All of this Isaiah, again has me wondering, "why so much Isaiah??" While cross referencing with the orignal Isaiah chapters, I've been more and more impressed with the similarities. So, how exactly did Joseph translate the Book of Mormon? Did he have the Bible next to him? Did he memorize the text and then recite it back to his scribe? I know he used seer stones or the Urim & Thumim and received impressions and/or phrases, which his scribe then wrote down. But, it got me wondering about the process of translating. I found an article written by Royal Skousen, an historian of the church (here's the link).
He's discussing whether the translation process was one of "tight control" or "loose control". Meaning, did the Lord give Joseph word for word translation? Or did he give him general ideas? It sounds like a majority of LDS scholars believe he worked with both. Loose control for some of the phraseology but tight control for details like the spelling of names. Interesting.
The writings of Isaiah, while they serve as another witness of Christ, they also serve as a witness of Joseph Smith's spiritual gift of translation. To me, he had to have the gift of the Spirit, in order to dictate such complex scripture as Isaiah.
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