Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, claimed to have translated ancient scriptures. He dictated an American Bible from metal plates reportedly buried by ancient Jews in a nearby hill, and produced an Egyptian "Book of Abraham" derived from funerary papyri he extracted from a collection of mummies he bought from a traveling showman. In addition, he rewrote sections of the King James Version as a "New Translation" of the Bible. Smith and his followers used the term translation to describe the genesis of these English scriptures, which remain canonical for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Whether one believes him or not, the discussion has focused on whether Smith's English texts represent literal translations of extant source documents. On closer inspection, though, Smith's translations are far more metaphysical than linguistic. In Joseph Smith's Translation, Samuel Morris Brown argues that these translations express the mystical power of language and scripture to interconnect people across barriers of space and time, especially in the developing Mormon temple liturgy. He shows that Smith was devoted to an ancient metaphysics--especially the principle of correspondence, the concept of "as above, so below"--that provided an infrastructure for bridging the human and the divine as well as for his textual interpretive projects. Joseph Smith's projects of metaphysical translation place Mormonism at the productive edge of the transitions associated with shifts toward "secular modernity." This transition into modern worldviews intensified, complexly, in nineteenth-century America. The evolving legacies of Reformation and Enlightenment were the sea in which early Mormons swam, says Brown. Smith's translations and the theology that supported them illuminate the power and vulnerability of the Mormon critique of American culture in transition. This complex critique continues to resonate and illuminate to the present day.

About the Author
Samuel Morris Brown - intensive care unit physician, medical researcher, and cultural historian-is Associate Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Medical Ethics and Humanities at University of Utah/Intermountain Medical Center and director of the Center for Humanizing Critical Care at Intermountain. The author of In Heaven as It Is on Earth and Through the Valley of Shadows, Dr. Brown researches and writes at the interfaces among medicine, religion, culture, and history.

Reviews
Brown's goal lies in finding just the right concept combination to bring today's reader into some sort of understanding of Smith's situation, and he does with "primordial" elements, a notion centripetally attracting such themes as sacred-secrecy, wisdom traditions, priesthoods, and most especially family bonding. Brown's affinity with primordial dynamics generates this book's extended account of how he sees them developing within Josephas personal spirituality and community leadership all, again, framed by Smith family ties, evolving capacities for death conquest, religious protest, and ever ongoing cosmic possibilities. * Douglas J. Davies, Mormon Studies Review *
...its approach is thought-provoking and creative, and parts of it can break new ground in understanding the work of Joseph Smith. * Kent P. Jackson, Birmingham Young University, BYU Studies Quarterly *
I found Joseph Smith's Translation stimulating. Brown weaves his way through the wide variety of the texts Smith produced to identify common threads of metaphysical transformation and communal ascent. For those with an esoteric bent, he provides satisfying ways of understanding Joseph Smith's scriptural contributions. Samuel Morris Brown has "translated" Joseph Smith for the reader in a way we have not seen before. * Cheryl Bruno, Association for Mormon Letters *



Book Information
ISBN 9780190054236
Author Samuel Morris Brown
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 544g
Dimensions(mm) 163mm * 236mm * 33mm