Mormon Dilemmas 5
31
May
French and the Book of Mormon
The French word ‘adieu’ is used at the end of the book of Jacob.
This time frame is inconsistent with when French became a language circa 700 AD. The end of the book of Jacob supposedly took place between 544 and 421 BC.
How did Joseph translate this word into French that wasn’t existent?
If the plates were real how did the Nephites know about the French language if they had been in the Americas?
This is quite the dilemma!
Wow, what a stretch.
The French language didn’t need to exist when Jacob made his record, because his record wasn’t made in French.
However, considering that the translation that Joseph Smith made was done at a time when French not only existed, but was fairly well known, it is perfectly reasonable to think that a word Jacob used could be accurately translated into a commonly known french term.
Trying to use a translation to prove language errors never works.
The “stretch” is believing with your whole heart that Smith “translated” the Book of Mormon through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Just like it is a stretch to believe that Moses saw the Burning Bush, or that he received the Law from God.
Or the Stretch that Paul saw Christ on the road to Damascus.
Or the stretch that Elijah called fire from heaven.
Or the stretching we do in believing any miracle recorded in the Bible actual happened.
It’s nice to be good and loose after so much stretching.
Of course, the difference between these stretches and the one presented in this supposed dilemma is that these are stretches of faith, while the “dilemma” is a stretch of logic.