Questions about the Lord’s Prayer in The Book of Mormon

Recently a dear friend asked me a question that I had never heard or considered before.  As nearly as I remember, she worded it something like this,

In the Lord’s Prayer in Bible, it says ‘lead us not into temptation’. This line is the same in The Book of Mormon as it is in the Bible.  So why would Joseph Smith change it to ‘let us not be led into temptation’ when he wrote the Joseph Smith Translation of Bible?

My friend asked this question sincerely and with the best of intentions, knowing that I have a recent fascination with this type of thing and would want to search for an answer.  While I am certain that she had no ill intent, I have read enough anti-Mormon literature to know how this same question would be posed by a critic to make someone question their faith.

Have you ever noticed that The Lord’s Prayer in The Book of Mormon is exactly the same as in the book of Matthew in the Bible, but when Joseph Smith did his own translation of the Bible he changed it? Doesn’t this show that he actually just copied parts of the King James Version of the Bible into The Book of Mormon, and then didn’t realize that he was contradicting himself when he made changes to it in the Joseph Smith Translation? If The Book of Mormon is supposed to be translated by the power of God and be the most correct book on earth, then why would it need to be fixed? Isn’t this just more evidence that Joseph Smith was a con man and a liar?

Coming up with a clear answer to this question is difficult, in part because there is so much we just don’t know with any certainty, and in part because trying to give a spiritual answer to a logical question often comes across as unsatisfying.  Still, I going to give this my best shot, but with the caveat that this answer is not going to feel sufficient to everyone and it certainly doesn’t represent the position of the LDS Church.  This is simply my current opinion and some interesting things I came across while looking into this question.

Let’s start with that pesky word translation, which never seems quite accurate when talking about anything Joseph Smith did.  Most of us think of translation as taking the meaning of words and phrases in one language that the translator knows then transferring that meaning into a second language also known by that person.  This is clearly not what was happening either when Joseph Smith translated The Book of Mormon (BOM) or in his writing of the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) of the Bible.

In the case of the BOM, we know very little of the actual translation process. Joseph Smith simply said that The Book of Mormon was translated, “by the gift and power of God”.  This book is an interesting mix of unique material and passages and quotations from the Bible. Some of the content points to an ancient origin, while other parts of the text suggest that it is a 19th-century creation. This can be disconcerting and hard to explain unless we consider the accounts of Joseph Smith and other witnesses of the “translation” process. All agree that Joseph dictated the text without the use of any notes or books and did it in a very short period of time, refuting the idea of him copying lines from the Bible.  It seems to me that Joseph, lacking any knowledge of ancient languages, simply dictated what the Lord revealed to him and that the Lord gave the manuscript in the way that would be most beneficial to its intended audience, making it an ancient record, rewritten for modern readers. The English found in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible make the similarities and differences between the two books of scripture easy to recognize; after all the BOM is another testament of Christ and is intended to augment, clarify, and strengthen the existing testaments.

The JST is more difficult to categorize.  Mormon scholar Stephen E. Robinson explains it this way: 

The JST is not the LDS version of the Bible—the KJV is and always has been. Of course we believe that the JST is “inspired,” but that is not the same thing as saying it always restores the original texts of the biblical books. In 1828 the word translation was far broader in its meaning and the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) should be understood to contain additional revelation, alternate readings, prophetic commentary or midrash, harmonization, clarification and corrections of the original as well as corrections to the original.

If we think of the JST as an inspired commentary on the Bible, then we understand that the phrase, let us not be led into temptation, clarifies the intended meaning of the phrase, lead us not into temptation, rather than necessarily restoring it to its original wording. This meaning is consistent with James 1:13 which reads:

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.

If we think of the JST as making clear the meaning of what might otherwise be a misleading phrase, then the question isn’t why doesn’t the JST match the Bible and BOM? but instead, why are these two accounts worded in this way? Scholars offer some interesting insight.

Ancient language expert, Chaim Bentorah reminds us that Jesus probably taught in Aramaic, which would have been translated to Greek and Hebrew before the King James English we recognize.  He goes on:

Another thing to keep in mind about this culture is that they had no recording devices and most of what was taught by the rabbis was put to a sort of rhythm, meter or rhyme.  Although not poetry, it did form a good device to aid in memorization. The rhythm and rhyme of the Lord ’s Prayer was lost when it was translated into the Greek.  However, when transposed into Aramaic and even Hebrew you recapture much of the meter.  This is why you will find so many idiomatic expressions. It can be difficult at times to express your thoughts in a rhyme and sometimes the only way to make a thought rhyme is to create an idiomatic expression.

Bentorah points out that a phrase with the same meaning is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls which has the same rhyme and meter. This strengthens his case that the phrase Lead us not into temptation is an idiomatic expression and makes it easier to trace the original meaning.  He believes that the Aramaic word most likely used by Jesus, for temptation is nesiona, which translated into Greek became peirasmon.  He suggests that a more proper rendering of the phrase would be Do not allow us to enter wrongful thinking or testing.

The idea of allowing rather than causing matches well with the JST.

Biblical scholar, E. W. Bullinger agrees that the phrase Lead us not into temptation is an idiom and that the meaning is allowing.  He explains in his book Figures of Speech Used in the Bible* that active verbs were used by the Hebrews to express, not the doing of the thing, but the permission of the thing which the agent is said to do.  He gives several Biblical examples of this.  Here are just a few:

• In Exodus 4: 21 the Lord says he will harden Pharaoh’s heart, instead of that He will permit Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened.
• In Jeremiah 4:10 it says that the Lord has deceived the people, rather than He allowed them to be deceived by false prophets.
• In Matthew 11:5 Jesus thanks the Lord for hiding important truths from the wise and prudent, when the real meaning is that these people weren’t seeking those truths.
• In Acts 13:29 it says the rulers took Jesus down from the tree and laid him in a sepulcher, rather than that they permitted Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus to do so.

Now let’s turn to the thing I found while researching this question that most interested me.  If you are willing to buy into the idea that Christ’s words were given to Joseph Smith in King James English to help us to recognize the doctrinal ideas that can be found by comparing the Bible and the BOM, then the cool question to ask isn’t why are some things are the same, but rather which things are different.  So here are the two versions of the Lord’s Prayer side by side.

I’ve tried to make the two major differences obvious.  First, the prayer given to the Nephites omits the phrase Thy kingdom come. Could this be the Savior’s way of saying that he has done the work he came to do, the atonement and resurrection have been completed and in that sense, the Lord’s kingdom has now come?  The second missing phrase is Give us this day our daily bread.  Does this omission let us know that the meaning of the word bread here isn’t the food we need to nourish our bodies, but the Living Bread who has the power to save and who is currently present with those he is teaching? 

In a post from nearly nine months ago, when I was just beginning this blog, I wrote:

Maybe the most surprising discovery that has come from my recent studies is that usually the answers that resonate most powerfully with me lead me back to my primary testimony or to the most basic doctrines—Christ, His Atonement, the plan of salvation, patience, kindness,  forgiveness, and love.

I am still finding this to be true. I  believe that the test of The Book of Mormon is not in the text of The Book of Mormon, it is in the precepts and the practice. It is in finding Christ there and trying to be his disciple.  Yes, Joseph Smith said that it was the most correct of any book on earth, and he also told us the reason why, because a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than any other book. I believe that the strength of The Book of Mormon is in its testimony of Christ.

Note: I don’t claim to be an expert, just an ordinary person trying to sort through complex issues.  If I have missed something or gotten it wrong, I would really appreciate your comments.  My goal is to be part of a civil conversation that helps me learn and promotes understanding.  With this in mind, I would love to reach a larger audience. If you are willing to like or share this post or site on social media, I would be grateful.

*This is found on page 877 of the PDF