“Adieu” in the Book of Mormon

 

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Daniel Peterson

post15 February 2008, 08:21 PM

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QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 07:39 PM) *

Is that how you respond to a legitimate question about the use of a French word in a supposedly ancient Hebrew manuscript. Typical denial tactic.


Stunning.

The adieu argument is, quite simply, the silliest anti-Mormon argument I've ever run across, in years and years of encountering silly anti-Mormon arguments.

With this, Carmella makes my day.

But I shouldn't just laugh. I should try to help her. So here goes:

Carmella. The Book of Mormon claims to be a translation. Translations can be done from any language into any language, and translators are free to use any appropriate words they possess to render what they see or hear in the original language.

Here's an example:

Arabic: Fataha al-baab.

German: Er öffnete die Tür.

English: He opened the door.

Each sentence is perfectly fine in its language. Each quite accurately translates the other two. The fact that I can translate the Arabic sentence into German no more means that there is German in the original Arabic than the fact that I can translate it into English means that the Arabic sentence contains English.

Now, I could, if I chose, translate the Arabic sentence a bit differently. I could, for instance, render it as "He opened the portal." Either door or portal works just fine. Choosing one or the other doesn't change the Arabic word from which it is translated, any more than choosing to render the Arabic baab by Tür rather than door alters the Arabic word.

If you look up the word adieu in the Oxford English Dictionary, you'll find that it's attested in English since at least the fourteenth century. You can even sing the old song "Red River Valley" to yourself, and you'll hit upon the line "Do not hasten to bid me adieu." The word adieu was, manifestly, in Joseph Smith's vocabulary. There is nothing wrong or problematic in his using it to render a farewell contained in the text on the plates.

I apologize for the viciousness of this note. Your remarkable courage and fortitude in the face of onslaughts from monsters like me does you great credit.

 

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Daniel Peterson

post15 February 2008, 08:55 PM

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QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:25 PM)

Frankly, it is an obvious anachronism, regardless of your attempt to explain it away. The usage of French in what is supposed to be an ancient Hebrew document would be laughed at by any scholar except those found at BYU, and then even some of those are snickering secretly.


Poor Carmella. Your objection would be laughed at by any scholar in the world including those at BYU. (I'm laughing as I write.)

You plainly don't get it. But I'm a teacher by trade, so I'll try again.

Here's a German passage:

"Auf Wiedersehen," sagte er. "Vielleicht sehen wir uns wieder nach dem Krieg."

Here's one way of translating it into English:

"Goodbye," he said. "Perhaps we'll see each other again after the war."

Here's another way of rendering it into English:

"Farewell," said he. "Maybe we'll see each other again after the war."

Now, neither farewell nor goodbye occurs in the original German sentence. Nor does perhaps. Nor does maybe. These sentences are translations.

But there are still other ways in which I could render an equivalent English sentence. Here's one:

"Adieu," he said. "We may possibly see each other again after the war."

Again, that's entirely legitimate. And, since the word adieu has been in the English language since at least the mid-fourteenth century, it's quite legitimately English. And yet, once more, you can scan the original German sentence for hours and hours and hours, and even use an electronic microscope on it, and you still won't be able to find either the word adieu or the word possibly anywhere in it. That's one of the really amazing things about translations!


QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:25 PM)

Come now, sir, let us reason together. Were you to find a Spanish word in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, wouldn't you be a little suspicious about the origin of that work? You know, "adios Tut."


I think you're probably having us on.

Pretty funny, I'll admit.

Still, I'll play along with you just a bit longer.

Nobody has suggested that the word adieu occurs on the plates. We say (and we have good evidence to back this up) that it occurs in English editions of the Book of Mormon, which, we say, represent a translation fo the original text. Finding a Spanish word in the Book of the Dead would, it's true, be very strange. But finding a Spanish word in a translation of the Book of the Dead would be perfectly natural.

Have you ever noticed, by the way, that the first three words of the King James Bible are . . . English? But English didn't exist when Genesis 1:1 was purportedly written! Does this prove that Genesis is a fraud? Is the word in an anachronism? No, silly! Of course not! The King James Bible is a translation!


QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:45 PM)

If you read Whitmer's description I posted above of the translation process used by Smith, you will see that the French word had to appear to him, as the book was supposedly translated word for word, with God's approval for each word translated.


Adieu, poor thing, is an English word, as well as a French word. It's in English dictionaries. It's attested in English since the 1300s.


QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:45 PM)

And, Smith called it the most correct book in the world, so Mormons need to accept the fact that ancient Hebrews somehow used French, a language that did not exist at the time of the Nephite civilization.


Why on earth would we need to accept the notion that ancient Hebrews used French?

What a practical joker you are!

Pretty soon, you'll be telling us that those who read English Bible translations must "accept the fact" that the ancient Hebrews spoke English!


QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:45 PM)

On the other hand, they could agree that Smith wrote the book, and made a big mistake by putting French words into the mouth's of Hebrews, which is the logical conclusion a non-Mormon draws from the evidence.


Wow. Maybe their defective reasoning skills explain why they're non-Mormons!

Thanks for the chuckle, Carmella!

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Bill Hamblin

post15 February 2008, 08:57 PM

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This entire discussion is a monumental violation of Hamblin Rule of Apologetics #1.

What I find shocking, however, is that the CARMelites have yet to realize the greatest linguistic anachronism of them all, which decisively disproves the BOM:

There are English words in the BOM translation. Do Mormons really expect us to believe that English existed at the time of Nephi?

Those Mormons are such idiots!!!! crazy.gif



--------------------

I condemn DCP for all of his evils!

Hamblin Rule of Apologetics #1: "Never argue with a moron."
Hamblin Rule of Apologetics #2: "Never argue with someone who is smarter than you."
Hamblin Rule of Apologetics #3: "Make sure obeying rules 1 and 2 doesn't amount to the same thing."

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Daniel Peterson

post15 February 2008, 09:14 PM

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QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:55 PM) *

Perhaps this will help.


I'm afraid it doesn't. Your position is still absurd.


QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:55 PM) *

This means that French was written on the plates used for the translation


Why on earth would it mean that?

Translations don't simply reproduce what's in the original text. They . . . translate it.

John 1:1 (Greek): En archee een ho logos.

John 1:1 (English): In the beginning was the Word.

Word is nowhere to be found in the original Greek. Nor is beginning. Nor is in. Nor is the. Nor is was.

Now. Watch my hands very carefully, and I shall translate John 1:1 into German:

Am Anfang war das Wort.

Now quickly glance back at the original Greek sentence. Has Anfang appeared in it? Has Wort? Or am or war or das?

It's a miracle! Words appear in translation that don't appear in the original language!

Or, to make my point as clearly as I can, Haadhihi hiya mu‘jiza! Tuzhiru kalimaat fi al-tarjumaat alatti la tuzhiru fi al-lugha al-asliyya! (That's Arabic for "It's a miracle! Words appear in translation that don't appear in the original language!" Please notice that not a single word in the Arabic actually appears in the English sentence from which it was translated.)


QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:55 PM) *

French was a language that didn't exist during the time period the plates were written, except in rudimentary form.


French didn't exist at all, poor creature. Latin scarcely existed. (I'm pleased, though, to see that you grant an ancient date for the Book of Mormon.)


QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:55 PM) *

So, we have a problem.


Indeed, you do.

I'm trying to help.


QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:55 PM) *

Either the plates included French, or Joseph Smith erred by putting a French word into the mouth of of a supposed Hebrew.


Or Joseph Smith, using a word that had existed as an English vocabulary item for at least five centuries by the time he was born, rendered a farewell in the original text by means of the English word adieu.


QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:55 PM) *

As a Christian, it is very apparent to me that this was a mistake on Smith's part as he created the Book of Mormon.


Please don't blame your faulty thinking on Christianity.


QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 08:55 PM) *

There are many other such anachronisms in the book, would you like me to continue?


Good grief, no! It's taking more than enough time and effort to try to cure you of one bit of arrant silliness.

 

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Bill Hamblin

post15 February 2008, 09:52 PM

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What I find even more shocking is that the term "adieu" appears in French translations of the Bible. (e.g. Semeur translation, Gen 24:59, Luke 9:61; Segond trans. Acts 15:29, 23:30). Don't those French morons know that "adieu" is not a Hebrew or Greek word?!?!?!?

 

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Bill Hamblin

postYesterday, 09:57 PM

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You know, Dan, if only Shakespeare had attended a CARMelite college instead of a Marmon college, we wouldn't have to deal with his pesky use of "adieu" in Romeo and Juliet. What was he thinking! Doesn't Shakespeare know that adieu is not Italian for pity's sake!?!?!? The word is "addio"!

 

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Daniel Peterson

postYesterday, 10:23 PM

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QUOTE(Carmella @ Feb 15 2008, 09:25 PM) *

Let's see if we can straighten you out on this. Let say you were down in Old Mexico, and came to an ancient pyramid. You were translating the glyphs. Your pal, standing by your side, is also translating glyphs. Your tarnslation reads" "and the cougar ate the badger." His translation reads, "Hey, give me some weed and I'll give you ten pesos." Ummmm, which "translation" would reflect the time period in which the glyphs were supposedly written?


Bad analogy.

A better one would be that you translate the glyphic text as and the cougar ate the badger, while your Christian© pal translates it as and the mountain lion ate the badger.

Your friend blows up. He accuses you of claiming that there was Portuguese in those glyphs, which is obviously absurd, since (a) you're in Mexico and (b) these are pre-Columbian inscriptions.

You deny that you're doing anything of the kind.

He laughs sneeringly, and says that you must have been educated at a Mormon university, which obviously taught you that ancient Mexican glyphs contain Portuguese. Having himself received the kind of education of which idiotic Mormons can only dream in vain, he notes that the word cougar is borrowed via French from the Portuguese çuçuarana, and that the term was originally derived from the indigenous Tupi language.

You respond that cougar has been a thoroughly-accepted and -integrated English word for centuries, and that it is a synonym for mountain lion and, for that matter, for puma and several dozen other terms.

"You're a fool and an idiot," he replies. "You believe that these glyphs contain Portuguese. And, what's more, you're rude, nasty, and unchristian. I've never been treated so unkindly in my entire life."

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