Percentage of Joseph’s changes to John’s writings

Taken from The Testimony of John the Beloved:  The 27th Annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium (Deseret Book Company, 1998) . . .

Jonn D. Claybaugh writes, “The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has published Joseph Smith’s “New Translation” of the Bible (Independence, Mo.:  Herald Publishing House, 1970), which is a side-by-side comparison of Joseph Smith’s inspired revision of the Bible (the Joseph Smith Translation, or JST) and the King James Version.  It shows that Joseph made changes in every book of the New Testament, except 2 John and 3 John.  By simply counting the verses that are changed in the Joseph Smith Translation, I learned the following:  of the 879 verses in the Gospel of John, 238 are changed, or 27 percent; of the 105 verses in I John, sixteen are changed, or 15 percent; of the 404 verses in Revelation, 83 are changed, or 21 percent.  Overall, of the 1,415 New Testament verses written by John, 337 are changed, or 24 percent” (pp. 34-35, n. 18).

 What I would like to do in future months is explore all the JST changes in John’s Gospel and try to understand why.  It is crucial that my exegesis every Sunday morning before God’s people be faithful to the text.  It is imperative that I study the flow of words in the Greek MSS to see if major changes are authorized by the Holy Spirit to the English text.

 Fair enough, friends?

2 comments

  1. As I mentioned elsewhere, it is important to remember that the JST has not been canonized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It has never even been published (except in footnote form) by the Church. That means that it ranks somewhere in doctrinal status between the TPJS and the Book of Commandments – i.e. clearly venerable, but not necessarily binding doctrine.

  2. Hello Todd.

    You asked the question: “…why [did] Joseph Smith crossed out English words and likewise inserted new words in the King James Version translation.”

    We of the LDS faith believe that there were errors and parts which were lost in the early writings due to the coping of the manuscripts over and over for more than 300 years.

    We also believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God with authority to “correct” those errors and/or lost parts. His crossed out words and inserted new words do just that.

    Joseph finished his work but was martyred and the members of the Church fled to Utah prior to it being published by the “Utah Church”. In the mean time, the Restored LDS [now the Community of Christ] had the manuscripts (from Joseph’s wife Emma, who did not come to Utah) and did publish it some time later.

    Hope that helps. Regards,

    William O. Moellmer
    william.moellmer@gmail.com
    Salt Lake City, Utah

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