Many Mormons are not as well acquainted a lesser known aspect of Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling – the Inspired Translation of the Bible, also known as the Joseph Smith Translation (JST). It is only partially included or cited in the standard works of the church, yet was an important part of Joseph’s prophetic labors in the early years of the church.

“The Prophet Joseph Smith loved the Bible. He regularly read it, revered its teachings, and found divine truths in its writings… Yet the Prophet’s reverence for the Bible was accompanied by his awareness of its incompleteness and of problems with the transmission of its texts. On one occasion he said, “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.””
(“The Joseph Smith Translation: “Plain and Precious Things” Restored” Ensign, Aug 1997, lds.org)

As early as June 1830, just a few months after the formation of the new restored church, Joseph Smith began work on an inspired version of the Bible. Starting in the Old Testament in Genesis the early work on the “new translation” of the Bible produced what is now the canonized Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price. On March 7, 1831 in a revelation now recorded in Section 45 of the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord instructed Joseph to cease his work on the Old Testament and complete an inspired translation of the New Testament:

“And now, behold, I say unto you, it shall not be given unto you to know any further concerning this chapter, until the New Testament be translated, and in it all these things shall be made known; Wherefore I give unto you that ye may now translate it, that ye may be prepared for the things to come.”
(Doctrine and Covenants 45:60-61, lds.org)

Joseph then focused his prophetic and revelatory energies on producing a translation of the Gospels and others books of the New Testament.

The New Testament completed

[toc]Nearly 2 years later Joseph declared the task complete:

“I completed the translation and review of the New Testament on the 2nd of February, 1833, and sealed it up, no more to be opened till it arrived in Zion.”
(History of the Church, 1:324. archive.org)

Some people have been concerned that the translation was not fully completed and so the text cannot be trusted. Bruce R. McConkie stated the following:

“In some minds there seems to be a nagging uncertainty about the so-called Inspired Version. After all, some say, the Prophet did not fin­ish his work, and how can we be sure what he did finish is correct? May I be pardoned if I say that negative attitudes and feelings about the Joseph Smith Translation are simply part of the devil’s pro­gram to keep the word of truth from the children of men. True, the Joseph Smith Translation, though completed to the point that the early Brethren were going to publish it at one time, has not been completed in the full and true sense. But for that matter neither has the Book of Mormon. I am as anxious to read and study what is in the sealed por­tion of the Book of Mormon as I am to give the same attention to those parts of the Bible yet to be revealed.” ((http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/volume-5-number-2-2004/precious-truths-restored-joseph-smith-translation-changes-not))

Unconventional Translation

Translating from old manuscripts. Joseph did not do this.

The “translation” that Joseph undertook of both the Old and New Testament was not a conventional one. He did not go back to early Greek or Hebrew manuscripts.

“Rather, he went through the biblical text of the King James Version and made inspired corrections, revisions, and additions to the biblical text. Both the Lord and Joseph Smith consistently refer to the process of these inspired revisions and additions as “translation””
(“The Joseph Smith Translation: “Plain and Precious Things” Restored” Ensign, Aug 1997, lds.org)

The recent LDS.org Gospel Topic Essay on the translation and historicity of the Book of Abraham affirms this new understanding of the concept of “translation” when applied to Joseph Smith bringing revealed scripture into the world.

“Joseph’s translations took a variety of forms. Some of his translations, like that of the Book of Mormon, utilized ancient documents in his possession. Other times, his translations were not based on any known physical records. Joseph’s translation of portions of the Bible, for example, included restoration of original text, harmonization of contradictions within the Bible itself, and inspired commentary.”
(“Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham”, lds.org)

Significance of Changes

The most emphatic declaration of the significance of the Joseph Smith translation has been made by Bruce R. McConkie

“This counsel rates an eight or a nine. It can scarcely be stated with too great an emphasis. The Joseph Smith Translation, or Inspired Version, is a thousand times over the best Bible now existing on earth. It contains all that the King James Version does, plus pages of additions and corrections and an occasional deletion. It was made by the spirit of revelation, and the changes and additions are the equivalent of the revealed word in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. For historical and other reasons there have been, among some members of the Church in times past, some prejudice and misunderstanding of the place of the Joseph Smith Translation. I hope this has now all vanished away.”
(“The Bible, a Sealed Book” Bruce R. McConkie lds.org)

Can it be trusted?

JST Commentary by Robert J. Matthews

Joseph was never able to have the full inspired translation published in a single volume during his lifetime. Some people hesitate to trust the version of the Joseph Smith Translation of the bible because its copyright was owned and it was published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the 1970’s the RLDS gave BYU professor of ancient scripture Robert Matthews access to the original manuscripts and he took on the task of confirming and verifying the integrity of the printed version of the translation.

“Through the courtesy of the Reorganized Church I have closely examined the original manuscripts and compared them with the printed editions of the Inspired Version and have concluded that the printed work accurately represents the information on the manuscripts. There are a few passages in which the printed Inspired Version fails to present the corrections found in the Prophet’s manuscripts, but these are passages of minor importance and are relatively insignificant. This is not to imply that the Reorganized Church has substituted its own revisions in place of the Prophet’s, but rather, in these instances, the wording of the King James Version has been retained.”
(“Joseph Smith’s Inspired Translation of the Bible” Robert Matthews, Dec 1972 Ensign, lds.org)

Dallin H Oaks described the official endorsement of the JST:

“The Church’s most authoritative pronounce­ment on the standing of the Joseph Smith Translation is contained in actions, not words. After prolonged and prayerful deliberation, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve included over six hundred quotations from the Joseph Smith Translation in the Church’s monu­mental new edition of the King James Bible published in 1979 and in every printing since that time. . . . In addition . . . scores of JST excerpts too lengthy for inclusion in footnotes are included in their entire text following the Bible Dictionary [in the JST appendix].”((http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/volume-5-number-2-2004/precious-truths-restored-joseph-smith-translation-changes-not#_edn27))

As a result of this work of authentication and endorsement, members should feel just as much reverence and respect for the JST as for any other canonized scripture. So why hasn’t the church made the full JST a readily available to members as the other scriptures? One reason given is that it would be too lengthy and make the printed scriptures unwieldy ((see Q&A here: http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/volume-5-number-2-2004/robert-j-matthews-and-his-work-joseph-smith-translation)). This excuse doesn’t hold up in the era of digital and online scriptures, yet the full JST is not available on the LDS.org scripture reference site.

Oh Scripture, Where Art Thou?

So is there there any official LDS source of the full text of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible? The answer is YES! But it is very difficult to located and to access.

BYU has an elegant scripture searching tool called the LDS Scripture Citation Index. It has indexed versions of all the standard works – including the JST, however it does not display the JST to the user by default – it will only show results from searches linking to the JST. Only by linking directly to a particular chapter in the JST can you see it – it does not display if you browse through the listed books.

By analyzing the URLs used to display those chapters from the JST I have been able to link directly to the official church source of the full JST. To see for yourself, click this link to view JST Matthew 23. You will note that the navigation features of the page do not work, making it impossible to go to the next chapter. Those features only work in the context of the citation index and the Full JST never displays in the main index there – but it is there.

Tracking the Changes

Modern word processors have a feature called “Track Changes” which color codes changes that have been made to a manuscript in order to make those changes easily and quickly apparent. By applying this technique to the JST version of the New Testament in comparison to the original KJV one can easily view the exact changes that Joseph made. I have created and run a script which did exactly this to the entirety of the JST New testament and placed them in a resource that allows you to view the full JST of any given chapter directly from an official church source and see the changes that have been made.

Here is an example:

Track Changes of JST Matthew Chapter 3 – click to see in context

Changes are coded as follows:

• JST additions to the KJV text are colored green and underlined.
• JST deletions from the KJV text are colored red and struckthrough.
• Text that is unchanged remains black.

The resource is now published on MormonBookshelf.com and can be viewed here:

Invitation

I invite my readers to look through the various changes that were made and see if you can validate McConkie’s claim that the JST is “a thousand times” better than any other translation of the Bible. Seeing the changes visually represented with the Track Changes feature makes it very easy to identify changes and see their significance. My suspicion is that you will be underwhelmed by the nature of the changes. If you find any that are particularly meaningful or are particularly groan-worthy – please post a comment and share your observations!