Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)

by B. H. Roberts

One other thing the Unknown seems to have overlooked, viz., that the Book of Mormon is a translation of the ideas and prophecies of men deriving their knowledge concerning the Messiah and things associated with his life either from the old Jewish scriptures, which were in their possession, or from the revelations of God direct to them; and that the translator, Joseph Smith, being more or less familiar with New Testament and Old Testament expressions, in making the translation, at times used Bible phraseology in representing ideas akin to those found in Jewish scriptures. See also my remarks under heading No. 3, where this defense is more fully stated.

THE SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATION.

2. The Unknown fairly revels in the thought that he has Lehi quoting Shakespeare many generations before our great English poet was born; and indulges in the sarcasms which Campbell and more than a score of anti-Mormon writers have indulged in who have mimicked his phraseology. Now the fact is there are two passages in Job which could easily have supplied both Shakespeare and Lehi with the idea of that country "from whose bourn no traveler returns." That this may appear I give the passages from Shakespeare, Job and Lehi. It should be remembered always that the Nephites had the Jewish scriptures with them, including the book of Job; hence Lehi could have obtained his idea from the same source whence Shakespeare obtained his.

Shakespeare: "That undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns."

Job: "Let me alone that I may take comfort a little, before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death." (Job x:20, 21.) "When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return." (Job xvi:22.)

Lehi: "Hear the words of a parent whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave from whence no traveler can return."

It will be observed that the passage from the Book of Mormon follows Job more closely than it does Shakespeare both in thought and diction; and this for the reason, doubtless, that Lehi had been impressed with Job's idea of going to the land whence he would not return, and Joseph Smith, being familiar with Job, and very likely not familiar with Shakespeare, when he came to Lehi's thought, expressed it nearly in Job's phraseology.

FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT.

3. The Unknown asks me again how it is that Nephi, living in the sixth century B.C., can quote numerous passages, about "three hundred from the New Testament alone, and whole chapters from our English version of the Bible, which did not come into existence for more than 2,000 years after he wrote." When the Unknown says that there are three hundred quotations from the New Testament alone in the writings of Nephi, if he meant that, he simply makes a colossal misrepresentation, for there is no such number of passages in Nephi from the New Testament alone, nor, in fact, in the whole Book of Mormon. But as I think he must have meant this assertion to apply to the whole Book of Mormon, I will take no advantage of his misstatement as to confining that number to Nephi, but will meet the larger question as to all these passages in the Book of Mormon which parallel passages in both the Old and New Testament. Because Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by means of the inspiration of God and the aid of the Urim and Thummim, it is generally supposed that this translation occasioned the Prophet no mental or spiritual effort, that it was purely mechanical; in fact, that the instrument did all and the Prophet nothing, than which a greater mistake could not be made. All the circumstances connected with the work of translation clearly prove that it caused the Prophet the utmost exertion, mental and spiritual, of which he was capable, and that while he obtained the facts and ideas from the Nephite characters, he was left to express those ideas in such language as he was master of. This, it is conceded, was faulty; hence here and there verbal defects in the English translation of the Nephite record. Now when the Prophet perceived from the Nephite records that Isaiah was being quoted; or when the Savior was represented as giving instructions in doctrine and moral precepts of the same general character as those given in Judea, Joseph Smith undoubtedly turned to those parts of the Bible where he found a translation substantially correct, of those things which were referred to in the Nephite records, and adopted so much of that translation as expressed the truths common to both records; and since our English version of the Jewish scriptures was the one the Prophet used in such instances, we have the Bible phraseology of which the Unknown complains, and of which this, in the judgment of the writer, is the adequate explanation to all of that class of his objections.

4. What the Unknown describes as Nephi giving himself away is based on my unknown friend's inability to comprehend a very simple fact. He says that in the 31st chapter of the second book of Nephi, the writer, forgetting that he was pretending to write in the sixth century B.C., treats the baptism of Christ as actual history. That is, he holds, the writer changes from prophecy to narrative. The fact is that some time previous to this (see I Nephi, chapter 11) the baptism of Jesus had been shown in vision to Nephi, hence to him had become as an accomplished fact, after which, according to this chapter quoted by the Unknown, the voice of the Son of God (then a pre-existent Spirit) came unto Nephi, saying "He that is baptized in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost like unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me (i. e., in vision) do." Now Nephi, with this in mind, points out to his brothers in the next verse how, by following their Lord and Savior down into the water, "according to his word" (i. e., given previously in Nephi's vision) promises them that they shall then receive the Holy Ghost. All of which considerations demonstrate that the gentleman has not understood the chapter over which he grows vulgarly hilarious by such expressions as "whooped up," "Holy Moses, preserve us!" and his reference to "Boss Tweed."