and a prophet today is needed as much as one was in the ancient world. Prayer brings you to God, but a true prophet of God provides clarity in a dark and disillusioned world.

Add your comment

Comments are monitored. Any comments found to be abusive, offensive, off-topic, misrepresentative, more than 200 words or containing URLs will not be posted.

Words Remaining

E-mail address: For internal use only. We may want to contact you to publish your comment (not your e-mail address) in the newspaper or for a separate story idea.