Michael A McLeod

Joseph Smith Michael A McLeod

Idioms are everywhere in our language (especially in sports), and we often use them without realizing it. "Kick the bucket," "a horse of a different color," "the cat's meow," "chew the fat," "that ship has sailed," "let sleeping dogs lie," "hold your horses," "slept like a log"-the list of idioms is almost endless. Idioms I found in the Book of Mormon like "scales of darkness" and "illuminated by the light of the everlasting word" are so familiar that we do not take special note of them-just like we overlook the idioms we use in our language every day. Joseph Smith translated the existing text of the Book of Mormon in no more than 65 working days. With just a third-grade level of education, he did not have the ability to write it in that brief amount of time, let alone create the 252 idioms and phrases. He would have had to create almost four new idioms/unique phrases every day for the entire time of translation-which is a challenging task even for a professional writer. In addition, creating so many meaningful phrases would have taken away precious time from his creating the dozens of individual stories and deep religious doctrines that were woven into one harmonious volume. In comparison, this simple book, Joseph Smith: Translator, has taken me years to research, write, and rewrite, and I have a Masters of Communication degree. This book is like a child's alphabet book compared to the Book of Mormon. At the very least, I hope you will read the list of 252 idioms, unique phrases and terms that I have found and believe offer one small evidence that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon and did not write it. Michael A. McLeod