Errors made in 1611, copied word for word

Unrefuted

No good counter-argument has been published by LDS scholars.

What a translation error looks like

The 1611 translators got some Hebrew words wrong. Those mistakes belong to their English.

They are not in the Hebrew text at all.

The three examples

2 Nephi 14:5 has "upon all the glory shall be a defence." The Hebrew word there, chuppah, means canopy. 2 Nephi 21:3 has "make him of quick understanding," where the Hebrew says his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.

And 2 Nephi 16:2 keeps the King James double plurals seraphims and cherubims. Hebrew already makes those words plural.

Why that matters

These are marks of one English committee's work in 1611. A translation made from a Hebrew source would not carry them.

Their answer, at full strength

FAIR says a translation aimed at King James readers may keep familiar wording even where it is imperfect. Some of the disputed lines are defensible readings of ambiguous Hebrew.

And D&C 1:24 says God speaks to people after the manner of their language. So the errors sit in the English layer, not on the plates.

How strong is this argument?

Strong for you. The King James artifacts are granted.

The defence moves them into a translation convention. And no variant anywhere pulls the wording back toward the Hebrew.

What to say

"If the Hebrew word means canopy, why does your book say defence?"

The Great Isaiah Scroll, about 125 BC; the Hebrew chuppah at Isaiah 4:5 means canopy

A Qumran Cave 4 scroll of collected proof-texts, part of the Hebrew evidence behind modern translations

A folio of the Leningrad Codex, about 1008 AD, the standard Hebrew text translators worked from

How they answer this — at its strongest

The errors sit in the English translation layer, not on the ancient plates.

FAIR argues that a functional translation aimed at King James readers may keep familiar wording. That holds even where the wording is imperfect. Some of the alleged errors are also fair readings of Hebrew that is genuinely unclear.

There is a scriptural warrant too. D&C 1:24 has God speaking to people after the manner of their language. On that account the errors belong to the English layer. They do not belong to the plates.

The verdict

Strong for you: the King James marks are granted, then moved somewhere else.

The King James marks are conceded. The defence moves them into a translation habit given by God. It does not show that the readings are anything but King James errors.

And one thing is missing. No variant anywhere pulls the wording back toward the Hebrew. If God were correcting the 1611 committee, you would expect that somewhere.

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