Richard Packham wrote the following
against the Book of Mormon:
Of course, windows are mentioned frequently in the Bible. But they are not windows that could be
"dashed in pieces." They
are mere openings. The only Bible
passage which might be thought to indicate that ancient windows had some
translucent material is Isaiah 54:12, God's promise to Israel captive in
Babylon, which in the KJV is translated: "I will make thy windows of
agates." No other modern
translation has "windows" here.
The Revised Standard Version translates it "pinnacles," the
Jerusalem Bible has "battlements," Today's English Version has
"towers," and the Contemporary English Version has
"fortresses," with a footnote that the Hebrew text is
"difficult" here. In other
words, modern scholars do not agree with the translators of the King James
Version. Difficult or not, the Book of
Mormon reproduces the KJV translation, at 3 Nephi 22:12. (source)
Firstly, let us quote the definition of “window” from
Webster’s 1828 dictionary:
WINDOW, noun [ G. The vulgar pronunciation is
windor, as if from the Welsh gwyntdor, wind-door.]
1. An opening in the wall
of a building for the admission of light, and of air when necessary. This
opening has a frame on the sides, in which are set movable sashes, containing
panes of glass. In the United Sates, the sashes are made to rise and fall, for the
admission or exclusion of air. In France, windows are shut with frames or
sashes that open and shut vertically, like the leaves of a folding door.
2. An aperture or opening.
A window shalt thou make to the ark. Genesis 6:16.
3. The frame or other
thing that covers the aperture.
Ere
I let fall the windows of mine eyes.
4. An aperture; or rather
the clouds or water-spouts.
The
windows of heaven were opened. Genesis 7:11.
6. Lines crossing each
other.
The Hebrew term
translated as “window” in Isa 54:12 is שִׁמְשֹׁת which is the plural of
שֶׁמֶשׁ and is the same term which means
"sun." As Hebrew lexicons (e.g., HALOT; BDB) argue, while some argue
it, in this verse, can refer to a turret, such is a difficult reading as it
would require the oddity of a turret/tower made from
rubies/agates. Furthermore, while noting that parapets has been forwarded as a
possible translation of the term in Isa 54:12, HALOT views such to be
questionable ("שִׁמְשֹׁת are not really battlements”).
As for the
propriety of the term being rendered “window,” apart from its derivation from “sun,”
one old commentator
wrote the following:
And I will make thy windows of agates,.... Some sort of
which stones, Pliny (Nat. Hist l. 37. c) says, were valued for their clearness
like glass; but the stone which bears this name with us is not clear and lucid
enough to make windows of. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic
versions, render it, "of jasper", a stone more fit for that purpose;
and it is interpreted of the jasper in the Talmud (T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol.
75. 1); so "the light" of the New Jerusalem is said to be like unto
the "jasper stone", Revelation 21:11. Some take the crystal to be
meant, which suits well with windows; the word ("a radice, quae solem
significat", Sanctius) for which has its name from the sun, because by
means of them the rays and light of the sun are let into a house, and
illuminate it.
However one cuts it, there is more
plausibility behind the KJV (and BOM) rendition of the underlying Hebrew as “window.”
Additionally, in this same section,
Packham tries to argue that glass windows is in view in Ether 2:23. To see how
he is misreading this verse, see the post, Glass
Windows in the Book of Mormon?