John Hilton III offers a "Master Class" on the Book of Mormon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipkflSC1bWE&t=1s
He does a great job explaining some of the background of the Book of Mormon. His examples of differences in the Original Manuscript and the printed editions (through today) are useful.
But the video has lots of errors that may confuse unaware viewers.
As Book of Mormon Guru, I hope Brother Hilton improves his research in the future.
Some examples:
The "Caractors" document was created by John Whitmer over a year after Martin went to see Anthon.
Like the Gospel Topics Essay on Translation, the Saints book, and the Come Follow Me manual, the video never quotes what Joseph and Oliver said about the translation. Instead, it falsely claims Joseph didn't give many details.
As a result, viewers of this video never learn that, following the 1831 conference, Joseph and Oliver repeatedly affirmed that Joseph translated the engravings on the plates with the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates, as he had been instructed by Moroni.
The video quotes Emma's "Last Testimony" several times. But her "Last Testimony" is so unreliable that her son Joseph Smith III, who conducted and recorded the interview that led to the "Last Testimony," didn't even mention it when he subsequently wrote an article concluding that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate and not the seer stone.
It's astonishing that modern LDS scholars keep promoting the "Last Testimony" when Emma's own son, who conducted the interview, didn't consider her testimony worth mentioning in his own analysis of the SITH vs U&T issue.
Next, the video discusses the changes Joseph and others made to the text.
This is misleading at best. Joseph's 1837 and 1840 changes don't align with the original Manuscript but instead reflect his revisions to grammar, which he was entitled to do as the translator (as the cover page of the 1840 edition explains).
Brother Hilton recognizes that these changes are a significant point for anti-Mormon critics. But instead of explaining how the changes corroborate Joseph's account of the translation, he gives his viewers both (i) a false narrative and (ii) an incoherent response.
1. The false narrative is the claim that Joseph made hundreds of changes to "better align" the text with the original manuscript. Anyone who compares the Original Manuscript to the changes Joseph made can see that is not true. Furthermore, at the beginning of this post, we noted the interesting examples that Brother Hilton gave. But he forgot to mention that Joseph Smith didn't notice those errors when he revised the text in 1837 and 1840!
2. The critics have a legitimate objection to the changes only because of SITH. Ironically, the video promotes SITH!
Here's how this works. According to SITH, Joseph read words that appeared on the stone-in-the-hat and didn't really translate anything. Therefore, according to SITH, the words in the original manuscript came directly from God. The anti-Mormon critics point out that, given there were mistakes in the original manuscript, the words on the stone could not have come from God because God doesn't make mistakes, which in turn leads to the logical conclusion that the words came from somewhere else (a human composition or an evil source). This is one reason why SITH is so inimical to faith.
On the other hand, if Joseph Smith actually did translate the engravings on the plates as he said he did, "after the manner of his language" (D&C 1:), then we could expect mistakes in the dictated text. And we would expect Joseph, as translator, to be fully entitled and authorized to revise the text to better express the original intent. Which is exactly what he claimed on the front page of the 1840 edition.
This is such an obvious point that any "Master Class" would point it out instead of telling viewers that these changes are not important.
A master class should focus on what Joseph and Oliver said about the translation, not on what the SITH sayers said.
