Item Detail
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33177
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0
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17
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English
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Altering Translated Scriptures: The Case of Familiar Spirit (as a Key Phrase of the Restoration and as an Inapt Product of Jacobean Demonology)
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Journal of Mormon History
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October 2023
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49
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4
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45-81
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"The first section of this article situates the phrase [familiar spirit] in its context and summarizes how it has been regarded within Mormon circles over the years, from a literal to a necromantic understanding. The second section illustrates the translation challenge to other languages: I list the original translations in the eight European languages in which the Book of Mormon was published in the nineteenth century, each followed by its changes in revised editions during the twentieth century, up to the latest change to necromancy required by the Translation Department. In the third section I discuss how the Masoretic and the Septuagint texts do not sustain a necromantic interpretation of familiar spirit in Isaiah 29:4-- a viewpoint that also non-KJV translations confirm. The fourth section explicates that familiar spirit is a distinctive and inapt KJV idiom, a product of its era, with antecedents in Roman and medieval familiares, folk beliefs, and Aquinas's theology. Jacobean demonology fossilized the phrase in the KJV, in contrast to all other Bible translations. In the fifth section I follow the development in America: brought to the New World with the KJV, by the 1800s, familiar spirit had overall lost its Jacobean specificity. Joseph Smith, his revision of the Bible, and the Book of Mormon gave the phrase a new and fitting meaning in the context of the Restoration. Moreover, Nephi's text invites us to identify the voice of a specific male person. I also remark that a necromantic interpretation sustains the magical worldview of the origins of Mormonism. In the last section I express a few thoughts and concerns regarding the (re)translation of Mormon scriptures." [Author]
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A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon
Cunning Distortions: Folk Christianity and Witchcraft Allegations in Early Mormon History
Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon
Early Mormonism and the Magic World View
In Heaven as It Is on Earth : Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death
Isaiah in the Book of Mormon
Joseph Smith's Interpretation of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon
Llyfr Mormon : The Translation of the Book of Mormon into Welsh
Moroni as Angel and as Treasure Guardian
Out of the Dust : An Examination of Necromancy as a Literary Construct in the Book of Mormon
The Challenge of Theological Translation : New German Versions of the Standard Works
The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon : A Marvelous Work and a Wonder : The 44th Annual Brigham Young University Sidney B. Sperry Symposium
The New Publications of the Standard Works-1979, 1981
The Prophetess of Endor : Reception of 1 Samuel 28 in Nineteenth Century Mormon History
The Refiner's Fire : The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844
The Vision of All : Twenty-five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record
This is My Doctrine : The Development of Mormon Theology