Reason #43: Joseph and Nauvoo

There's an error in the upcoming edition of The Mormon Mirage. (Yes, since I'm human, there will be errors.)  This one has to do with the assertion of Fawn Brodie (author of No Man Knows My History, a biography of Joseph Smith) and others who have said that Joseph Smith just picked out of thin air the word “Nauvoo” (a place name he gave to a city he founded).  He said that it was Hebrew, and his critics, including Brodie, said the word never existed.

Recently I went to a pro-LDS site that successfully countered that claim.  In writing the updated Mormon Mirage I should have checked out Brodie's claim (I took Hebrew as part of my graduate studies) but instead repeated it.  I regret that.  In fact there is indeed in the Hebrew Bible the word Nauvoo, specifically in Isaiah 52:7.

But what is so interesting is the proof that this pro-LDS site gives for the existence of the word.  It shows a photocopy of the very Hebrew grammar aid that a teacher used with Joseph Smith so he could learn Hebrew.

So he could learn Hebrew.  The man who could without anything but his hat could translate reformed Egyptian needed a Hebrew teacher?  And a grammar book?  The prophet, seer, and revelator and translator of Egyptian scrolls had to sit down and learn the Hebrew Aleph-Bet and vowel pointing?  

No man with the gift of translation (Doctrine and Covenants 124:25) who could reveal secrets in unknown tongues should need a tutor for the known ones!  

 For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition:  A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.