In attempting to exercise this gift of translation, however, Oliver Cowdery failed; and in a revelation upon the subject the Lord explained the cause of his failure to translate:
"Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it [i. e., the gift of translation] unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me; but, behold. I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind, then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore you shall feel that it is right; but if it be not right, you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought, that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore you cannot write that which is sacred Save it be given you from me."[D]
[Footnote D: Doc. & Cov., Sec. ix]
While this is not a description of the manner in which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, it is, nevertheless, the Lord's description of how another man was to exercise the gift of translation; and doubtless it describes the manner in which Joseph Smith did exercise it, and the manner in which he translated the Book of Mormon. That is, the Prophet Joseph Smith looked into the "interpreters" or "Seer Stone," saw there by the power of God and the gift to him, the ancient Nephite characters, and by bending every power of his mind to know the meaning thereof, the interpretation wrought out in his mind by his effort-by studying it out in his mind, to use the Lord's phrase—was reflected in the sacred instrument there to remain until correctly written by the scribe.
In further proof that translation was not a merely mechanical process with the Prophet Joseph, I call attention to the evident thought and study he bestowed upon the work of translating the rolls of papyrus found with the Egyptian mummies, purchased by the Saints in Kirtland, of Michael H. Chandler, about the 6th of July, 1835. "Soon after this," says the prophet, "with W. W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery as scribes, I commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics, and much to our joy found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph of Egypt,"[A] etc. Speaking in his history of the latter part of July, he says: "The remainder of this month I was continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham and arranging a grammar of the Egyptian language."[B] In his journal entry for November 26, 1835, is the following: "Spent the day in translating the Egyptian characters from the papyrus, though suffering with a severe cold."[C] Under date of December 16th, this: "I exhibited and explained the Egyptian characters to them [Elders M'Lellin and Young], and explained many things concerning the dealings of God with the ancients, and the formation of the planetary system."[D] Thus he continued from time to time to work upon this translation, which was not published until 1842, in the "Times and Seasons," beginning in number nine of volume three. It should be remembered in connection with this "preparing an alphabet" and "arranging a grammar of the Egyptian language" that the prophet still had in his possession the "Seer Stone" (or at least Oliver Cowdery had it, for on completing the translation of the Book of Mormon the prophet gave the Seer Stone into Oliver Cowdery's keeping, (David Whitmer's Address to All Believers, page 32), which he had used sometimes in the translation of the Book of Mormon, yet it seems from the circumstances named that he had to bend all the energies of his intellectual powers to obtain a translation of the Egyptian characters.
[Footnote A: History of the Church, Vol. II, p. 236.]
[Footnote B: Ibid, p. 238.]
[Footnote C: Ibid, p. 320.]
[Footnote D: Ibid, p. 334.]
There can be no doubt either but what the interpretation thus obtained was expressed in such language as the prophet could command, in such phraseology as he was master of and common to the time and locality where he lived; modified, of course, by the application of that phraseology to facts and ideas in the Nephite Scriptures he was translating—ideas new to him in many respects, and above the ordinary level of the prophet's thinking; and also the phraseology was superior to that he ordinarily used, because of the inspiration of God that was upon him.