LOL, thanks Don for telling us that your “most perfect book” on earth is not as advertized. Lets examine what your history tells us about this translation process. For starters, we know that smith never really used the plates but stuffed his face into his hat and ‘recited’ what ever appeared on his seer stone.
Scribal errors – what did the scribe themselves say:
"Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man." (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Mo.: n.p., 1887, p. 12.)
http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1993.htm/ensign%20july%201993.htm/a%20treasured%20testament.htm
Please take note of this Don, Whitmer’s statement is endorsed by mormon leaders at the above website by Russell M. Nelson, "A Treasured Testament," Ensign, July 1993. Does this match YOUR scenario – not at all. Here is a documented check system – Cowdery would repeat the portion to insure correctness, THEN the next portion of the translation would appear and not until the passage was correctly copied down.
From the above Ensign article “Emma Smith, who acted as an earlier scribe for Joseph, gave this account in 1856:
“When my husband was translating the Book of Mormon, I wrote a part of it, as he dictated each sentence, word for word, and when he came to proper names he could not pronounce, or long words, he spelled them out, and while I was writing them, if I made any mistake in spelling, he would stop me and correct my spelling although it was impossible for him to see how I was writing them down at the time. Even the word Sarah he could not pronounce at first, but had to spell it, and I would pronounce it for him.”
So Don, put to bed the mormon “scribal error” excuse. IF it was by the power of god as described by the scribes, the bom was dictated letter by letter, word by word, eliminating the human error factor, since “translation” wouldn’t continue until it was written down correctly.
This is exactly the same way some NT variants were created when the scribe was making a hand copy by listening to a reader. You really don’t understand the process, even the passages you try to use to denigrate the Bible. Were you to fully study Metzger’s The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. You would note that he comments that New Testament manuscripts agree in 99.5% of content and that most of the discrepancies are in spelling and word order. As I stated before, you arguments do not stand up to critical examination – even by the very authors you try to cite.
And, of course, the generation of the printer's manuscript led to more mistakes. The work of Royal Skousen is to examine the differences between these manuscripts.
Wow, mythbusters day! Once again, there are two handwritten copies of the bom prior to the typesetting and printing. Guess what Don, through textural criticism applied even simply to the bom – those ‘errors’ are readily identified. Further, these items are primarily in the realm of punctuation and some spelling. This still doesn’t explain Ether 4:1, or 1 Nephi 20:1 where GROSS changes in the bom were made. Don, do a little deeper research. Why would the mormon church continue to change the work even after Joseph Smith's death? If the bom was translated by the power of god, the 4000 some ought changes suggest that this “power” was less than adequate.
Skousen may have his fun with the bom and its changes, but it is not at the level of biblical textural criticism. Any study of the bom must consider the two hand written original “translations” of the plates as being the most correct. Any changes to them would represent errors added by man to the bom - just as you claim any changes to the biblical ms over time represent the introduction errors.
Your point falls a bit short, the BofM does not claim to be a perfect book, just the most perfect book. That implies imperfections. It is certainly much closer to the original author's version than the Bible. Of course, we don't have the original copies of the Bible manuscripts, not even copies of the original copies, nor the even copies of those copies.
put to bed the mormon “scribal error” excuse
No can do. Again your point falls short. What you are providing is the recollection of the scribes on how the text was transmitted to them. I submit this is only speculation on their part on how the translation, as opposed to the transmission, took place. You did not provide an account by Joseph Smith on how the translation was accomplished, because there is none available. Also, not every word was spelled out, just names the first time they were transmitted to the scribe.
As a prophet, Joseph certainly had the inspiration to make any corrections to the BofM, and he did.
For more on that I would refer you to: "The Parallel Book of Mormon"