According to Cleon Skousen, sometimes we think that the heavenly bodies are trapped in the perpetual laws of physics or astronomical laws of gravitation. The scriptures plainly teach, however, that these basic principles are not immutable. Mormon declares that if God wants to move the earth into a different orbit or a different place in the galaxy he can “say unto the earth--move--[and] it is moved” (Helaman 12:13).
It is sometimes said that God discovered all the natural laws and then exploited them to his advantage. The scripture seems to suggest the very opposite. By the word of His power, God sets up certain patterns which we call “natural law.” What we observe is actually God’s pattern or particular elements and not a “natural” or primal law at all. As the Lord has said, “And unto every kingdom (atoms, galaxies and the universe) is given a law, and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions” (D&C 88:38). [W. Cleon Skousen, Treasures from the Book of Mormon, Vol. 3, p. 3305]
“If and ”
According to Royal Skousen, one of the interesting complexities of the original English-language text of the Book of Mormon is that it contains expressions that appear to be uncharacteristic of English in all of its dialects and historical stages. These structures also support the notion that Joseph Smith’s translation is a literal one and not simply a reflection of either his own dialect or the style of early modern English found in the King James Version of the Bible.
For instance, in the original text of the Book of Mormon we find a number of occurrences of a Hebrew-like conditional clause. In English, we have conditional clauses like “if you come, then I will come,” with then being optional. In Hebrew this same clause is expressed as “if you come and I will come.” In the original text of the Book of Mormon, there were at least fourteen occurrences of this non-English expression. One occurrence was removed in 1 Nephi 17:50 as Oliver Cowdery was producing the Printer’s Manuscript by copying from the Original Manuscript …
The remaining thirteen occurrences were all removed by Joseph Smith in his editing for the second edition of the Book of Mormon, published in 1837 in Kirtland, Ohio. One example comes from Moroni 10:4: "and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart with real intent having faith in Christ, and he will manifest the truth of it… .
This use of “and” is not due to scribal error, especially since this if-and expression occurs seven times in one brief passage (Helaman 12:13,14,16,17,19,20,21). The following are examples:
yea and if he sayeth unto the earth move and it is moved (Helaman 12:13)
yea if he say unto the earth thou shalt go back … and it is done (Helaman 12:14)
also if he sayeth unto the waters … be thou dried up … and it is done (Helaman 12:16)
Behold, if he say unto this mountain--Be thou raised up … and behold it is done (Helaman 12:17)
if the Lord shall say … no man shall find thee … and behold no man getteth it (Helaman 12:19)
and behold, if the Lord shall say … be accursed forever and it shall be done (Helaman 12:20)
and if the Lord shall say … be cut off from my presence and … it shall be so (Helaman 12:21)
These examples of the if-and construction in the original text suggest that Joseph Smith did not simply get the idea of a conditional construction in his mind. If that had been the case, he should have translated that idea using the English if-then construction, possibly without the “then,” but in any event, without the connective “and.” The multiple occurrence of the non-English if-and construction suggests that even the word “and” was controlled for.
This and other evidence [discussed previously by Skousen] from the Original Manuscript supports the traditional belief that Joseph Smith received a revealed text through the interpreters. This idea of a controlled text originates with statements made by the witnesses of the translation. The evidence from the Original Manuscript, when joined with internal evidence from the text itself, suggests that this control was tight, but not iron-clad. The text could be “ungrammatical” from a prescriptive point of view, but the use of nonstandard English is not evidence that the text was not being tightly controlled, or that it did not come from the Lord, who apparently does not share our insistence on “proper English” (see D&C 1:24). In fact, the occurrence of non-English Hebraisms such as the if-and construction strongly suggest that the text was tightly controlled, down to the level of the word at least. And the spelling of names such as Coriantumr [written in after “Coriantumer” was crossed out--Helaman 1:15] suggests that control could be imposed down to the very letter.
All of this evidence (from the Original Manuscript, witnesses’ statements, and from the text itself) is thus consistent with the hypothesis that Joseph Smith could actually see (whether in the interpreters themselves or in his mind’s eye) the translated English text--word for word and letter for letter--and that he read off this revealed text to his scribe. Despite Joseph’s reading off of the text, one should not assume that this process was automatic or easily done. Joseph had to prepare himself spiritually for this work. Yet the evidence suggests that Joseph Smith was not the author of the Book of Mormon, not even its English language translation, although it was revealed spiritually through him and in his own language. [Royal Skousen, “Translating the Book of Mormon, Evidence from the Original Manuscript,” in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited, pp. 88-91]