The Deseret News reported about a BYU professor who discovered a significant error in translations of the Bible that was perpetuated for centuries.
A BYU researcher has conclusively recovered the name of the woman who received the New Testament letter known as 2 John, according to a new book.
Meet Electa, an early Christian woman whose identity was concealed for nearly 2,000 years due to corrupted Greek texts and centuries of New Testament commentaries that mistakenly believed the original writer called her only “an elect lady.”
Her name has been considered a mystery because scribes copying original Greek texts accidentally dropped two letters, says Lincoln Blumell, associate dean of research in the BYU Department of Ancient Scripture.
Part of the problem was that every study of the past 150 years universally accepted the mistake without questioning the manuscript texts.
Everyone should read the full article, at https://www.deseret.com/education/2025/11/08/stunning-find-meet-the-missing-woman-in-the-bible-rediscovered-by-a-byu-researcher/
Now that the error has been corrected, we wonder how it was perpetuated for so long?
From the article:
The lesson is that scholars should avoid repeating what others write without testing it, Blumell said.
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That lesson would go a long way to correcting errors that have "crept in" regarding the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.
Instead, many promising young LDS scholars merely repeat what their teachers have told them. That's why we see SITH and M2C persisting.
Maybe this example of how to correct long-held beliefs can prompt young LDS scholars to think for themselves and avoid repeating what their predecessors have written without testing...
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Another ramification of the error was how it led to "wild theories."
The mistake also led to centuries of wild theories in biblical studies, Blumell said. Some argued the unnamed elect lady might be Mary, the mother of Jesus, or Martha, the sister of Lazarus and Mary.
One said it might be a love letter. Some even argued the letter was fictional.
“No,” Blumell said, “the Greek just got corrupted. I give dozens of examples of the same kind of error occurring in early Christian manuscripts or papyri, where two are duplicated letters get dropped.”
We can all see the parallel to today's situation in which Latter-day Saint scholars have (i) erased what Joseph and Oliver taught about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon and (ii) developed "wild theories" about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.
This table shows the parallel between the Deseret News article and the teachings of certain modern LDS scholars and their followers.
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2 John and Electa
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Origin and setting of the Book of Mormon
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The
mistake also led to centuries of wild theories in biblical studies, Blumell
said.
|
The
mistake also led to decades of wild theories about the origin and setting of
the Book of Mormon.
|
|
Some argued
the unnamed elect lady might be Mary, the mother of Jesus, or Martha, the
sister of Lazarus and Mary.
One said it
might be a love letter. Some even argued the letter was fictional.
|
Some argued
the Hill Cumorah might be in Mexico (M2C), or Baja, or anywhere else except
western New York. Some even argued the Hill Cumorah was fictional.
Some argued
that Joseph Smith did not really translate the engravings on the plates with
the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates, as he and Oliver always said,
but instead Joseph read words off a stone in the hat (SITH) without even referring
to the plates.
|
|
“No,” Blumell
said, “the Greek just got corrupted. I give dozens of examples of the same
kind of error occurring in early Christian manuscripts or papyri, where two
are duplicated letters get dropped.”
|
No, the
scholars just ignored, forgot and/or repudiated what Joseph and Oliver said
about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon and the narrative just got
corrupted. There is abundant extrinsic evidence that corroborates what they
said.
|
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| Looking north from Cumorah |
