What is Meant by the Word “Cattle” as Used by Joseph Smith?

A friend sent me an article entitled "Cattle in the Book of Mormon,” by George Potter. In this article, Potter states: “Both the Jaredites (Ether 9:18) and the Nephites (Enos 1:21) raised cattle. This Book of Mormon fact puzzles many students of the book because the ancient inhabitants of North and Central America only domesticated dogs and turkeys. (Charles Mann, 1491, New Revelations of the Americas, 109). To find the answer to this puzzle, one only needs to understand that the Book of Mormon history probably transpired in South America and that the term "cattle" meant something different to the translator of the Book of Mormon than what the term generally means today.”

What is difficult for me to understand is this mad effort by some LDS scholars to try and point out that the words Joseph Smith used to translate the reformed Egyptian written on the plates Moroni presented to him, what we call the Book of Mormon today, should mean something other than what Joseph stated. Where does this idea come from and why?

First of all, there are two thoughts that should be considered: 1) Joseph grew up in a farming community. His father, Joseph Smith Sr., was described as a merchant farmer. When a business venture failed and three years of crop failures, the Smith family moved to Palmyra and took a mortgage on a 100-acre farm along the border of nearby Manchester town. It was here Joseph grew to manhood, had his first vision, and saw for the first time the plates Moroni directed him to locate. During these years, Joseph worked on the farm of his father. He knew about farm animals, grains, planting, harvesting, and all the other normal work known to a farmer in 1815 to 1827. At this time, Joseph Sr., would have been 44 to 56 years of age, and Joseph Jr., 10 to 22 year of age.

2) The words Joseph chose for his interpretation of the reformed Egyptian were VERIFIED by the spirit according to his two scribes, Martin Harris and David Whitmer. Most readers of this blog are quite familiar with the testimonies of these two scribes who testified of how the translation took place and have been reprinted here numerous times. But Joseph’s wife, Emma Smith, also was his scribe for a time and her testimony, given to her son, Joseph Smith III, is also quite clear: “In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.”

According to Martin Harris, “"By aid of the Seer Stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say 'written;' and if correctly written, the sentence would disappear and another appear in its place; but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used" (CHC 1:29).

Consequently, if Joseph chose to use the word “cattle” to describe the animals of the Jaredites and Nephites, we can know with perfect clarity that this word was the exact and correct translation of the reformed Egyptian character(s). It did not mean something else!

However, Potter like many other LDS historians, forever trying to find some other reason or excuse to satisfy current academic thinking of the Land of Promise, claimed “ancient inhabitants of North and Central America only domesticated dogs and turkeys.” While that may be true, the ancient inhabitants of the Andean area of South America domesticated Llamas and Alpacas, which were used as beasts of burden by the ancients in BC times, as well as did the Inca when the Spanish Conquistadores arrived.

In fact, the Andes mountains of South America is the home of four members of the camel family: the llama, the alpaca, the pacuña, and the vicuña. At least the llama, alpaca, and pacuña were domesticated in large numbers in South America during Book of Mormon times. Further, Joseph Smith would have been 100% correct in translating a Reformed Egyptian word meaning various types of camels as "cattle." Noah Webster's 1828 American Usage Dictionary defines "cattle" as: "In its primary sense, the word includes camels, horses, asses, all the varieties of domesticated horned beasts of the bovine genus, sheep of all kinds, and goats."

This broader meaning of the word "cattle" was understood by both the Bible and Book of Mormon prophets. For example, Nephi quoted Isaiah 7:25 "sending forth of oxen, and the treading of lesser cattle (2 Nephi 17:25).

It is not necessary, and never is, to try and apologize for what is written in the Book of Mormon. Every word, every description, every idea and understanding found in those pages are as accurate as can be written by man and verified by the spirit.