1. The Book of Mormon should be analyzed as a translated ancient text. Historians and ethnohistorians (those specializing in the histories of non-Western populations) understand bot the value and the danger of ancient texts. They obey ancient rules, not modern ones. Because the Book of Mormon proclaims itself as an ancient text, it should be analyzed as an ancient one. This means that the criteria for the creation of the text may or may not correspond to our modern expectations. We may expect a low-context text, and the ancient author creates a high-context text. We may expect a history such as we study in school, and the ancient author may provide a history that is based on mythological or religious patterns.

A second consequence of accepting the Book of Mormon as a translation is that a translator always complicates the text for the target reader. Regardless of the translator’s talent, something is always lost in the translation. In the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew, puns and marvelous plays on language disappear, and many modern readers approach that vibrant text as though it were humorless.

Furthermore, definitions shift over time; the modern reader who relies overmuch on the translated words may misunderstand the original meaning. For example, Deuteronomy 14:2 in the King James Version reads: “For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.” Many LDS speakers have appropriated the term “peculiar people” as a badge of honor, indicating our distinctiveness from the rest of the world. The use reflects the modern definition of “peculiar” as “odd, different, unusual.” However, this was not the word’s meaning to King James scholars. The New International Version of the Bible renders that same verse more precisely: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession.” This translation preserves the seventeenth-century meaning of “peculiar” as “owned by,” but that definition is now archaic.

Because the underlying text for the King James Version and New International Version is the same, we can test new translations (and their evolved meanings) against the originals. This is not possible with the Book of Mormon. We do not have the original, and we cannot reconstruct the original. We have a translation made by a young man without technical training who produced a text through the “gift and power of God” (D&C 135:3 and Testimony of Three Witnesses). The text he produced was unquestionably in his own language, reflecting the vocabulary and definitions of his own time.

Thus, we must never forget that the Book of Mormon is a translated ancient text. If we approach it with any other set of assumptions, we will miss important information and misread it in important ways. This awareness requires us to ask how the target (English) text might relate to the source (Nephite) text. In this commentary, such explorations are labeled “Translation.”

Ironically, this is precisely the approach many have taken to the text. Archaeologist John L. Clark discusses this important aspect of our understanding of the Book of Mormon:

Most Mormons fall into a . . . subtle error that also inflates Joseph’s talents; they confuse translation with authorship. They presume that Joseph Smith knew the contents of the book as if he were its real author, and they accord him perfect knowledge of the text. This presumption removes from discussion the most compelling evidence of the book’s authenticity—Joseph’s unfamiliarity with its contents. To put the matter clearly: Joseph Smith did not fully understand the Book of Mormon. I propose that he transmitted to readers an ancient book that he neither imaged nor wrote.