The Translation

The coming forth of the Book of Mormon is a modern day miracle. In fact, Rexxploring the Book of Mormon explains that “a marvelous work and a wonder” in the original Hebrew translates as “a miraculous miracle and a miracle.” Redundant? Maybe. Powerful? Definitely. One amazing fact that contributes to this miracle is the small length of time it took to translate the book.

Joseph Smith began to seriously work on the translation a few days after meeting Oliver Cowdery on April 5, 1829. (This of course is after the 116 pages transcribed by Martin Harris were lost.) The translating finished sometime in late June and Joseph and Oliver finally found someone to print the manuscript in August. By my calculation, that means that the entire 530 page (at least in the current edition) book was translated in between 70 and 80 days. Using 75 days as the estimate, my calculator says that Joseph and Oliver translated about seven pages per day. I wonder how many other 500 page books were written that quickly. Probably not many.

Another thing to think about is that during this time, they were not translating all day, every day. They went to Colesville, NY a couple times, received some sections in the D&C, did missionary work, and did many other things during that time. This just adds to the fact that they translated the record very quickly. Much quicker than someone making it up as they go along, and much more complex and historically correct as well.