Hey guys, today we're gonna talk about
the Joseph Smith translation of the
Bible, the JST. Now this is a very unique
translation experience for Joseph and
there are a lot of misconceptions about
it so let's jump right in.
So between 1830 and 1833, Joseph goes through the entire Bible and makes revisions. In this episode we're
gonna look at three questions: What kind
of changes is Joseph making in the JST,
how is he receiving the revelation to
make those changes and how are
Latter-day Saints using the JST today. The JST revises over three thousand
four hundred verses so first off, what
kind of changes is Joseph making? A guy
named Philip Barlow sorts them into six
categories: Long, revealed additions such
as the visions of Moses and Enoch, this
is by far the most important category of
changes, common sense changes like
Jeremiah 18:8, interpretive additions
like Luke 6:29, harmonization of Bible
passages, for example, the way Judas dies
in Matthew verses Acts, by far the most
common type of change the Prophet made
in the Bible includes grammatical
improvements, technical clarifications
and modernization of terms, for example
changing which to who, meat to food, etc.
There's also a miscellaneous category
for everything else, for example taking
out many of the italicized words from
the King James Version of the Bible,
changing dream to vision, etc. So that's a
quick rundown of what kind of changes
you can expect to see in the JST. The
next question is how is Joseph going
about this translation? Now, I personally
wish we didn't use the term translation
here because it understandably confuses
people. A 1997 article published by the
church clarified the Prophet did not
translate the Bible in the traditional
sense of the word, that is, go back to the
earliest Hebrew and Greek manuscripts to
make a new rendering into English. Rather,
he went through the biblical text of the
King James Version and made inspired
corrections, revisions and additions to
the biblical text so this kind of
translation just means to express in
more comprehensible terms, which is what
is happening in a lot of the JST with
the exception of the big revelations in
the first category. I'd agree with the
researcher who said, "Reading the JST is
akin to having the Prophet at your elbow
as one studies-- it allows Joseph to
clarify, elaborate, and comment on the
biblical text in the light of modern
revelation." And he's learning as he goes,
he's receiving some revelation,
apparently directly from the spirit, and
he's also studying things out in his
mind. I think the best way to describe
how Joseph receives the JST is described
in Doctrine and Covenants 88: "Seek ye out
of the best books words of wisdom; seek
learning, even by study and also by faith."
The JST is the result of both study and
faith. There's some evidence that he used
the Urim and Thummim or seer stone a bit,
probably just in Genesis and then he's
hittin the books. On the churches website
it says Joseph appears in many instances
to have consulted respected commentaries
by Bible scholars, studying them out in
his mind as a part of the revelatory
process. For example, many of Joseph's
minor changes reflect the Bible
commentary of Adam Clarke. One latter-day
Saint researcher named Royal Skousen has
a unique opinion about the JST that I
tend to agree with. Back in 2005, he said,
"It is a mistake I believe to
automatically assume that every change
in the JST is inspired or that the final
version is in its entirety a revealed
text." He also said, "The evidence from the
JST manuscripts themselves clearly
suggests that not everything in the JST
is of equal value. The beginning work
appears to involve a word-for-word
revelation; the later work often reflects
very human methods that were applied to
alter the text." So how do Latter-day
Saints use the JST today? Well after
Joseph Smith's death, there was a schism
in the church and the JST became the
property of the reorganized Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. They
published it back in 1867. It's known as
the inspired version of the Bible. The
RLDS church has since given our
church access to the original
manuscripts, you can find about a third
of the JST in the footnotes or appendix
of our King James Bibles but the only
portion
of the JST that we've chosen to canonize
are the Book of Moses and the JST of
Matthew 24. Why haven't we canonized the
rest? Well, for a long time we couldn't
for copyright reasons. Nowadays we could
publish it but I doubt it's gonna happen.
The simple fact is that the president of
the church hasn't received any
revelation indicating that it needs to
be canonized. To wrap this whole thing up,
I present you with a quote from the
church back in 1974: "The inspired version
or JST does not supplant the King James
Version as the official Church version
of the Bible but the explanations and
changes made by the Prophet Joseph Smith
provide enlightenment and useful
commentary on many biblical passages." If
you have questions, check out our website
and the links below. Hope you learned
something and have a great day!
