These statements have led to the assumption of the theory, I repeat, that the Urim and Thummim did the translating, not Joseph the Seer. Accordingly, it is held that the translation was a mechanical, arbitrary, transliteration; a word for word bringing over from the Nephite language into the English language, a literal interpretation of the record. The prophet, therefore, it is urged, was in no way responsible for the language of the translation, it was not his, but the divine instrument's, and if there are errors of grammar, or faults of diction, (modern words for which in the nature of things there could be no exact equivalents in an ancient language) New England localisms, modern phrases from the English translation of Hebrew scripture, and other sources--all these must have been in the original Nephite record, say the advocates of this theory, and are arbitrarily brought over into the English language. This theory of translation led opponents of the Book of Mormon and some who were not opponents of it, but sincere investigators of its claims--to suggest certain difficulties involved in such a theory of translation. First. The impossibility of such a thing as a word-for-word bringing over from one language into another. Such a procedure could only result in producing an unintelligible jargon--a fact well known by those who are at all acquainted with translation. Second. The fact that the language of the English translation of the Nephite record is in the English idiom, and diction of the period and locality when and where the translation took place, and is evidently but little influenced by any attempt to follow the idiom of an ancient language. Third. The fact that such errors in grammar and diction as occur in the translation are just such errors as might reasonably be looked for in the work of one unlearned in the English language.