Scott Woodward:
Aside from his Book of Mormon translation project, Joseph Smith engaged in at least three other scripture production projects that we know of. The first was his ambitious Bible translation project we now know as the Joseph Smith Translation. The second was the printing of his own revelations, which we now know as the Doctrine and Covenants. And the third was his project of translation which commenced after he acquired Papyrus scrolls from Egypt, which culminated in what we now know as the Book of Abraham. Today begins a new series in which we will consider each of these fascinating projects in turn, including the points of controversy connected with each. In this first episode, we begin our exploration of Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible, or the JST for short. When did it begin? Why didn’t we get this into Latter-day Saint Bibles until 1979? What does the word “translate” mean in this context in light of the fact that Joseph Smith didn’t know Hebrew or Greek during this project? And what are some common assumptions church members often bring to the text of the JST that may not be warranted? I’m Scott Woodward, a managing director at Scripture Central, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, also a managing director at Scripture Central. And today Casey and I dive into our first episode in this series dealing with Joseph Smith’s translations and revelations. Now let’s get into it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, hello, Scott.

Scott Woodward:
Hi, Casey.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
How we doing?

Scott Woodward:
Good. Here we go.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Here we go.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Starting a new series, and we’re going to call this series what? We’re calling this Revelations and Translations or Translations and Revelations. Something like that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s the idea. And this might be a little ambitious of us.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But we’re going to try and give you an overview and an introduction into what the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible was.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
How it affects Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling, affects his revelations, particularly the ones in the Doctrine and Covenants. And we might even get really ambitious and try for the Book of Abraham, here, too.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I don’t see why not.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, let’s go for it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Now, we have done a whole series on the Book of Mormon translation. We felt like the Book of Mormon deserved its own series because of its significance.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Now, besides the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith had some other major scripture production projects, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
Two translation projects, JST and the Book of Abraham, and one project of printing his English revelations in book form, the Book of Commandments, which then becomes the Doctrine and Covenants.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Is that a fair way to summarize his other translation and revelation projects?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm. That’s fair. And we also, in doing this, are hoping to address the idea that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, and then we’re off to the races, when in reality, he finishes translating the Book of Mormon and almost immediately starts his next big translation project, which is to translate the Bible.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, so today, JST.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Today, JST. That’s the focus.

Scott Woodward:
Cool.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So we’re going to set up the timeline there, but first I want to give you a little introduction to how Joseph Smith felt about the Bible.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So here’s a couple quotes: Joseph Smith wrote a letter to the church and other priesthood leaders talking about the Bible. He said, “He that can mark the power of omnipotence inscribed upon the heavens can also see God’s own handwriting in the sacred volume, the Bible. He who reads it oftenest will like it best.

Scott Woodward:
Love it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So Joseph Smith loves the Bible, and when you go back and look at his discourses, it’s clear that, at least when he’s putting together the whole picture, he’s using primarily biblical scripture to do so. One of the conundrums of Joseph Smith is even though he’s the instrument in bringing forth the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, he doesn’t quote from them very much.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s kind of like they’re there, and he hasn’t quite figured out how to use them yet.

Scott Woodward:
Uh-huh.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But he loves the Bible, and when he gives a discourse, particularly near the end of his life, he’s much more likely to quote from the Bible than from these Restoration scriptures—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—that he’s part of bringing forth.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. His language seems to be laced with biblical expressions in his preaching, in his discourses. He often isn’t citing passages, but he’s, like, using Pauline phrases. He’s quoting a little bit of John, but he just kind of weaves—you can just see it’s in the fabric of his thought, biblical passages way more than Book of Mormon or Doctrine and Covenants.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And I mean, that’s understandable, right? The Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants are new. The Doctrine and Covenants is super new.

Scott Woodward:
Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And it takes time for them to kind of circulate into church consciousness. But I would argue that today the average church member is probably more likely to be familiar with and quote from the Book of Mormon than we are from the Bible. In fact, I remember when I was serving in a bishopric a couple years ago, we wanted to incentivize our kids to read the scriptures, and the program was to read the Book of Mormon every year.

Scott Woodward:
Uh-huh.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I came back and argued, “Well, shouldn’t they be reading what they’re studying in seminary?”

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And a lot of people were like, “Do they really need to read the Bible? And in particular, the Old Testament?”

Scott Woodward:
Uh-huh.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It was one of those things where, “Yeah, the Book of Mormon’s essential, the New Testament’s really good, and the Old Testament, if you have time and can get to it—

Scott Woodward:
Oh, boy.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—great.” That’s not how Joseph Smith would’ve seen it. Joseph Smith saw our church as the New Testament church restored, but I think he also has these deep connections to the Old Testament and the House of Israel, and it’s probably not correct to say that he was just thinking of us as the New Testament church. He’s thinking of us as the extension of the promises made to the House of Israel, which is primarily Old Testament stuff.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, and sometimes I almost feel like it’s a misnomer to say that it’s the Restoration of the New Testament church, because of all the key players that bring back keys, right? Pun unintended, but like Moses: Old Testament. Elias, Elijah: Old Testament. Peter, James, and John: New Testament. John the Baptist: New Testament. But what’s he restoring? Aaronic Priesthood. Old Testament, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I think if you kind of lay it all out, it’s a hodgepodge. It’s got Old Testament elements. It’s got New Testament elements. The church has plenty of Book of Mormon elements. Doctrine and Covenants 20, like, the first kind of handbook of instructions for the church, was based primarily on the Book of Mormon, the way they did it: their liturgy, their practices, their prayers, the way that they baptized, the way they did the sacrament, right? That kind of stuff is very much based in the Book of Mormon.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So saying it’s a New Testament church is accurate as long as there’s a comma there: New Testament Church comma and Book of Mormon Church and Old Testament. There’s all these elements kind of rushing together in the dispensation of the fulness of times is how Joseph and John Taylor and others envisioned the church, right? We’re not kind of committing to one time period.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
It’s a confluence of all the time periods, as it were—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
—coming together.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And that’s the best way to look at it. Now, that’s the first point we want to make is that Joseph Smith loves and reveres the Bible—the whole Bible. Every part of it.

Scott Woodward:
Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Second, Joseph Smith doesn’t hold the Bible up on a pedestal the way some other people do.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I don’t think Joseph Smith would ever say, “Every word in the Bible is correct. The Bible’s inerrant.” Joseph Smith’s classic quote on the Bible is this: He says, “I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers. Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors.” Boy, there’s a lot to analyze there, but he’s saying there’s some things that altered the Bible accidentally. There’s some things that altered the Bible deliberately. Some of these things were malicious and were intended to obscure the truth. Some of them were innocent mistakes that just happen when a work is complex as the Bible is passed down from generation to generation.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But he wouldn’t be the sort of person who said “There’s no errors in the Bible at all.” He would’ve been the sort of person that said, “The Bible is the foundation, but it needs to be looked at with a critical eye where a person is carefully considering the overall message but also the minor contradictions that are found within the Bible and finding a way to harmonize those two so that you don’t have your faith built on a false foundation.” His faith was in revelation and God. The Bible’s one of the most important ways we access that—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—but the Bible itself should not be the object of devotion, would probably be the way he explained it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Excellent. And I wonder if he felt so much confidence in approaching the Bible that way, knowing that it’s brimming with God’s truth, but also that it’s not inerrant. I wonder if the reason he could do that is because he was a prophet who also produced scripture. It’s almost like when you get your PhD. And you realize once you get your PhD what it means to have a PhD. There’s something to that in terms of, like, you work hard to learn how to research and how to, like, read sources and how to do the kind of work that it takes to produce good scholarship.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But it also gives you a humility, where you understand that there’s no sacred scholarship. Like, everything is able to be scrutinized, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
All scholarship can be challenged, can be questioned methodologically, findings-wise, like—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
—once you play on that level, once you are in the group of the PhD folk, you’re a peer who can now sort of question and challenge in a—hopefully a productive way. And I feel like maybe by analogy, Joseph, since he plays in the realm of prophet, he plays in the realm of scripture production, that he both admires and understands what scripture is, its strengths and power, but also some of the complexities and challenges and the fact that it’s not fully inerrant and can always be upgraded and can always be improved upon.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
There’s always ways to help God’s truth become more clear and to be communicated more powerfully. So I think he has both of those: the respect for what scripture is and the humble recognition that it’s still imperfect and ever subject to improvement. And maybe he has the confidence to add to scripture because he is also a scripture-producing prophet who plays in that realm, you know?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, and that quote seems to show that he has faith in God, but he recognizes the foibles of human nature and that the Bible has been passed down and preserved by human people. That opens the door for changes and alterations, some deliberate and some accidental.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Let’s dive into the history here.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. How does this come about? So the Book of Mormon is completed about June 1829. So when does the JST begin, and how does that sort of come about?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK. So July and August and September, Joseph Smith is shopping around. He’s trying to find someone to print the Book of Mormon. Gets turned down by several people. He actually gets turned down by E. B. Grandin, the person who—they initially approach a printer who’s in Palmyra. That’s close to home base, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Because Grandin’s cost estimate is way inflated. Grandin really highballs him.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And Joseph Smith approaches several other printers. It doesn’t work out, so he goes back to Grandin and just kind of has to bite the bullet and say, “Yes, he’s ripping us off, but we’re going to go ahead.” So the manuscript is sent to Grandin, and while Grandin is printing it, it seems like this second translation project starts up. The main evidence for this is there is a Bible, Kent Jackson calls it Joseph Smith’s Cooperstown Bible, that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery actually purchased from E. B. Grandin. So Grandin’s got the print shop on the second and third floor. On the first floor it’s a bookstore. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery go in and purchase this book. I’ve seen this book. It’s stored in the Community of Christ Temple in Independence, Missouri. And in the front cover of the book, there’s a note, I believe it’s in Joseph Smith’s handwriting, where he writes, “The book of the Jews and the property of Joseph Smith, Jr. and Oliver Cowdery, bought October 3, 1829, at Egbert B. Grandin’s Bookstore, Palmyra, Wayne County, New York.” And guess how much they paid. They even note the price down at the bottom: $3.75, and then underneath the price, “Holiness to the Lord.”

Scott Woodward:
That’s awesome.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They purchase this Bible, and this is the Bible that they’re going to use during the translation process. So this follows them from place to place. We move through several scribes. We start out with Oliver Cowdery as the primary scribe, just the way he was with the Book of Mormon, and then when Oliver Cowdery gets sent on his mission in the summer of 1830 or fall of 1830, Sidney Rigdon shows up. Sidney Rigdon is a convert Oliver Cowdery makes. Sidney Rigdon becomes the scribe, and it appears that Sidney Rigdon remains the scribe for the primary period of translation.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s one thing I should note is that the Joseph Smith Translation, as we know it today, actually exists in several forms, and most of these forms are owned and conserved by Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 2001 they changed their name to Community of Christ because a lot of Joseph Smith’s sons joined this church.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They retained primary custody of the Bible. And then the second form are the Joseph Smith translation manuscripts. So the translation takes on two forms: Joseph Smith and his scribe are going through this Bible they purchased from Grandin, and they’re making notations in the text, but Joseph Smith is also dictating the changes to the Bible, and they’re keeping manuscripts that have those in them. So you take what’s in the Bible, and you take what’s in the manuscripts, and you combine them together, and that’s what fundamentally forms the basis for what we call the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Which—I should also specify Joseph Smith Translation is a modern term.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. JST.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It was invented in the 1970s. It’s not even a term that really Community of Christ members are familiar with.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. They call it the—what? The inspired version?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They call it the inspired version. We invented the term JST for footnote purposes. The term that shows up in the scriptures, specifically in section 124 of the Doctrine and Covenants, verse 89, is the new translation.

Scott Woodward:
New translation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We thought about NT as a footnote when we were incorporating the JST into our Bible, but you could see why NT would be confusing, right?

Scott Woodward:
That’d be confusing.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so they invented the term JST.

Scott Woodward:
IV’s kind of weird, too, in the inspired version.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
IV, NT…

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That could be a Roman numeral, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, totally.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“Star Trek IV” or something like that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But basically JST—Joseph Smith never referred to it as that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That probably would’ve been seen as a little egotistical—

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—on his part, but when it came down to it—and we received the full JST, and that’s another thing that we need to talk about is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has portions of the JST, mostly what’s found in the Pearl of Great Price, that’s the Book of Moses and Joseph Smith—Matthew, from the time Joseph Smith publishes them. But the entire JST, meaning the Bible and the manuscripts, we don’t actually get access until the 1970s. That’s when Community of Christ opens the door, lets us go in and look at it privately, and the leadership of the church makes the decision to incorporate it into the Latter-day Saint edition of the Bible that comes out in ‘79.

Scott Woodward:
So the reason that the Community of Christ had all the original manuscripts is because when Joseph Smith died, the manuscripts stay in the possession of his wife, Emma, right? For more than 20 years, until, what? 1867 or something, when she gives that manuscript to her son, Joseph Smith III, and then it is ever after in the possession of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who then becomes Community of Christ. So they’ve got it. They’ve got it the whole time, right? Because Brigham Young leaves Nauvoo, the Saints go west, so Emma stays back. And so, essentially, we left the Joseph Smith Translation, right, in Nauvoo. And so we don’t really have access to it until when? You said 1970s?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The 1970s, yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Tell us that story.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, Emma and Brigham have some conflicts, right, after Joseph Smith’s death.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this is one of the sore points, actually, is that Brigham is saying the new translation belongs to the church. And Emma is saying, “These are my husband’s private papers. They belong to me. I’m his wife.” And they’re never able to quite settle it, so for the next hundred years or so, 150 years, really, the JST to a member of our church is the Book of Moses and Joseph Smith—Matthew, and—

Scott Woodward:
That’s it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s it.

Scott Woodward:
That’s it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The RLDS church does take the manuscripts and publishes the complete inspired version of the Bible in the 1860s, but since we can’t see the manuscripts and check their math, we don’t really trust them.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We don’t know if they’ve done it accurately, if the changes have been made with fidelity.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so we don’t really accept the J S T until we have a chance to go in and look at it ourselves. And by the way, the RLDS Community of Christ still has this stuff. It’s housed in their temple in Independence, Missouri. You used to, a couple years ago, be able to walk into their library and say, “I want to see the JST,” and they’d bring it out for you.

Scott Woodward:
That’s awesome.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I photographed it a ton for a book that I was working on at the time, and I was alone in a room with it for, you know, five hours taking pictures.

Scott Woodward:
Wow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I guess I could have slipped it under my jacket and run out.

Scott Woodward:
Casey, you would never.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I would never. Yeah. Where would I sell it? No. It’s actually really cool to be able to see it. And they were super generous.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now in recent years, they’ve become a little bit more protective of it, so you can’t just walk in—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—and ask for it now. But all the JST manuscripts have been photographed and are placed on the Joseph Smith Papers site along with the marked Bible as well. So you can see everything that we’re talking about. You don’t have to go to Independence and go into the library.

Scott Woodward:
No, we’re able to get it in the 1970s because of the relationship that Robert J. Matthews has with the Community of Christ. Is that correct?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s correct. So there’s this tradition of acrimony between the two churches, right? They’re both claiming they’re the church organized by Joseph Smith. They’re the true church. And that continues through the 1960s until this little seminary teacher named Robert Matthews comes onto the scene. Robert Matthews had heard Joseph Fielding Smith in a radio address quote the Joseph Smith translation, and it wasn’t the JST he was familiar with that’s in the Pearl of Great Price. It was a completely different passage.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And that kind of sparked Robert Matthews to say, “What is that?” And he had a keen desire to go and look at the manuscripts for himself and kind of verify. So he starts writing to Community of Christ. He keeps asking them, “Can I come and look at the manuscripts? I’m a nice guy, I promise.” And the answer continually is no until 1967, when Community of Christ gets a new historian, a guy named Richard Howard. Dick Howard. Dick Howard’s still alive. I interviewed him last year.

Scott Woodward:
Wow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And Richard Howard kind of comes into his job without these past animosities that a lot of RLDS members had felt. So to Robert Matthews’ surprise, Dick Howard contacts him and says, “Yeah, we’d love to have you come on in and see the manuscripts.” So Robert Matthews goes to Independence. He spends several summers just sitting there, looking through the manuscripts, copying down all the changes, verifying, checking them against the Inspired Version of the Bible that the RLDS had already published, and then he comes back and reports to the First Presidency and basically tells them, “Yeah, it seems like everything’s legitimate here.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“It seems like the changes are all accurate. Would we be interested in obtaining this?” Because at the time, the First Presidency and the Twelve were engaged in a project to produce a new edition of the scriptures, including the first Latter-day Saint version of the Bible published in English that has Latter-day Saint footnotes, cross references with Restoration scripture.

Scott Woodward:
Still King James version, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Still the King James version.

Scott Woodward:
But just with footnotes that cross reference over to the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, that’s right.

Scott Woodward:
Kind of interconnecting the scriptures in the footnotes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So Robert Matthews negotiates this with Community of Christ, the First Presidency and the Twelve participate, and actually they give us the rights to use it for the high price of $1.

Scott Woodward:
Woo.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We pay a single dollar so that it’s all above board. And then I wouldn’t say that all the footnotes are part of the scriptural canon, but they’re part of the scriptural helps that are added there.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And nowadays, 40 years later, we don’t even blink when someone says, “Well, the JST footnote says this.” That’s just how we do things now. You and I grew up with this version of the Bible.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I have heard some older people still be kind of queasy about using the JST. They’re a little cautious about it. And I think one of the things we’re going to argue is we should still maybe be a little cautious about the JST, because members of the church, in their enthusiasm to embrace it, have maybe made some assumptions that Joseph Smith himself did not make.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So if we’re talking about what it is and what it isn’t, that might be something that we need to kind of walk through.

Scott Woodward:
OK. Let’s talk about that. So Joseph begins this project in late June 1830, when Moses 1 was received, and from there he’s cooking through the Old Testament. March 1831, then he’s commanded to switch to the New Testament. He goes to July 1832 through the New Testament, finishes the first round of the New Testament, reviews, revises from July 1832 to February 1833, finishes the New Testament by February of ‘33, goes back to the Old Testament. July of 1833 he is done with another round of Old Testament. That’s pretty quick. So that’s three years, basically a three-year project. So the question becomes, like, what did Joseph Smith think he was doing? What was the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible in his mind?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
That’s the big question.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
A question we never fully get an answer to, by the way. And a few other intriguing questions that come up are questions like, did he use seer stones like he did with the Book of Mormon? Was he using Greek and Hebrew texts? Was he trying to restore the Bible back to its original form? And in every case we have no evidence for any of those. That he used seer stones, no evidence. Doesn’t seem like he did.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Greek or Hebrew texts involved, no evidence that he was doing that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Was he restoring the Bible back to its original words or form? That’s what I kind of grew up believing, that he was restoring the Bible back to its original form, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Putting back the plain and precious things that had been taken out, or something like that. And what’s surprising is Joseph Smith never says that, either. So I don’t know that it’s fair for us to say or to claim that the Joseph Smith Translation is something that Joseph Smith himself was not claiming or that the Lord in the revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants was not claiming. The Lord never says that. Joseph never says that. So it’s interesting to think about what the Joseph Smith Translation was not, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
As we look at it, though, we can see some of what Joseph was doing. For instance, we can see that it was an inspired adding to the Bible. Sometimes he took away. Oftentimes he’s clarifying biblical passages. Other times he’s actually just rephrasing or modernizing things.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Sure.

Scott Woodward:
And other times there’s interpretation. And then sometimes there’s just entire passages, like whole chapters, that are put in that were not there. So it’s clearly not—he’s not correcting any phrases or verses when we get entire chapters, like Moses chapter 1 or Moses chapter 6. Like, the whole Enoch story, like, a hundred and, what, sixteen verses are added to the Enoch story, which is amazing. There’s only, like, six or seven verses in the Bible about Enoch, and we get, like, so much in Moses 6 and 7 about Enoch.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And so I guess we should just be careful to watch our assumptions about what the Joseph Smith Translation is or isn’t, because if we’re not careful we can get ourselves into a little bit of trouble. Can I share an example of how that works?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
For instance, I’m going over to 3 Nephi 14:1. Let’s do this. This is a classic example. At the end of that verse it says this: “Verily, I say unto you, Judge not, that ye be not judged.” End of thought. And then Jesus goes on to verse 2, “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.” Cool. Now you go to Matthew chapter 7, which is the equivalent over there of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapter 7:1 starts like this: “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” same thing the Book of Mormon said, right? But then there’s a footnote. It says JST, and it says this: “Now these are the words which Jesus taught his disciples that they should say unto the people. Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged; but judge righteous judgment.” So let’s pause there and kind of grapple with this. The Book of Mormon itself does not have Jesus saying what the Joseph Smith Translation says. So if Jesus’s intent was to say, “Judge not unrighteously,” then why didn’t he say that in the Book of Mormon text? If I think that what Joseph Smith is doing is restoring the original, then we’ve got ourselves a problem. Does that make sense?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
We’ve got ourselves a problem, because now the Book of Mormon is in error, or at least in contradiction to the JST of Matthew 7:1, right? If Joseph Smith is going through and correcting errors, and that’s all he is doing, then now we’ve got ourselves a conundrum. But Joseph Smith never claimed that that’s what he was doing. You see how important it’s to watch our assumptions on this?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And so the fact is that the JST of Matthew 7:1 differs from the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 14:1. That’s the fact of the matter. So now, instead of being forced to interpret that fact as a problem, because we’re locked into the assumption that Joseph Smith is only correcting errors that have crept into the Bible, what if we instead see his role as one divinely authorized to insert interpretations and clarifications into scripture? When we understand it that way, then this becomes just a great example of him doing just that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Now, that actually fits really nicely. What does Jesus mean, “Judge not, that ye be not judged”? Are we not supposed to judge? Doesn’t he say just a few verses later that you’re not supposed to cast pearls before swine and give holy things to dogs? Doesn’t that require us to make a judgment of who’s a dog and what’s holy, and—you know, you can see that this can cause some angst as to what Jesus means. Well, there’s a nice little footnote, Joseph Smith Translation, “Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged,” but do judge righteous judgment. I think that’s a great example, kind of a case study of what the Joseph Smith Translation is in some parts and what it is not. I don’t think that’s a case of Joseph restoring something Jesus actually said, but rather a great example of Joseph helping to interpret the meaning and the intention behind Jesus’s words.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In defining what it is and what it isn’t, even the word translation is maybe a little misleading.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We want to be clear: Joseph Smith never claims that he knows Greek or Hebrew, or that he has access to the original documents. Now, he does learn Greek and Hebrew later on.

Scott Woodward:
He studies it, yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But it’s after the primary period of translation.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So here’s a few statements from some of the foremost experts. This is Kent Jackson—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—who’s probably studied this as much as anybody except for Robert Matthews. Kent Jackson said, “The Joseph Smith translation was not a translation in the normal sense of using ancient Hebrew or Greek text and rendering them in a modern language. Instead, the prophet was recasting the text into a new form by means of inspiration from the Holy Spirit.” So it’s not a traditional translation.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And like you said, in some senses he could be restoring the original text.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He could be commenting on the original text.

Scott Woodward:
Yep.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He could be enlarging the original text.

Scott Woodward:
Uh-huh.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The way Robert Matthews said it was, “The spirit apparently suggested many enlargements, backgrounds, and additional concepts not found on the page. Thus, the term ‘translation,’ when referring to Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible, differs somewhat from what one normally thinks of when one thinks of translating languages.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But we’ll use the term “translation” because that’s what Joseph Smith used when he referred to it, even though it’s clear looking at it that’s not just what it’s supposed to be.

Scott Woodward:
And the Lord even refers to it that way, right? In Doctrine and Covenants 124:89 that you’ve referenced, he gives instruction to “publish the new translation of my holy word.” Like, he uses that word.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
But that word is—I’m thinking of Princess Bride, where, “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Scott Woodward:
We use the word translation to mean from one language to another, like you know the base language, and then you translate it into a new language. But maybe a word that would be more comfortable for us would be, like, “inspired interpretation,” something like that, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Inspired interpretation of the text.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Let me give you another example that I think is instructive, OK?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Malachi 4:5-6. One of the most famous passages in all of scripture, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In the Old Testament the texts reads as follows: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Now, in the JST manuscripts, Joseph Smith comes across this passage and makes no changes.

Scott Woodward:
No changes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Leaves it exactly the way it is. And that actually lines up with the Book of Mormon.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In the book of Mormon, the Savior is talking to the Nephites. He says, “You guys don’t have what Malachi said, and it’s really important.” So he quotes a large portion of Malachi 3 and 4 to them, including this passage, and in the Book of Mormon it appears precisely the same way that it appears in the King James Version of the Old Testament.

Scott Woodward:
No changes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
No changes. No changes. Now, if you go to Doctrine and Covenants 2—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—Moroni appears to Joseph Smith, and he quotes this passage as well, with some significant changes.

Scott Woodward:
Major changes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Doctrine and Covenants 2 reads as follows: “Behold, I will reveal unto you the priesthood by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.” Those are some huge changes, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That are incredibly significant.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And clarify greatly exactly what the Malachi passage was talking about.

Scott Woodward:
So would you say there that Moroni is giving an inspired interpretation of an already correct rendition of Malachi? Like, he’s taking a passage that’s already correct, as verified by Jesus in the Book of Mormon.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And now he’s adding an inspired interpretation to that text.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. I would say D&C 2 is Moroni’s commentary on Malachi 4:5-6.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now flash forward from D&C 2, which is one of the earliest things Joseph has taught, to D&C 128.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So in D&C 128, Joseph Smith had now met with Elijah. He’s received the priesthood keys, and he’s explaining how the sealing power connects generations, and in explaining it, he quotes, guess which passage, Malachi 4:5-6. He quotes the King James Version, he quotes the Book of Mormon version, but then look at this: In verse 18 of section 128, he says, “I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands.” Now, when he says, “I might have rendered a plainer translation,” in my mind he’s saying, “I could have told this to you the way Moroni told this to you, but you get the gist from what’s here, meaning Malachi 4 is correct, 3 Nephi 25 is correct. Doctrine and Covenants 2, what Moroni says to him, is correct. You get the point.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s just that in Joseph Smith’s mind translation wasn’t necessarily rendering it from its original language into a new language. It was interpreting the passage, too.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So the way he uses “translation” in section 128 seems to indicate that Joseph Smith himself believes that this is what he’s going for, that it’s a recasting of the text, like Kent Jackson says, using the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, and it seems like Joseph just has this approach to scripture that scripture’s very flexible, especially when you’re inspired by the Lord. I like how he said it there, that “this is plain enough to suit my purposes,” but if he had a different purpose, maybe he would take it from a different angle, and I actually have a few examples of him doing this with that passage. Can I share?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So here’s when he does change it to suit his purposes. For instance, in March of 1844, he’s commenting on Elijah, and he says, “What is the office and work of Elijah? It’s one of the greatest and most important subjects that God has revealed.” And then he says, “That he should send Elijah to seal the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children.” He totally just changed “turn the hearts of” to “seal,” right? He just did it right there to suit his purposes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Another time he said, “Elijah shall reveal the covenants to seal the hearts of the fathers to the children to the fathers.” Now he just added a little more. A third time, he quotes it in Nauvoo. He says, “God shall send Elijah the prophet, and he shall reveal unto them the covenants of the fathers with relation to the children and the covenants of the children in relation to the fathers, that they may have the privilege of entering into the same in order to affect their mutual salvation.” Joseph understands that passage so richly that as he’s preaching, he’ll use different angles. He’ll come at it at different angles, sometimes use the word “seal” when it suits his purpose. Sometimes use the word “covenants,” that Elijah’s going to reveal covenants to turn children and fathers together to seal them together.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so he just seems to be very comfortable doing that. Doesn’t feel like he’s doing anything out of bounds as a prophet of God.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And you used the word “flexible.” I’d probably use the word “living” when it comes to Joseph Smith’s approach to scripture.

Scott Woodward:
Oh. What do you mean?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, Joseph Smith doesn’t approach the Bible like it’s a corpse, right? Like, don’t disturb anything. Leave it at peace. He approaches the Bible like it’s a tree, like it’s still growing, it’s dynamic, its appearance changes from time to time, and that through his prophetic gifts, he’s able to find new interpretations. In other words, he wasn’t idolizing the text. He’s seeing the text for what it is, a dynamic revelation, and seeing himself as a revelator with an inspired calling from God. He sees the right to interpret the text, to add to the text, if so necessary, and to clarify what certain things in the text mean as well. It’s not a relic that you can’t touch. It’s something that you can climb through and play around and pluck an apple off of and all that kind of stuff.

Scott Woodward:
And as you engage with it, it starts to produce more revelation in your mind.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Revelation begets revelation. The revelations of the ancients inspire a prophet, seer, and revelator, a modern one, to now take it to the next level. I feel like we see that with Paul, like the way that Paul handles the Old Testament or the way that Jesus handles the Old Testament. I feel like he does that. He’s building on the old to bring about the new, and it’s dynamic, and it’s living, and it’s moving and it’s—I like that. It’s like a tree.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Maybe we’re pushing the tree analogy too far, but it occurs to me you could also, you know, take a seed from the tree and grow a new tree or something like that, that it’s this living chain of custody. It’s not dead. It’s something you can still kind of play around with and learn from, and that you don’t have to just kind of put in a mausoleum and pull out every once in a while to prove that it exists, but it’s a living, dynamic thing that still feeds and blesses and helps people around it.

Scott Woodward:
Totally. Yep.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
One of the biggest challenges we have is that even though we know Joseph finishes at least one round of translation, because I’ve seen in the manuscript when they write, “Finished this day, July 3, 1833.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s when he finishes the Old Testament, because like you mentioned, he pauses, does the New Testament, then goes back to the Old Testament. He never actually publishes the JST. He tries very earnestly, multiple times, and I’m guessing if he had been able to publish it, he would’ve included a kind of explanatory note like he does with the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants to say, ”Here’s what I was trying to do.” because he never gets to do that. Without that, we’re speculating as to what he’s trying to do.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. To claim that we fully understand what that project was about is to overstate what the sources allow us to say.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. But scholars like Kent Jackson have said, “Well, maybe he didn’t leave a definitive statement as to what the JST was supposed to be, but we can look at what’s there and we can kind of work backwards from that to give ourselves a few pictures as to what he was trying to do. So this is from Kent Jackson’s great book on the Joseph Smith Translation that actually has the manuscripts. I’d purchase it just for this opening introduction, where Kent Jackson says, “I’m not Joseph Smith, but having examined the manuscripts, I think here’s some of the things he was trying to do.” So let’s walk through each one of these.

Scott Woodward:
OK. Let’s hear them.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You’re welcome to agree or not agree. I’ll share my interpretations.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But Kent Jackson says there’s at least five things that the JST appears to be, OK?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Number one: In some cases the translation was a restoration of the original text.

Scott Woodward:
Let’s pause right there.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. OK. OK.

Scott Woodward:
I love Kent Jackson. He’s an incredible scholar. I guess my question to him would be, “What’s your evidence that the JST is partially a restoration of original text? Wouldn’t we need to find an original text and compare it to Joseph’s translations to be able to really say the JST restored original text? I mean, in the absence of any original text, in the absence of Joseph Smith himself claiming that this is what he was at least partially doing, how could we know that? So that’s my only question is, like, how do you know it’s restoring the original if we don’t have a copy of an original? So.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I mean, the example Kent Jackson cites is Moses 1, which is the Book of Genesis. It’s the earliest example of the Joseph Smith Translation. It’s the first thing that he produces as part of it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It is impossible to find an original copy of the Book of Genesis. It’s just not going to happen, right?

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s so old that it goes back so far, and the earliest manuscripts of those are probably the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qum’ran.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Which even those are copies of copies. The Dead Sea Scroll community, Qum’ran community, came from about first century AD.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I agree with Kent Jackson.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Because of the way Moses 1 presents itself.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Moses 1 presents itself as a clear prologue to the book of Genesis that explains that Moses, before he began to write the creation story, met with God and spoke with God and had all these sublime truths about the Plan of Salvation made known to him right there.

Scott Woodward:
Incredible truths.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Incredible truths, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So if it’s a restoration of the original text, which you’re right, that’s an assumption that we’re making—

Scott Woodward:
That’s an assumption. I think as long as we acknowledge that, that’s good, right? If we just say, “This could be a restoration of original text,” like, as long as we can just keep it a little tentative like that, I feel super comfortable with that. Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK. Fair enough. If you read through Moses 1, Moses encounters Jesus. The Son introduces himself.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Moses encounters Satan, which is a major game changer, too. Satan doesn’t actually appear in the King James version of the Book of Genesis; a serpent tempts Adam and Eve. It doesn’t say whether or not it was Satan or not.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The Book of Moses clarifies, no, it’s Satan, and Satan was there, and the antagonists were all lined up at this point.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It also creates this—and this is maybe my favorite thing of all—expansive view of the universe and God’s work within the universe.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Moses is shown worlds without number. Moses is shown the grandeur of the universe, but then clarified in the most quoted scripture in all of General Conference, Moses 1:39, “This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

Scott Woodward:
God’s mission statement.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
God’s mission statement, right there in what I think is the earliest chapter of scripture.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So first thing, the JST is, Kent Jackson is saying, is a restoration of the original text, or what it appears to be. OK.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Second thing, he says the JST at times served to restore what was once said or done but was never in the Bible.

Scott Woodward:
OK.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the example he cites for this is the JST of Genesis 14:25-40, which is backstory on Melchizedek. You’ll note that in the King James version of the Bible, Melchizedek just kind of shows up out of nowhere. He’s the king of Salem.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And at that point in the story, Abraham’s our main protagonist, and Abraham’s the guy. He’s doing everything the Lord wants him to do, but all of a sudden, Abraham pays homage to Melchizedek. Melchizedek is presented as if he’s the person in charge of Abraham.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Abraham pays tithes to him. Melchizedek blesses Abraham. And Kent, I think, is correct in saying that this material’s never in the Bible as we have it.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It may have been in the brass plates that the Nephites had, because the text that we’re talking about here shows up in the Book of Mormon in—

Scott Woodward:
Alma 13, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Alma 13. Yeah. It seems like Joseph Smith saw that text in Alma 13 and said, “This would be real useful for a person that’s reading the story of Abraham to know who Melchizedek is and why Melchizedek is such an important figure.” And so he just takes that over. But Kent’s saying this probably was never in the Bible. Joseph Smith just saw it as a way to clarify and sharpen the story a little bit so that Melchizedek’s appearance has a little bit of background to it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I love that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So that’s the second thing, OK? Third thing: he says, “The JST at times consisted of editing to make the Bible more understandable to modern readers.” So some changes make it look like Joseph Smith was trying to produce a more readable Bible that didn’t have all the archaic things in it. For instance, in the archaic King James version, there’s the word “wot.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“Wot.” W-O-T. For instance, in Exodus 32:[23], it says, “We wot not what has become of him”—

Scott Woodward:
Wot.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Joseph Smith changed this particular passage to, “We know not what has become of him.” So the word “wot” is something that doesn’t get used very much, though. I’m going to try and work it into a conversation today.

Scott Woodward:
Most people wot not what that means.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I wot not what I’m doing. Joseph Smith just says, “No. Most people wouldn’t talk that way. No.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I will add, little changes like this make me feel a little bit better about, in my scripture study breaking out a different translation that updates the language a little bit, because it seems like Joseph Smith was OK with that.

Scott Woodward:
Sure.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He’s actually trying to do it himself.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Totally open to that. Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. In other places, the JST replaces ambiguous pronouns with proper names. For instance, in Genesis 14:20, the King James version reads, “and he gave.” The JST just simply clarifies, “and Abram gave.” It clarifies that the “he” there is Abram, which could have been confusing.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So that’s the third thing: He’s trying to make a more readable Bible. The fourth thing might be controversial, but it also seems like he was trying to correct the inconsistencies that exist within the Bible. He’s trying to make changes that bring biblical wording into harmony with truths found in other parts of the Bible or in modern revelation. For instance, a scripture that gets quoted to us all the time: “No man hath seen God at any time.”

Scott Woodward:
Uh-huh.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Which is super confusing if you’ve read the Bible, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Doesn’t he appear to Moses and—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. “The Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” That’s scripture mastery, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I memorized that in seminary. How do you reconcile speaking face to face as a man speaks to his friend with “no man hath seen God at any time”?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Joseph Smith takes that passage and alters it so it read, “No man hath seen God at any time except he hath born witness of the Son,” which clarifies the God we’re talking about here is the Father, and the “he” bearing witness of the Son is the Father, too. In other words, if you want to know if you’ve seen God the Father, God always appears and bears witness of the Son when he appears, if that makes sense.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Yeah. That would be a clarification of the text.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’d be a clarification of the text. There’s tons of other examples, too. For instance, the Book of Exodus on multiple occasions says, “and God repented,” which, whoa. If God can do evil, A, and B, repent, that is a major theological game changer.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The JST just changes it simply to read, “Pharaoh repented of the evil.” Pharaoh is a human. He’s capable of evil. He can repent.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
God is not capable of evil, and God can’t repent because he doesn’t sin, basically. So he’s cleaning up some of the messiness that sort of crept into the Bible in that particular sense.

Scott Woodward:
Potential theological problems. But I think in the Hebrew there, like, God just shoos, right? He shoos, he turns away from his intention. He’s just turning. But when it’s translated “repent,” it sounds like God did something wrong that he needs to correct. But I think the Hebrew’s fine with shoo.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So that’d be Joseph cleaning it up so that there’s not the potential stumbling block there for English readers. Would you say that’s fair?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And in some ways he’s making the text more simple. In some ways he’s making the text more complex.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Partially because when you read through the King James Bible, too, you’ll note there’s italicized words.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Those italicized words were not in the original text. The King James translators had to add them in to make certain phrases make sense. So, for instance, in John chapter 5, Jesus is talking to the woman of Samaria, and he says in the King James text, “For God is a spirit,” is italicized. Joseph Smith, in almost every instance, crossed out the italicized words.

Scott Woodward:
Interesting.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They weren’t part of the original text, so that passage in the JST reads, “God is Spirit,” which is a little bit more complex, but it also opens up a number of possibilities that we like. For instance, God can be embodied. God is Spirit. That’s part of his character. It’s not the whole sum of what makes him up.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now, finally, at time[s] the JST includes changes helpful to modern readers that were not written by the original authors. That’s what Ken says, OK?

Scott Woodward:
Like what?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
For instance, Bruce R. McConkie, who we see as a conservative theologian, to put it mildly, would look at some passages in the Bible, for instance, the Book of Genesis, the material in the JST, and say both are true. Both these translations can be true.

Scott Woodward:
Like the Malachi passage, like you mentioned earlier.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
That would be a good example, like, both of them are true. The way that it’s in the King James version is true as backed up by Jesus in the Book of Mormon, but Moroni could also add some stuff, and Joseph Smith felt liberty to do so as well in Nauvoo.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Not written by the original author, but that’s OK.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. In this case, we would say it’s prophetic commentary on what’s in the Bible or prophetic interpretation. It’s not the original text. It’s Joseph Smith inserting himself into the text to kind of say, “Look at this. Have you thought about this?”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
A prominent example would be Romans 13. Paul is writing concerning the Saints‘ obligation to submit to secular powers.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The JST rewrites this passage to apply it towards cooperation with church authorities. It’s likely that both passages are correct, and the JST revision is a revelation intended to instruct modern Saints.

Scott Woodward:
Interesting.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It could be commentary as well, which—I’m interested in Joseph Smith’s commentary on the Bible. That’s something I definitely want to read, but it seems like, you know, working backwards from what we have, the JST is all these things simultaneously. It’s supposed to place back truths that have been removed from the Bible. It adds new clarifications that have come from additional scripture like the Book of Mormon.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s supposed to clarify the Bible and make it easier to read. It’s supposed to correct the doctrinal inconsistencies in the Bible, and it’s also intended to be a commentary on these vital texts within the Bible, sometimes applying the text in new and interesting ways in modern settings.

Scott Woodward:
And all of this is us looking at the text, saying, “It seems like this is what it’s doing,” and so we wonder if that was Joseph Smith’s intentions.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But we don’t have Joseph ever explaining his intentions. So all of this, what we’re doing today, what Kent Jackson’s doing, is trying to work backwards from what we do have and then make some tentative conclusions.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And working backwards from where we are, there’s also a couple interesting conclusions to come to here, too.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Joseph Smith, for instance, does not give equal emphasis to all books of the Bible. There’s some books that receive way more changes.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Most prominently in the Book of Genesis.

Scott Woodward:
Genesis, yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Than other books that receive absolutely no changes. The examples of this would be Ruth, Ezra, Esther, 2 John, 3 John, Philemon—no changes.

Scott Woodward:
Huh.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Other books receive major changes, among them Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, Isaiah, Matthew, Luke, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, and the Book of Revelation. Major changes there.

Scott Woodward:
Interesting.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The manuscripts themselves are 450 pages long. So a lot of changes contained in there, and adding up the numbers, Joseph Smith makes changes to about 1,300 verses in the Old Testament and about 2,100 verses in the New Testament. So he changes the New Testament more than the Old Testament. That makes sense. I would say, for instance, the other JST that was with us the entire time, prior to the 1970s, Joseph Smith—Matthew, which is his translation of Matthew 24, which is this prophecy the Savior makes about the Second Coming.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now, the original Matthew 24 is confusing, because at times Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, which happens AD 70, and at other times he’s talking about the end of the world.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
By the time Joseph Smith is done, Matthew 24 is doubled in size. It’s so different that we kind of had to make it its own thing.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But the main changes clarify, “This is when I’m talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, and this is when I’m talking about the end of the world, which is really helpful to a modern reader to kind of be able to sort out the difference between those two things.

Scott Woodward:
So you mentioned that about 1,300 changes in the Old Testament, about 2,100 in the New Testament. What’s interesting is that of those changes in our current edition of the scriptures, we only have printed about one third of those. Do you want to comment on why we’ve only got about one third of those changes?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. The short answer is space.

Scott Woodward:
Yep.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Not all the changes were of doctrinal significance.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Some of them, like we said, were just to clarify, and in the text in the 1970s, when we got access to the manuscripts, we actually are producing this new Latter-day Saint edition of the Bible, and they had to pick the most important ones, so Robert Matthews said passages of doctrinal significance were given precedence. And those show up in several ways: the footnotes, which everybody’s kind of familiar with, the JST appendix, where the bigger changes are found that aren’t already in the Pearl of Great Price are there. And this must have been really difficult. They have to prioritize.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now, I should add that the 2013 edition of the Bible adds in a ton of Joseph Smith Translation references.

Scott Woodward:
Because we’re no longer bound by space, right? Because now we have digital.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
We’ve got the digital app. You could just put that in there.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So we’ve got—how many additions do we have in the 2013?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Oh my gosh. I haven’t counted them up.

Scott Woodward:
There’s a lot.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They published a list here, and when I’m teaching this, I put all of them up on a PowerPoint, and it takes two slides—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—with very small text to cover all of them. And then I say to my students, “and I expect you to have all these memorized for the exam,” and it’s scary for them, I guess you’d say.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Yeah. These will all be on the test. That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. I’m joking when I do that, but a number of significant changes. And they do actually delete one JST change, because that’s the other problem, too, is the manuscripts are relatively clear when Joseph Smith makes changes, but we’re also going off the marked Bible, and if you look at the marked Bible, there’s some places where there’s a definite change—in fact, Joseph Smith and his scribes have this whole complex system of marking within the Bible—but there’s other places where it’s not totally clear that they made a change. It could be an ink blot because they closed the book when the ink was still wet.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, geez.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It could be an errant phrase. And so some of these changes we weren’t really sure were changes, so we took a conservative approach towards them as well. These are the ones that were doctrinally significant and that we were absolutely sure were deliberate changes to the Bible.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. That’s awesome. I want to make a statement or comment, a little more speculative here, but what I think was going on, are you open to some speculation here?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Sure. Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I think it’s true that this project was intended to help clarify and give us maybe a more readable and clear and doctrinally sound Bible, adding to what was already a great text, but just adding some prophetic help to that, but I think that’s secondary. I think that was the Lord’s secondary purpose in inviting Joseph Smith to do this project. And it’s clear that the Lord is wanting him to do this as early as, like, D&C 26. The Lord is the one that’s prodding Joseph along. This is his next translation project. The church has been organized in April, and by section 26, the Lord is now saying, “All right. Now, time to get moving on this next project.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And I think the reason number one—so reason number two, help us get a better Bible. But reason number one, I think, is that as Joseph Smith continues to read carefully in the Bible, Joseph is going to be tutored, and he’s going to start asking questions. Joseph Smith is a great question asker. He’s going to start asking questions of the text, and those questions are going to serve as a springboard to additional key revelations. So I think primarily, reason number one that Joseph is commanded to do this project, is so that he will ask the right questions so that God can reveal more revelations. If you look at the nature of the Doctrine and Covenants, it’s interesting that about half of our Doctrine and Covenants revelations came during this time period that Joseph was translating the Bible, many of them actually coming directly from the Joseph Smith translation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
D&C 29, D&C 45, D&C 65, 74. 76 is the “Booyah” that we all love. 77, 86, 93, 132. These are clearly all Joseph Smith asking questions after having read the text that then lead him to additional revelations that become very significant. All these revelations have something in common. They are doctrinally rich, and they nearly always deal either with matters of eschatology, like the end-of-the-world-type stuff, or matters from the ancient past. They’re very different than the kind of early types of questions that Joseph was asking. If you look at the beginning of the Doctrine and Covenants, people are asking, “Hey, Joseph, how can I assist in the work? What does the Lord want from me?” And Joseph says, “I don’t know. Let’s ask.” And we get a lot of repetition, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
D&C 4. D&C 12, 14, 15, 16.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
15 and 16 are exactly like each other, yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Identical. Because the question was the same. So as the questions get more interesting, the revelations get more rich. And what is going to be the impetus for Joseph asking more interesting doctrinal questions? The Bible translation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So as Joseph translates the Bible, he’s led to ask important questions, the answers to which were recorded and published in the Doctrine and Covenants. I believe the Joseph Smith Translation acted as a springboard to additional Doctrine and Covenants revelations, which the Lord wanted to give, but he needed Joseph to ask the right questions, and the best way to get him to do that is to get his nose in the Bible and have him thinking very carefully over every word, which inevitably is going to lead to questions. And as we said earlier, revelation will now beget revelation. The revelations in the Bible will be the springboard for Joseph to get more revelation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I think that’s highly significant and probably primary. And that’s my speculation. That’s the primary purpose.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, and it seems like “translation”—another word to use for what Joseph Smith did was “scripture study.” It forced him to engage intensely and deeply with the text.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So you can see this when he’s translating the Book of Mormon. The appearance of John the Baptist is sparked, according to both Joseph and Oliver, by their study of a scriptural passage, probably 3 Nephi 11.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so it’s not surprising that the end result here might not have been to build a better Bible.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It was to get Joseph’s nose into the book and get him to study really carefully, line by line, every word of text, and that produces a number of revelations.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In fact, I think that’s going to be the focus of our next episode—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—where one of the most interesting things to do is to track the translation by the revelations that are in the Doctrine and Covenants. This period of the summer of 1830 until the summer of 1833, when the first major phase of translation takes place, is where most of the Doctrine and Covenants is received as well.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so next time we’re going to try and draw a line between what were they reading and what were they translating and what revelations did it produce, and show how the Doctrine and Covenants and the JST are intertwined with each other. They’re not really separate books.

Scott Woodward:
Much more than I understood 10 years ago. The more I study this, the more I’m just absolutely convinced that this is the case. Yeah, that’ll be a fun episode. So, yeah, next time, let’s do that. Let’s look at the interrelationship between the Doctrine and Covenants and the Joseph Smith translation. That’ll be a blast.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
All right. We’ll see you then.

Scott Woodward:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week we continue this series by exploring the fascinating relationship between Joseph Smith’s Bible translation efforts and several revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants, highlighting the compelling process of how scripture begets scripture.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a non-profit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. If you are enjoying Church History Matters, we’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to subscribe, rate, review, and comment on the podcast. That makes us easier to find. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.