Robert J. Matthews, key to LDS edition of Bible, dies

Robert

J. Matthews was a teenager during World War II when he first heard that

LDS Church founder Joseph Smith had made what he said were inspired

changes to the Bible.

The

17-year-old was listening July 9, 1944, when Elder Joseph Fielding

Smith of the Quorum of the Twelve said during a KSL Radio broadcast

that Joseph Smith had corrected a verse in the Bible by revelation.

Matthews

had a spiritual experience. "The word revelation meant something,"

Matthews said in an interview in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.

"I hadn't known that Joseph Smith had made some corrections in the

Bible. Joseph Fielding Smith's statement penetrated me."

That

day in 1944 began Matthew's quest to learn about what is called the

Joseph Smith Translation. Before he died Sunday, Aug. 30, 2009, at age

82 of complications following open-heart surgery, Matthews became known

as the world's expert on the translation.Matthews

probably would have preferred that people forget his role in bringing

the Joseph Smith Translation into popular acceptance among members of

the LDS Church. However, his work on the JST was his most lauded

achievement by those who spoke with the Deseret News on Monday.

Oscar

W. McConkie, author and chairman of the law firm Kirton & McConkie,

was a regional representative for The Church of Jesus Christ of