On Saturday, March 14, 2015, a conference was held in 251 Tanner Building on the BYU Campus in Provo, Utah, to report and discuss the latest investigations into a wide range of linguistic elements in the Book of Mormon, including expressions that do not appear to have been in use in the nineteenth century. As a result of twenty-seven years of investigations by Royal Skousen into the original English-language text of the Book of Mormon, these curiously archaic expressions have raised fascinating questions and discussions regarding the origins of this wondrous scripture.
The program ran from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The public was invited and admission was free.
The conference was filmed, and videos of the presentations are now available for free on the conference videos page, or on Interpreter’s YouTube channel. A YouTube playlist has also been created to facilitate watching all the presentations.
This conference was sponsored by BYU Studies and the Interpreter Foundation.
9 a.m.
Welcome by Daniel C. Peterson, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, BYU; and President of the Interpreter Foundation
9:15 a.m.
Stanford Carmack, JD, Stanford University; PhD, University of California at Santa Barbara (historical syntax); independent scholar
The grammar of the Book of Mormon has been naively criticized since its publication in 1830. The supposedly bad grammar is a match with language found in the Early Modern English textual record. Syntactic usage, especially past tense with did and the command construction, points only to that era. Book of Mormon language exhibits well-formed variation typical of the 16th and 17th centuries.
10 a.m.
Jan J. Martin, Assistant Visiting Professor of Ancient Scripture, BYU
Thomas More and William Tyndale were staunch opponents but they did agree on two things: (1) that language and theology were inseparable, and (2) that errors of language could lead to serious errors in theology. These two commonalities fueled their famous debate about Tyndale’s translation of the Greek words presbuteros, ekklēsia, and agapē into English as elder, congregation, and love. Though three centuries separate the Book of Mormon from More and Tyndale, that gap will be closed as the Book of Mormon’s use of charity/love, priest/elder, and congregation/church are analyzed within a sixteenth-century context.
10:45 a.m. 15-minute break
11:00 a.m.
Nick Frederick, Assistant Professor of Ancient Scripture, BYU
While it has often been observed that the language of the New Testament plays a key role in the English text of the Book of Mormon, how the New Testament appears in the Book of Mormon has not been thoroughly explored. This presentation will offer some preliminary suggestions on how we can adequately identify New Testament passages within the Book of Mormon, as well as examining the variety of ways the New Testament text is woven throughout the pages of the Book of Mormon.
11:45 a.m.
Royal Skousen, Professor of Linguistics and English Language, BYU; and editor of the Book of Mormon critical text project, 1988 – present
“A theory! A theory! We have already got a theory, and there cannot be any more theories!”
Three common views regarding the translation of the Book of Mormon, still held by some, can be summarized as follows: (1) as Joseph Smith translated, ideas came to his mind and he expressed those ideas in his own language and phraseology; (2) as a result, the original English language of the Book of Mormon is based on Joseph’s upstate New York dialect, intermixed with his own style of biblical English; and (3) the Book of Mormon deals with the religious and political issues of Joseph’s own time. In this paper I will draw upon the work of the Book of Mormon critical text project to argue that all of these views are essentially misguided and are based on a firm determination to hold to preconceived notions, no matter what the evidence.
12:45 p.m.
Concluding remarks by John W. Welch, Robert K. Thomas University Professor of Law, BYU; and Editor in Chief, BYU Studies
Requesting a link to the recording.
The video recordings will be made available within about one month’s time.
More precisely, there is considerable evidence that the issues and the cultural milieu of the Book of Mormon resonate more with the 1500s and 1600s in England than to the early 1800s in American, to a time when the conflicts between the low-church Protestants, high-church Anglicans, and Catholics were being resolved in England (or at least reaching a kind of peaceful truce in the late 1600s). References to “secret combinations”, “burning at the stake”, and “standing at the bar of God to be judged” can be more reasonably traced to this earlier period, not to the 1800s. Similarly, numerous issues brought up by Reformed Protestants on the European Continent, issues involving infant baptism, baptism by immersion, simplicity in dress, and avoidance of high church ritual, can also be found throughout the Book of Mormon.
So instead of a 19th century forgery, it is a 15-17th century forgery. Why would the BOM talk about these issues in the ancient Middle East/ Americas?
Wish I could attend, but live on the east coast. Looking forward to listening to it when it is up. While I am sure most people are most curious to hear the speakers on EmodE in the BOM, I am actually more interested in Nick Frederick’s presentation on the presence of the New Testament in the BOM.
Have a great conference
(…More clamoring for prompt posting of the conference videos from one who would dearly love to be there but cannot…)
The Tanner building is a gray granite structure described as “the box the Salt Lake Temple came in”. It is located at the western edge of campus and actually has its own adjacent parking area, which in my experience had lots of room on Saturdays.
The conference sounds great. While it is free and the location is specified, nothing is mentioned concerning parking. There are those of us who call other university campuses home and are unfamiliar with the appropriate locations to park at BYU. So a little advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.
I am excited to review the videos many times to thoroughly absorb all the nuances of the presentation.
I wish I could attend; however, I look forward to the online videos.
We look forward to the online videos since we won’t be returning from Germany until Oct. 15, 2015
Updates and invitation please. Thanks, Argie Shumway