In his "Some Notes on Joseph Smith and Adam Clarke" Kent P. Jackson offered the following ways in which one can approach the nature of the JST:
One way to look at
the JST is to see it as having three categories of changes: (1) blocks of
entirely new text without biblical counterpart, (2) revisions of existing text
that change its function and meaning, and (3) revisions that change the wording
of existing text but not the meaning. Having all three of those categories of
changes, Joseph Smith’s Bible revision is radically unlike the translations in
the volumes listed above, which contain only the third kind of revisions. Those
works provided traditional translations or revisions of earlier texts, either
from the Hebrew or Greek originals or from the King James Version. None added
new text or changed the function and meaning of existing passages the way
Joseph Smith’s revision did. Thus, if one were to discover that the Prophet was
influenced in word changes by other published sources, it would be historically
interesting but ultimately of little consequence, because the passages in the
third category are not the most important parts of his New Translation.
In the KJV, Rev 12:9 reads:
The great dragon was
cast out, the old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan
The JST reads differently:
The great dragon, who
was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and also called
Satan
Commenting on this change in the JST, Kent Jackson (Ibid.) wrote:
The
reason for Joseph Smith’s revision is quite simple. In the KJV there is a comma
after “the Devil” that makes possible the interpretation that Satan is someone
different from the devil. The Prophet’s change simply does away with the ambiguity,
but it also identifies the terms “great dragon,” “old serpent,” “devil,” and
“Satan” as referring to the same being. Wayment makes leaps in reasoning when
he states that the revision was “argued for by Clarke.” He says this
because in the course of the 400-word commentary on the verse, J. E. Clarke
mentions the obvious fact that the terms “devil” and “Satan” both refer to the
same thing. But he writes that all of those terms refer not to that being whom
Latter-day Saints call Satan but to the Roman Empire, the “heathen power” that
persecuted early Christians. J. E. Clarke’s commentary is not about Satan but
about Roman emperors and the triumph of Constantine and his family. Wayment’s
interpretation would have us believe that Joseph Smith waded through all of
that to learn something very simple that he already knew.
Needless to say, Joseph Smith’s interpretation has
nothing to do with the Roman Empire, and he did not follow Clarke’s commentary
here in any way. The revisions in this verse are part of an important
reinvention of the text,
spanning through verses 7–9, telling the story of the war in heaven and the
casting out of Satan and his followers, who continue to make war against God’s
children (According to the commentary, “heaven”
in the passage means “the throne of the Roman empire, the war in heaven consequently
alludes to the breaking out of civil commotions among the governors of this
empire.”). Depending on how one counts, the Prophet made
about ten significant changes in those three verses, and none of them resemble
anything in Clarke’s commentary.
