Translation Anachronisms

There are two times where languages collided in the description of the flora and fauna of the New World. One would be when the Lehites encountered the new animals and reapplied labels from Old World animals, such as Sorenson suggests. The other time was when Joseph translated the plate text into English. I suggest that the best explanation for the anachronistic nouns comes from the nature of Joseph’s translation.

We need look no farther than the King James translation of the Bible for examples of anachronisms that occur only in the translation and not in the text being translated. The KJV frequently mentions candles even though oil lamps provided light during both the Old and New Testaments. Thus, the word candle is an anachronism, but only in the translation. With the availability of the Hebrew and Greek source text, it is clear that the original documents refer to the oil lamps rather than candles.