Inspired Translation - 2008-01-06

For Christmas, I received a book of essays by Hugh Nibley. So far, it is a really awesome book.

In reading the second essay, several things came together for me concerning the  origins of the Book of Mormon and how and why it came forth in the manner it did.

Dr. Nibley reports that in his studies of scores of ancient records, including the dead sea scrolls, jewish and christian apocryphal writings and others, there is a common account of a "council in heaven". Even Egyptian and Babylonian texts have accounts of the events of the council.

Now, The question (which Nibley answers in the essay) is: Why aren't such texts considered as part of "scriptural cannon"?

Nibley says that the accounts cannot be proven as truly inspired, nor can we in many cases tell the character of the writers of the texts who may have done some "ad-libbing".

Anyway, this essay made me aware of two things:

1. Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon had to be an "inspired" translation for us to be able to include it as scriptural cannon. Otherwise, it would just have been put on the shelf with other apocryphal writings which we can't tell if they are inspired or not, and could be discounted by non-believers as yet another ancient record telling a story.

2. Joseph Smith could not have made it up. The main reason to me is that most of the stuff in the Book of Mormon, and especially the Pearl of Great Price (Abraham and Moses) contains stuff that too closely resembles other ancient documents (i.e. description of the council in heaven) that he never could have dreamed would be dug up a hundred years or more after he was dead! Impossible! The other reason is that all of the doctrine in his revelations and translations mesh perfectly with the gospel found in the Bible, which is another feat someone with a 3rd grade education couldn't do, especially since it has stood the test of time for almost 200 years.

Another cool thing to think about is that other cultures who had these accounts that mesh with Christian doctrines revealed by Joseph Smith didn't just make it up. I think all religions have one common origin, and just slowly degraded over time into Buddhism, Judaism, Hindu, etc.