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Papers by Kevin Barney

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

Over the decades in youth Sunday School classes, Seminary and Institute courses, adult Gospel Doc... more Over the decades in youth Sunday School classes, Seminary and Institute courses, adult Gospel Doctrine classes, BYU Religious Education courses, and in other venues, I have heard many hundreds of students make a comment in class based on Joseph Smith’s revision of the Bible, officially known in the Church as the “Joseph Smith Translation” (hereafter “JST”). And so far as I can recall, in 100% of those instances the person making the comment simply assumed that the JST emendation of the biblical text represented—in English—the original text of the passage. Such a simplistic understanding is perhaps understandable, as we never devote a lesson specifically to explaining the JST and what it represents, and so students are left to their own devices in trying to understand its significance. Actual scholars of LDS scripture do not make this simplistic assumption, but somehow we have failed to communicate to our students the breadth of possibilities inherent in any particular JST emendation. In this paper I propose to attempt a remedy to this situation, first by proposing a paradigm of 14 different categories into which JST emendations may fall, and second by illustrating the application of that paradigm based on a review of every single JST emendation in a book of scripture. The book I have selected for this purpose is 1 Corinthians. By my count, 63 verses of 1 Corinthians are emended by the JST. The 16 chapters of that book contain a total of 437 verses, and so the JST modifies about 14.4% of the verses in the text. By analyzing every JST emendation in the book, we can gain a better sense for the types of things going on in the JST project.

Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought, 2020

Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought

I sup I am not alld. to go into I suppose that I am not allowed-the head, or the head If I should... more I sup I am not alld. to go into I suppose that I am not allowed-the head, or the head If I should say anything but investign. but what is contd. in to go into an investigation of one-The head one of the what was in the bible the cry the Bible & I think is so many anything that is not in the Bible Gods, brought forth the of treason would be herd I wise men who wod. put me to-you would cry treason. So Gods.-Dr & Lawyers that will then go the Bible, death for treason I shall turn many learned and wise men have persecuted.-The Barasheet in the beginning, commentator today. I shall go to here-will go the the old Bible head one called the Gods Analizē the word in and the first Hebrew word in the the very Berosheit. make a together in grand council-through the head, an old Bible the 1st sen: In the begin-comment on the first sentence to bring forth the world. Jew added the word Bath, it ning-Berosheat-In by thro, of the history of creation. Beros-red the head one of the & every thing else. Roshed the heit want to annalize the word Gods, broat forth the Gods, head when the Inspd. man-Be-in by through & every-I will transpose it in the wrote it he did not put the 1st pt. thing else-rosh [indecipher-english language. I want to it. a man a Jew witht. any able]-the head, sheit-you to know & learn that the authy. thot. it too bad to begin to where do it come from-when Holy Ghost knows somthtalk about the head of any man. they inspired man wrote he did ing. The grand Council set The Head one of the Gods not put the Be there-But a jew at the head and contembrought forth the Gods" is the put it there. It read in the first-plated the creation of the true meang. of the word-if the head one of the Gods world, you do not believe it you do not brought forth the Gods-is the believe the learned man of God true meaning-rosheet signi-no man can tell you more fies to bring forth the Eloheim. than I do thus the H God brot. Learned men cannt learn any forth the Gods in the Head more than what I have told you council-I want to bring it to hence the head God brought English. Oh ye lawyers ye doc-forth the head God in the grand tors I want to let you know that council. Will simplify it in the the H G. knows something as English language. The learned well as you do-the Head God Doctors who have persecuted called togr. the Gods & set in me I want to let you know that

Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought

BYU Studies Quarterly, 2000

A Book of Mormon Casebook Review of John W. Welch. The Legal Cases in the Book of Mormon. Provo, ... more A Book of Mormon Casebook Review of John W. Welch. The Legal Cases in the Book of Mormon. Provo, UT: Maxwell Institute, 2008. 496 pp.,with appendixes, bibliography, index. $34.95. After graduating from Brigham Young University in classics in 1982, I returned to my home state to go to law school at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign-Urbana from 1982 to 1985. Many of the casebooks1 and hornbooks2 I used as a law student had been authored by professors at the college, including some I took classes from, men like John Cribbet on property, Wayne LaFave on criminal law, Ron Rotunda and John Nowak on constitutional law, Richard Painter on securities regulation, and Harry Krause on family law. This was an important, new phase in my education, and I remember it as a heady time, filled with rigorous academic inquiry. At some point after the regimented first year of study, I signed up for the legal history course taught by Professor Michael H. Hoeflich,3 1. A casebook is an...

The Foundation of Our Religion The importance of the volume under review, Opening the Heavens, ma... more The Foundation of Our Religion The importance of the volume under review, Opening the Heavens, may perhaps best be appreciated by recounting a lighthearted but apt analogy once made by Martin Marty, the eminent professor emeritus of modern Christian history at the University of Chicago: “When Cardinal de Polignac told Madame du Deffand that the martyr St. Denis, the first Bishop of Paris, had walked a hundred miles carrying his head in his hand, Madame du Deffand correctly observed, ‘In such a promenade it is the first step that is difficult.’” By analogy, if the beginning of the promenade of Mormon history, the First Vision and the Book of Mormon, can survive the crisis, then the rest of the promenade follows and nothing that happens in it can really detract from the miracle of the whole. If the first steps do not survive, there can be only antiquarian, not fateful or faith-full, interest in the rest of the story. 1. See Martin E. Marty, “Two Integrities: An Address to the Crisis i...

Royal Skousen’s work on his Book of Mormon critical text project demonstrates that he is an able ... more Royal Skousen’s work on his Book of Mormon critical text project demonstrates that he is an able textual critic who employs sound judgment and proven methods to uncover the original text of the Book of Mormon. In many cases, these decisions seem counterintuitive to untrained readers, but Skousen correctly applies the principle that a more awkward reading is most likely original. He also shows his ability to make conjectural emendations for which no direct textual evidence is available. In every case, Skousen clearly lays out his reasoning so that readers who disagree with his inferences can examine the evidence for themselves to reach their own conclusions. This paper goes on to speculate that Skousen’s work may in time bring the LDS and RLDS editions of the Book of Mormon closer together textually. In the end, the critical text project is a superb work of scholarship on par with the standard works of biblical textual criticism. Title

Many easily recognizable Hebrew words and names can be found in the Book of Abraham. One name tha... more Many easily recognizable Hebrew words and names can be found in the Book of Abraham. One name that hasn’t had a concrete meaning attached to it, however, is Elkenah. In this article, Barney addresses whether Elkenah is a person, place, or name; what its possible linguistic structures are; and what it might mean. Most importantly, Barney links Elkenah with the Canaanite god El and the attending cult—a cult that practiced human sacrifice. This has significant ramifications for the Book of Abraham, which has been criticized for its inclusion of human sacrifice. Assuming a northern location for the city Ur and taking Elkenah as the Canaanite El resolve the issue of child sacrifice in the Book of Abraham. Title

Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other …, 1997

Recently I had an experience that suggested this brief addendum to my essay on enallage in the Bo... more Recently I had an experience that suggested this brief addendum to my essay on enallage in the Book of Mormon. 1 Enallage, which is Greek for “interchange,” refers to a syntactic device that is fairly common in the Old Testament, where an author intentionally shifts from ...

Journal of the Book of Mormon and Restoration …, 1994

Thomas W. Brookbank long ago suggested that enallage, meaning the substitution of the singular fo... more Thomas W. Brookbank long ago suggested that enallage, meaning the substitution of the singular for the plural or vice versa for rhetorical effect, is present in the Book of Mormon.

I n 1997, InterVarsity Press, a Christian publishing house, published the truly groundbreaking Ho... more I n 1997, InterVarsity Press, a Christian publishing house, published the truly groundbreaking How Wide the Divide? A Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation 1 by Craig L. Blomberg and Stephen E. Robinson. This was a stunning achievement in religious publishing: a respectful, honest, probing dialogue on matters of ultimate religious significance between a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an evangelical Christian, both committed and knowledgeable. This remarkable conversation spawned others, some in the same spirit, others unfortunately not. A BYU Studies roundtable 2

maxwellinstitute.byu.edu

, Abner Cole, working under the pseudonym "Obediah Dogberry," began publishing a weekly newspaper... more , Abner Cole, working under the pseudonym "Obediah Dogberry," began publishing a weekly newspaper in Palmyra called The Reflector. In that paper he printed sa rcastic comments about the Book of Mormon before its publication and before he had even seen it. In the 29 December 1829 issue, Cole began to publish serially a pirated copy of the text of the Book of Mormon in violation of Joseph Smith's copyright, thus forcing Joseph to make a special tfip to Palmyra from Harmony, Pennsylvania. in order to compel Cole to cease and desist. Following the 22 January 1830 issue. Cole did stop publishing the Book of Mormon text itself, but he continued to publish his caustic commentary, including a parody he cruled the "Book of Pukei," which appeared in June and July of that year.! In the 6 January 1830 issue, Cole responded to a communication from someone styling himself " Plain Truth" with a series of six weekly articles, each under the title "Gold Bible." Cole, who did much I.

Hebrew poetry is based on various patterns of parallelism. Parallel lines are in turn created by ... more Hebrew poetry is based on various patterns of parallelism. Parallel lines are in turn created by the use of parallel words, that is, pairs of words bearing generally synonymous or antithetic meanings. Since the 1930s, scholars have come to realize that many of these “word pairs” were used repeatedly in a formulaic fashion as the basic building blocks of different parallel lines. The Book of Mormon reflects numerous parallel structures, including synonymous parallelism, antithetic parallelism, and chiasmus. As word pairs are a function of parallelism, the presence of such parallel structures in the Book of Mormon suggests the possible presence of word pairs within those structures. This article catalogs the use of forty word pairs that occur in parallel collocations both in the Book of Mormon and in Hebrew poetry. Title

THE QUESTION THIS ESSAY ATTEMPTS to answer is whether the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible (... more THE QUESTION THIS ESSAY ATTEMPTS to answer is whether the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible (JST) represents in any way a restoration of text that originally existed in ancient manuscripts but was later altered or removed by scribal carelessness or malice. It is often assumed in Church classrooms, periodicals, and manuals that the JST does in fact represent the original or ancient state of a biblical passage. Many a Sunday School discussion over a problematic biblical passage ends with reference to the JST version and the assertion that it represents the original wording. Of course, a perfect restoration would be in the language of the original, but the idea is that the JST gives the English sense of the original Greek or Hebrew texts of the Bible. Many JST passages demonstrate commendable sensitivity to problems inherent in the English of the King James Version (KJV). I think that the JST has considerable worth and merits careful study from the perspectives of both faith and sc...

Dialogue a Journal of Mormon Thought, Jul 1, 2009

This letter responds to Kevin Barney's "How to Worship Our Mother in Heaven (Wit... more This letter responds to Kevin Barney's "How to Worship Our Mother in Heaven (Without Getting Excommunicated)" (Dialogue 41, no. 4 [Winter 2008]: 121-47).

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought, 2020

Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought

BYU Studies Quarterly, 2000

Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other …, 1997

Journal of the Book of Mormon and Restoration …, 1994

maxwellinstitute.byu.edu

Dialogue a Journal of Mormon Thought, Jul 1, 2009