DR. WELBY W. RICKS
Thank you, Brother Kirkham. Brother
Clark, what do you see as the new horizons of Book of Mormon studies?
DR. JAMES R. CLARK
Actually, I see three challenges. I
would like to suggest one that I am sure is right in the background of
everything we have said today, but I would like to bring it into the foreground
for a minute. That is the challenge of the Book of Mormon itself calls for, a
multi-lingual approach. I think we have to keep reminding ourselves that we are
not dealing with just a hundred years in the Book of Mormon--we are dealing
with centuries and millenniums of history.
Along with Brother Ludlow's statement
at our luncheon today that we must remember that the Book of Mormon is an
abridgement of the records and therefore we do not have the entire record, we
must also remember that we must not talk of Book of Mormon language in the
singular. I have heard that expression so many times. We were given the
opportunity to express ourselves quite freely. I keep hearing "Book of
Mormon language"--singular. Well, my challenge to you is that it is not
"Book of Mormon language." That is not the problem. The
problem is Book of Mormon languages--plural--of this we should keep
reminding ourselves. May I just quote from Dr. Allbright's Archaeology of
Palestine, page 118, just a brief statement:
Our evidence for language of any
period is derived from different sources. The actual speech of the people is
not necessarily the same as the language of its formal written documents. So
one cannot always assume that the spoken language was the same as that of the
inscriptions which are found in any special region or period. For example,
about 1400 B.C., Babylonian cuneiform was the language of official documents in
Palestine. yet it is certain that the people did not speak Babylonian.
I would illustrate that by this chart.
We talk about translated and untranslated scripts. I think eventually we will
have our real archaeological evidence when we get the Book of Mormon scripts to
work with. We have not had them yet, but I think I can illustrate here what I
mean. On this side are some translated scripts. Here is a copy of a little
fragment we found in the Church Historian's office, in which I believe that
Oliver Cowdery has actually reproduced for us characters from the Book of
Mormon with their translation.
Well, here is the Anthon transcript in
which we have reproduction of characters from the Book of Mormon without
translation. So the challenge, the new horizon, is how are we going to
translate this? We do have these few examples of actual characters. What are we
going to do about it--this is one of the new horizons. ("Panel: New
Horizons in the Book of Mormon," Book of Mormon Institute, December
5, 1959, ed. Dee F. Green [Provo, Utah: Book of Mormon Institute, 1964], 57-58)
