I was in the shower, and began thinking about various questions and teaching moments I had on my mission. One in particular is both simple and complicated to answer
The gentleman had studied quite a bit about the Mormon religion, and one of his problems with Joseph Smith being a real Prophet was his work with translation, particularly the Abrahamic papers, as I call them. We know them now as the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price. Some of the papers are contained in various museums, and the "translators" of those papers say that they are nothing at all close to what Joseph Smith "translated" them as.
There are several different ways of explaining this away. Firstly, the amount of papers that Joseph Smith described was quite large, thus the papers the surfaced might have been some that he did not translate.
Next, and more importantly to truly understand, is the very nature of true "translation". We, as mortal humans, tend to view "translation" from the example of translating one language into another. Though this is arguably, as I will show here, more of transcription. You are transcribing the same exact message or words, just into a language that other people can understand.
True "translation", or at least in the religious sense, the same sense in which the scriptures mean it, as well as Joseph Smith when he translated the Abrahamic papers as well as the Holy Bible, is much more profound, because God is involved. Literally, God is the interpreter, not man and their knowledge, of what is written down. He, in His magnificence, always leaves whatever He touches better than when He started. Indeed, He adds revelation into the mix.
So, with the Abrahamic papers, we, of a surety have the facsimiles, which are Egyptian hieroglyphics seemingly referencing to, or portraying part of the message translated. In the above case, when Terrah, Abraham's father, tried to have an Egyptian priest sacrifice Abraham to the Egyptian gods.
Though, what I would like to point out, is that even if the Book of Abraham does not read word for word what this facsimile says, does not mean that it was not translated correctly.
When Joseph Smith translated the Holy Bible, usually there was only a word change or mean here or there, sometimes a story was a little miss aligned, like with the two accounts in the book of Acts describing Christ's visitation to Saul on the road to Damascus. The first account says that the others with him heard the voice, but saw no one, and the second account says that the others saw a bright light, but heard no voice. Both accounts were written by the same person, in the same book, and thus it took divine inspiration to know which one is correct.
In the LDS scripture quads which contain the Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, there is a section in the back called Joseph Smith Translation, in which quite a bit of different chapters changed. Though this is not the most drastic of the changes. In the Book of Moses found in the Pearl of Great Price, which was Joseph Smith's translation of Genesis, we find an entire, lengthy, account of the people of Enoch which God saw fit to reveal. In this account, it clearly shows how an entire city, the city of Enoch, became so righteous that the entire city was translated and taken up into heaven.
Not only does this show what Joseph Smith meant when he said that he translated a passage of scripture or papyri, but also gives a new use of the word translate. In the church, we talk about translated beings... or at least some of us do. They are people, like Moses, Elijah, John the Beloved, or the 3 Nephites who never tasted of death. They were either taken up into heaven, or were changed from mortality to immortality and continue to walk among us.
Of the 3 Nephites, Mormon, the man who abridged the Book of Mormon, comments: "But behold, since I wrote, I have inquired of the Lord, and he hath made it manifest unto me that there must needs be a change wrought upon their bodies, or else it needs be that they must taste of death; Therefore, that they might not taste of death there was a change wrought upon their bodies, that they might not suffer pain nor sorrow save it were for the sins of the world." (3 Nephi 28:37-38).
When contemplating this, I thought back to DNA. DNA is like a blue print of our bodies, how to make us, almost written down. So, if God translated them, maybe He read through their DNA and did exactly what He did when Joseph Smith translated. He removed those things that are incorrect, making it right again, as well as added things to make it more perfect.
Like divine translation of the bible makes the body of scripture more correct, more perfect, more Godly, divine translation of a human genome makes that individuals body more correct, more perfect, and more Godly.
Understanding this divine, wonderful, amazing doctrine helps us understand why Joseph Smith phrased the Articles of Faith the way he did. Article of Faith 8: "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God."
Once, as a mistake, I was asked by an investigator on my mission, whether or not the church's stance was still the Bible is the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. I told him that the church's stance did not change, but that I believed that even if it is translated correctly, humans can still misinterpret it.
Now I know, and do still regret replying in that way, that true divine translation makes it more perfect, and that a perfect passage of scripture cannot me misinterpreted.
I leave you with this knowledge and enlightenment in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen
Love,
Jacobugoth
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