Die Boek van Mormon
By John M. Pontius
I was searching through my books in storage a few
days ago and
came across a first edition of the Book of Mormon in
Afrikaans. I
served a mission in South African from 1971 to 1973.
It was an
interesting and challenging experience.
I attended the Stake Conference in Johannesburg on
May 14, 1972
when the new translation of the Book of Mormon into
Afrikaans (Die
Boek van Mormon) was presented. It was an electric
moment. People
wept. Some had waited all of their lifetimes to read
the Book of
Mormon in Afrikaans. Many people had learned English
for the sole
purpose of reading this scripture. The Spirit was
strong among us as
we rejoiced.
Remembering back more than 50 years, I can still
remember Professor
Felix Mynhardt [not a member of our church] as he
spoke of his
experience in translating that sacred book. I will
retell it as best I can
recall.
Professor Mynhardt was invited to come to the stand
and speak about
his experience in translating the Book of Mormon. He
recounted how
he had been given a gift of languages from God from
his youth. He
said that he was fluent in many languages, including
English,
Afrikaans, Hebrew and Egyptian, as well as many
others. He was
presently employed as a language professor. He said
he had been
praying that the Lord would give him some task, some
divinely
important task, that would justify his having this
gift of language from
God.
He said in about 1970 that he had visited with a
group of Mormon
leaders, who sought to commission him to translate
the Book of
Mormon from English into Afrikaans. He said that he
knew of the Book
of Mormon from his religions studies, and his
initial reaction was that
he did not want to be involved in translating it.
However, that evening, as he prayed upon his knees,
as was his habit,
he said the Spirit of the Lord convicted him. The
message was
something on the order of, “You asked me for a
great, divinely inspired
task of translation, I sent it to you in the form of
translating the Book of
Mormon, and you declined.” Professor Mynhardt said
he could not
sleep through the night because he knew that
translating the Book of
Mormon would get him into trouble with his
university, which was
owned and operated by the Dutch Reformed Church.
When morning
came he telephoned Elder Clark to inform him that he
would begin the
translation immediately.
He stood at the pulpit and described the experience.
He said, “I never
begin translating a book at the beginning. Writing
style usually
changes through a book, and becomes more consistent
toward the
middle. Accordingly, I opened to a random place in
the middle of the
Book of Mormon, and began translating.” He said, “I
was startled by
the obvious fact that the Book of Mormon was not
authored in English.
He said, “It became immediately apparent that what I
was reading was
a translation into English from some other language.
The sentence
structure was wrong for native English. The word
choices were wrong,
as were many phrases.” He said, “How many times has
an Englishman
said or written, ‘And it came to pass?’” We all
laughed, and knew he
was right, of course.
He continued, “When I realized this, I knew that I
had to find the
original language, and translate it back into the
original language, or a
similar language to the original, and then proceed
to translate it into
Afrikaans. He listed a half-dozen languages he
tried, all of which did
not accommodate the strange sentence structure found
in the Book of
Mormon. He said, “I finally tried Egyptian, and to
my complete surprise,
I found that the Book of Mormon translated
flawlessly into Egyptian,
not modern, but ancient Egyptian. I found that some
nouns were
missing from Egyptian, so I added Hebrew nouns where
Egyptian did
not provide the word or phrase. I chose Hebrew
because both
languages existed in the same place anciently.”
“I had no idea at that time why the Book of Mormon
was once written
in Egyptian, but I can tell you without any doubt,
that this book was at
one point written entirely in Egyptian.” I heard him
say this over and
over. Then, he said, “Imagine my utter astonishment
when I turned to
chapter one, verse one and began my actual
translation and came to
verse two, where Nephi describes that he was writing
in the language
of the Egyptians, with the learning of the Jews!”
He said, “I knew by the second verse, that this was
no ordinary book,
that it was not the writings of Joseph Smith, but
that it was of ancient
origin and was in fact scripture. I could have saved
myself months of
work if I had just begun at the beginning. Nobody
but God, working
through a prophet of God, in this case Nephi, would
have included a
statement of the language he was writing in.
Consider, how many
documents written in English, include the phrase, “we
are writing in
English!” It is unthinkable and absolute proof of
the inspired origins of
this book.
He paused, then noted, “I am one of the few people
in the world that is
fluent in ancient Egyptian. I am perhaps the only
person fluent in
ancient Egyptian who is also fluent in Afrikaans and
English. And I
know for a fact, that I am the only person alive who
could have
translated this book first into Egyptian, and then
into Afrikaans. If your
church ever needs an Egyptian translation of the
Book of Mormon, it is
sitting in my office as we speak.” We all laughed.
Professor Mynhardt spoke of many other things
regarding the
translation of this book, and then said, “I do not
know what Joseph
Smith was before he translated this book, and I do
not know what he
was afterward, but while he translated this book, he
was a prophet of
God! I know he was a prophet! I testify to you that
he was a prophet
while he brought forth this book! He could have been
nothing else! No
person in 1827 could have done what he did. The
science did not
exist. The knowledge of ancient Egyptian did not
exist. The knowledge
of these ancient times and ancient peoples did not
exist. The Book of
Mormon is scripture. I hope you realize this.
“I will keep promoting this book as scripture for
the remainder of my life
– simply because it is scripture, and I know it.
I haven’t studied your doctrine or your history
since Joseph Smith. The
only thing I know about the Mormon religion is that
you have authentic,
ancient scripture in the Book of Mormon, that your
church was begun
by a living and true prophet of God, and that all of
the world should
embrace the Book of Mormon as
scripture. It simply can’t be denied
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