View source for Question: What do "if-and conditionals" tell us about the Book of Mormon translation?

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==Question: What do "if-and conditionals" tell us about the Book of Mormon translation?==
===If-and conditionals are not an English grammar form, and are not present in any texts which Joseph Smith knew===

If-and conditionals are not an English grammar form, and are not present in any Bible (or other) texts which Joseph Smith knew or even reasonably could have known. <ref>See remarks near footnote 58 in {{FR-18-1-18}}</ref>  The presence of this grammatical structure has often been edited out in later editions, because it is poor English--but, it may provide evidence that the underlying plate text used Hebrew or a related structure.

This provides evidence that Joseph's claim to be translating an ancient record of Semitic origin was true.

The newsletter ''FARMS Insights'' noted in 1997, based on Royal Skousen's research: <ref>Royal Skousen [researcher], "[http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/insights/?vol=17&num=6&id=50 Hebraic Elements in the Language of the Book of Mormon]," in {{FI|17|12}}</ref>

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Recent research has yielded another interesting clue about the language of the Nephites and about the manner in which it was translated into English. By comparing the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon to the subsequent printed versions, Royal Skousen has found that the original English-language text of the Book of Mormon contained expressions that are uncharacteristic of English. One such expression is a Hebrew-like conditional clause.

In English, it is common to express a conditional idea in the following manner: "''if'' you come, ''then'' I will come," with then being optional. In Hebrew this same idea is expressed in another manner: "if you come, and I will come." This structure makes perfect sense in Hebrew but is not found in English. When Joseph Smith translated {{s|1|Nephi|17|50}}, he dictated "if he should command me that I should say unto this water be thou earth, ''and'' it shall be earth." This non-English construction was removed from this verse by Oliver Cowdery as he copied the original manuscript to produce the printer's manuscript. He deleted the word ''and'', making the text read better in English. The sentence now reads: "if he should ..., it should be earth."

Thirteen other occurrences of this Hebraic conditional were printed in the first edition of the Book of Mormon and then later removed by Joseph Smith in his grammatical editing in preparation for the second edition of the Book of Mormon, published in 1837 in Kirtland, Ohio. One of these instances is the famous passage in {{s||Moroni|10|4}}, which originally read: "if ye shall ask with a sincere heart with real intent having faith in Christ ''and'' he will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost" (1830 edition, p. 586). In the 1837 and all subsequent editions, the ands in conditional phrases like this one have been dropped to express the idea properly in English.

This use of ''and'' is not due to scribal error. Strong evidence of this is found in {{s||Helaman|12|13-21}}, where the if-and expression occurred seven times in the original English translation:

:13 yea and ''if'' he sayeth unto the earth move ''and'' it is moved
:14 yea ''if'' he say unto the earth thou shalt go back that it lengthen out the day for many hours ''and'' it is done[...]
:16 and behold also ''if'' he sayeth unto the waters of the great deep be thou dried up ''and'' it is done
:17 behold ''if'' he sayeth unto this mountain be thou raised up and come over and fall upon that city that it be buried up ''and'' behold it is done[...]
:19 and ''if'' the Lord shall say be thou accursed that no man shall find thee from this time hence forth and forever ''and'' behold no man getteth it henceforth and forever
:20 and behold ''if'' the Lord shall say unto a man because of thine iniquities thou shalt be accursed forever ''and'' it shall be done
:21 and ''if'' the Lord shall say because of thine iniquities thou shalt be cut off from my presence ''and'' he will cause that it shall be so

This structure is perfectly acceptable in Hebrew, but these verses were changed in 1837 to make the book read more smoothly and convey the proper meaning in English.

These observations support the idea that Joseph Smith's translation was a literal one and not simply a reflection of either his own dialect or the style of early modern English found in the King James Version of the Bible. They also support the idea that the language from which the book was translated into English was Hebrew or Hebrew-like.
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===Examples of if-and conditionals in the Book of Mormon text===
* {{s|1|Nephi|17|50}}
* {{s||Helaman|12|13-21}}
* {{s||Moroni|10|4}}

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[[pt:Pergunta: O que "se-e condicionais" nos diz sobre a tradução do Livro de Mórmon?]]