Here’s the next installment of LDSLF’s modern-language Book of Mormon adaptation project, 1 Nephi 2 and 3. As before, I have footnoted all significant vocabulary changes, citing the Oxford English Dictionary’s most relevant definition as determined by the original term’s likely contextual meaning and the OED’s information about the term’s likely usage around 1830. In a few cases, I have included a further explanation for the changes.
Please read and respond–am I retaining the text’s original literal meaning?
Here it is…
1 Nephi 2
1The Lord spoke to my father in a dream, saying,
“You are blessed, Lehi, because of the things you have done. Because you have been faithful and told this people what I commanded you to say, they want to kill you.”
2The Lord commanded my father to take his family
into the wilderness, 3and he obeyed.
4He left his house, the land he had inherited, his gold, his silver, and his precious things; he took nothing with him, except his family, provisions, and tents. 5He arrived at the borders near the shore of the Red Sea. He traveled in the wilderness there with his family, including my mother, Sariah, and my older brothers, Laman, Lemuel, and Sam.
6After three days, he pitched his tent in a valley by the side of a river. 7He built an altar out of stones and sacrificed to the Lord our God, giving thanks
to him. 8My father called the river Laman. It emptied into the Red
Sea. The valley was on the border near the mouth of the river.
9When he saw that the river emptied into the source[a] of the Red Sea, he said to Laman, “I hope you will be like this river, always running into the source of all righteousness!” 10He said to Lemuel: “I hope you will be like this valley, unshakeable in faith[b] and immovable in obeying the Lord’s commandments!” 11He said this because Laman and Lemuel were stubborn[c]. They complained about their father, because he was a visionary, and he had led them from Jerusalem, away from the lands they would have inherited, their gold, their silver, and their precious things, to die in the wilderness. They said he had done this because of the foolish fantasies of his heart. 12They complained because they did not know the teachings[d] of the God who had created them. 13Nor did they believe that the large and powerful[e] city of Jerusalem could be destroyed as the prophets had said. They were like the Jews at
who tried to kill my father.
14My father spoke to them in the valley of Lemuel. He was filled with the Spirit, so he spoke with power, until their bodies shook in front of him. He silenced their dissent[f], so they did as he commanded. 15My father lived in a tent.
16I was very young, but large, and I had a great
desire to know of the mysteries of God. I cried out to the Lord. He visited
me and softened my heart so that I believed what my father had said. Therefore, I did not rebel against him as my brothers had. 17I told Sam what the Lord, through his Holy Spirit, had shown[g] me.
Sam believed what I said. 18But Laman and Lemuel would not pay attention[h]. I cried out to the Lord for them because the hardness of their hearts saddened me.
19The Lord said to me, “You are blessed, Nephi, because of your faith, for you have searched for me diligently and humbly. 20If
[i]you keep my commandments, you will prosper and be led to a land of promise, a land I have prepared for you which is superior to[j] all other lands. 21If your
brothers rebel against you, they will be cut off from the presence of the Lord. 22If you keep my commandments, you will be made a ruler and teacher over your brothers. 23If the time comes that your brothers rebel against me, I will curse them harshly[k],
and they will have no power over your children unless your children rebel against me also. 24If your children rebel against me, your brothers will be a scourge to them, to stir them up in the ways of remembrance.
1 Nephi 3
1I returned to my father’s tent after speaking with the Lord.
2My father said to me, “I had a dream in which the Lord commanded me to send you and your brothers back to
I require is difficult, but I do not require it. It is the Lord’s commandment. 6Go, my son, and the Lord will favor you, because you have not complained.”
7 I responded, “I will go and do what the Lord has commanded, for I know that the Lord does not give commandments to the children of men without making it possible for them to do as he directs.”
8When my father heard this he was very glad, because he knew that I had been blessed by the Lord. 9My brothers and I traveled through the wilderness to Jerusalemwith our tents.
10When we arrived there, we consulted with each other. 11We cast lots to decide which of us would go to Laban’s house. Laman received[l] the lot. He went to Laban’s house and
talked with him. 12Laman asked Laban for the records engraved on the brass plates, which contained my father’s genealogy.
13Laban became angry, and expelled Laman, and would not let Laman have the records. Laban said, “You are a robber, and I will kill you.” 14But Laman fled and told us what Laban had done. We became very sorrowful, and my brothers were about to return to my father. 15But I said to them, “As the Lord lives, and as we live, we will not return to our father in the wilderness until we do as the Lord commanded us. 16Let us be faithful in keeping the Lord’s commandments. Let us go to our father’s land. He left behind gold, and silver, and all sorts of riches, at the Lord’s command; 17for he knew that Jerusalemwould be destroyed because of the wickedness of its people.”
18“They rejected the words of the prophets. If my father had stayed there after he was commanded to leave, he would also die; and so he had to flee. 19It is wisdom in God that we should get these records to preserve our fathers’ language for our children, 20and also to preserve for them the words of all the holy prophets, which the Spirit and power of God delivered to those prophets from the beginning of the world to the present day.”
21With such talk, I convinced my brothers to[m] keep God’s commandments. 22We went to our family’s land and gathered our gold, our silver, and our precious
things. 23Then we returned to Laban’s house.
24We visited Laban and asked him to give us the
records engraved on the brass plates in exchange for our wealth.
25When Laban saw our extremely plentiful property, he coveted it , threw us out, and sent his servants to kill us so that he could take it. 26We ran from Laban’s servants; we had to leave our property behind, and Laban took it.
27We fled to the wilderness. Laban’s servants did not catch us, and we hid in a hole in a rock. 28Laman was angry with me and my father; Lemuel was angry also, for he listened to Laman’s words. They spoke harshly to us, their younger brothers, and they beat us with a stick.
29As they beat us, an angel of the Lord came and stood before them, and he said to them, “Why are you beating your younger brother with a stick? Do you not know that the Lord has chosen him as your ruler, because of your sins? You will return to Jerusalem again and the Lord will put Laman in your hands.” 30After the angel spoke to us, he departed. 31Then, Laman and Lemuel began to complain again, saying, “How can the Lord put Laban in our hands? He is a powerful man, and he can command fifty. He can even kill fifty; can he not kill us?”
[a] From fountain
(n): a spring or source of water issuing from the earth and collecting in a
basin, natural or artificial; also, the head-spring or source of a stream or river;
fig a spring, source, well.
[b] Original
text: “firm and steadfast”. Current
phrasing from steadfast (adj): of persons: unshakeable, immovable in faith,
resolution, friendship, etc.
[c] From stiffnecked
(adj): Chiefly figurative of persons, with Biblical reference; obstinate,
stubborn, inflexible, haughty.
[d] From dealings
(n): intercourse, friendly or business communication, connexion.
[e] From great
(adj): Big, preeminent in importance. As
applied to nations, cities, etc., this sense blends the literal senses relating
to spatial or numerical latitude with the sense of great power.
[f] From confound
(v): To discomfit in argument, silence, confute (a person, or a statement,
opinion, etc.).
[g] From manifest
(v): to make (a quality, fact, etc.) evident to the eye or the
understanding; to show plainly, disclose, reveal. Also refl., especially of supernatural beings.
[h] From hearken
(v): To apply the mind to what is said; to attend, have regard; to listen
with sympathy or docility.
[i] From inasmuch
(adv): in so far as, to such a degree as, in proportion to, according to. The OED also offered a second
definition: in that; in view of the fact that; considering that; on the
ground or for the reason that; since, because. Both definitions were in use during the
1830s. The original text of verses 20-23
is ambiguous, with two clearly supportable meanings. The Lord may be predicting future events,
declaring that Nephi will be obedient and rewarded while his brothers will be
disobedient and punished, or He may be describing a future based conditionally
on the possible behavior of Nephi and his brothers. The second interpretation is utilized here
because the Lord’s prediction in verse 24 is clearly conditional, which implies
the same of the earlier verses.
[j] The
original text read “which is choice above.” The rephrasing is from choice
(adj): worthy of being chosen, select, exquisite, of picked quality, of
special excellence.
[k] From sore
(adj): pressing hardly upon one; oppressively heavy or severe; difficult to
bear or support.
[l] This
wording may change once the editor learns how lot-drawing works.
[m] The
original text, “did I persuade my brethren, that they might be faithful in
keeping the commandments of God,” is unclear. Is Nephi saying here that he convinced his brothers they were capable of
obeying, or is he saying he actually convinced them to obey? The choice of the latter option here is
tentative.
Again, very good work. One verse does remain fairly archaic:
1 Ne 2:24
…your brothers will be a scourge to them, to stir them up in the ways of remembrance.
I’m pretty sure modern folks don’t often use the word “scourge” or phrases like “the ways of rememberance,” although I’m not sure how else you could render it. Perhaps something like, “your brothers will plague them, and cause them to remember the old ways.”
I think this is a great project for reflecting and learning.
I once pointed out to an institute teacher that there are no rivers that “continually” (or, using your term, “always”) flow into the Red Sea–only ones that flow seasonally. After some research, he responded that a secondary definition of “continually” is “recurring regularly.” Since the river in question arguably fits the secondary definition of “continually,” he thought it telling that Joseph Smith used that word instead of “continuously,” which has no such secondary definition. I had to concede the point, but now I wonder why Lehi would use that as a model for Laman’s behavior. Is “regularly recurring” righteousness the best he could hope for?
It reminds me of the J. Golden Kimball quote, “I may not stay on the straight and narrow, but I try to cross it as often as possible.”
Last Lemming,
Thanks for the information; this sort of response is why I’m posting the text here. I think that, since it seems unlikely that Lehi hoped his sons would be righteous at regular intervals, I’m going to go with a FARMS idea (gasp!) and say that Lehi must not have realized his river was perenial. I just can’t imagine any religious person saying to their kids, “I hope you’ll be righteous on a periodic basis.”
I plan to post two or three more chapters tomorrow afternoon. I didn’t want to take such a long break, but RT and I have just moved back to the US after an extended stay abroad, and I lost a week to jet lag.