Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Kent P. Jackson on JST Revelation 12:9

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

 

The following comes from New Testament Manuscript 2, Folio 4 (click to enlarge):




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.