This post is a summary of the article “Expanding the Descriptive Vocabulary for the Translation of the Book of Mormon” by Brant A. Gardner in Volume 66 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https:/interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.
A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https://youtube.com/shorts/9TzOFcVerME.
The Takeaway
Gardner argues that that many of the apparently 19th century features of the Book of Mormon text could be explained by how translations across cultures often operate, particularly if was treated as a localized translation (into something that would be meaningful to a 19th century audience) and was a translation up into English as the privileged vernacular.
The Summary
In this article, Brant A. Gardner discusses lingering questions about the translation of the Book of Mormon and how the English of the modern text relates to the words written by its ancient authors. Though the method of the translation ultimately remains impenetrable, the text itself allows us to make informed assumptions about the nature of the translation, which was necessarily imperfect and, to a degree, subjective. As Gardner notes:
“If we take the Book of Mormon seriously as a translated text, we must therefore expect that the current English text may have introduced some elements that might not precisely represent the original Nephite text.”
As an example, Gardner points to the name “Jesus Christ”, which involves a transliteration of the word “Christ” from Greek and would have itself been unlikely to have appeared on the plates, and its use has a Christian connotation that would have made more sense to its modern readers than its ancient authors. Recognizing this disconnect between the translation and the original can help us understand and resolve issues that might otherwise be labeled as anachronisms, including apparent mismatches between the text’s flora and fauna and those of relevant areas in the New World, as well as near-quotations of King James languages from the New Testament in places we might not expect.
Gardner gives us two concepts to help us navigate these translation-related issues. The first is a distinction between “up” and “down” translations, where translations up into a more general or prestigious language can erase elements of the original, often specifically applied for flora and fauna (e.g., seventeenth-century translators using the word pisang [banana] in place of “fig”). If English was being treated as a default “more-prestigious” language, we would expect Book of Mormon terms to align with English, leading to apparent inconsistencies like the Book of Mosiah’s multiple references a “dumb ass”. In that case, the translator may have been more worried about adequately communicating a simile instead of faithfully translating the base text.
The second concept is “localization”, where translations often need to be heavily adapted so that it can be better understood by a given audience. Gardner gives the examples of translating across programming languages, where developers understand that translating individual words often isn’t sufficient—you often have to move concepts into an entirely different frame of reference, like when translating across currency or measurement systems. For the Book of Mormon, using the language of the King James could have helped situate its readers in a familiar scriptural frame, leading to cases where, for instance, the translator may have chosen to render passages from Moroni in the language of Paul, even if Moroni’s original words only bore a conceptual resemblance to Paul’s teachings. The result preserves—or even adds to—the passage’s religious and pastoral value.
As Gardner concludes] (link to “Although the original”; page 83):
“Although the original Nephite text may have had connotations that did not make it into our English translation, it is nevertheless true that the Book of Mormon can be inspiring scripture even in translation. Those who read the Book of Mormon—in any language—are potentially able to receive the full spiritual benefit of the text.”
The Reflection
I appreciate Gardner applying useful labels (localized, up-translation) to concepts that I think many people intuitively understand but may have a hard time describing in concrete terms. We know translations can be weird, and that the leeway a translator has in producing a text is a prime candidate for Book of Mormon’s unexpected features, but it helps to tie it to the way translations work in the real world. It’s tempting for us to lean on the idealized version of the translation we’ve had in our heads since childhood–and that’s understandable given its ostensibly divine origins. But when the rubber of that ideal model meets the road of what we see in the text, that model has to give in favor of something else. And when that something else aligns pretty well with real-world mechanisms, so much the better.
