BYU scholar Kent P. Jackson has produced a modern translation of Genesis for Latter-day Saints. Published as a standalone hardcopy book, it features a literal translation of the Hebrew text formatted alongside the Joseph Smith Translation and Jackson’s personal commentary. While the author had long planned to translate Genesis to help Latter-day Saints become familiar with modern translations, the book’s publication coincided with the Church’s updated instructions on Study Bibles in late 2025. In this interview, Jackson sheds light on his translation process, provides examples from the book, and highlights details especially important to church members.
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The Origins of Kent Jackson’s Genesis Translation
Out of all the books in the Bible, why did you choose to produce a translation of Genesis?
I had two reasons for translating Genesis: a longstanding desire to do so and a yearning to help Latter-day Saints become acquainted with modern translations of the Bible.
1. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.
Back in the 1980s, I cut out the verses of Genesis in Hebrew, pasted them one by one down the left-hand side of sheets of paper, and planned to handwrite a new translation of Genesis next to each verse.
Fortunately, I never got around to doing the translation, which was a good thing because I could read the Hebrew, but I didn’t know much about translation philosophy at the time.
When I retired from BYU in 2017, I threw those pages into the recycling, knowing that now I could do it better by other means.
2. I want to help Latter-day Saints move beyond the KJV.
My desire to translate Genesis was, candidly, a desire to help sensitize Latter-day Saints to a modern translation published in the LDS mainstream. I’ve always felt that the Church would one day move beyond its King James-only way of thinking—though I wasn’t sure if it would happen in my lifetime.
Genesis is an accessible text, so it would be a good book for that purpose.
As it turned out, the printed books arrived from the printer on November 18, 2025, and less than a month later, on December 16, Church leaders announced a change in the policy. I feel very blessed.
How was the BYU Religious Studies Center chosen as the publisher?
I have been connected with the Religious Studies Center since 1980. For eight years, I was its publications director, and after that, I served as an administrator overseeing all its operations. I have fond feelings for it and for what it does.
It is the ideal place for a publication like this, which presents scholarship in an LDS faith-based venue.
In addition, because the RSC publishes in cooperation with Deseret Book, it was ideal for my objective of mainstreaming a new translation for LDS readers.
Can you share any insight into who developed the beautiful formatting?
The design idea was mine, but implementing it and making it succeed was the work of Alex Socarras at BYU’s Religious Studies Center.
The book has three objectives: (1) to provide a new translation of Genesis, (2) to include just enough commentary to help readers navigate the scriptural text, and (3) to include all of Joseph Smith’s Genesis revisions in notes in the context where they are found on the original manuscripts.
To do that, we needed to use three different fonts. The biblical text is in two columns, and the commentary appears at the end of each section. At the bottom of the pages is the Joseph Smith Translation.
It was all very tricky, but Alex did a great job, and I believe it’s a beautifully typeset book. He also designed the beautiful dust jacket.
Could you share some of your qualifications for translation, and explain why you mention two of your Hebrew teachers, Louis C. Zucker and David Noel Freedman?
Translation qualifications
My related academic background includes a PhD in Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East.
Louis C. Zucker
Louis C. Zucker was my first Hebrew teacher at the University of Utah. His classes helped me decide that I wanted to do biblical studies for a living.
David Noel Freedman
In my first year of graduate school at the University of Michigan, I attended a reading class at Freedman’s home every Tuesday evening.
All the graduate students were required to take the course. He assigned us a big chunk of chapters to read and master each week. We could bring only our Hebrew Bibles to class—no notes or anything else.
He made some students cry.
He would pick random verses—not in sequence—point to someone to read, and that person would then read in Hebrew, translate into English, and parse every verb and identify every grammatical feature.
It was brutal, and he made some students cry. I basically spent every hour from Wednesday to Tuesday each week preparing for the class so I wouldn’t make any mistakes and get humiliated.
Working With Ancient Text
What are the main purposes of your Genesis translation?
1. Literal translation
My original interest was to publish a new translation that Latter-day Saints would have available. I finished the translation first.
2. Joseph Smith Translation
Then I thought, if it’s a new translation of Genesis for members of the Church, it wouldn’t be complete without adding the Joseph Smith Translation (JST).
Genesis is the most important part of the JST, with more new text than in any other book and with more contributions to our core beliefs.
So I added JST Genesis as footnotes where the revisions fit in the text, transcribed from the original JST manuscripts.
3. My own commentary
Then I thought it would be a service to readers if I added some notes, so I added just enough of my own commentary to help lay readers make their way through the text more easily.
What were your translation principles?
Bible translation can be either quite literal, which is called formal equivalence, or much less literal, which is called dynamic equivalence.
Formal equivalence strives to be more “word-for-word,” whereas dynamic equivalence strives to be more “thought-for-thought.” The former tries to reflect the author’s words, and the latter tries to reflect the author’s meanings.
Examples of how literal translations vary
Here’s a word-for-word example from the King James translation:
let the young men find favour in thine eyes.
1 Samuel 25:8 (KJV)
The phrase has nothing to do with finding something in someone’s eyeballs.
It’s not about eyeballs at all but about asking for a favor.
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Here are some translations, listed from the most literal to the least literal:
- “let my young men find favor in your eyes” (English Standard Version)
- “let my young men find favor in your sight” (New Revised Standard Version)
- “be favorable toward my men” (New International Version)
- “receive these young men graciously” (Jewish Publication Society Bible)
- “would you be kind to us” (New Living Translation)
I’m impressed that the Church has included on its list of example Bibles those showing a variety of translation approaches.
My translation of Genesis is similar to what one finds in the English Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version. I love the way the text is expressed in Hebrew, so I have leaned toward it as much as I could while still keeping the wording understandable and contemporary.
What source materials did you draw upon for your translation?
I translated from the Masoretic Text (the traditional Hebrew Bible) using the Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ), the standard academic edition.
BHQ has an enormous critical apparatus, that is, footnotes that show alternate readings in other ancient texts.
On occasion, the Greek Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, or Genesis in the Dead Sea Scrolls may preserve a better reading than is found in the Masoretic Text, so translators can draw from those sources when needed, as I did.
Why does your Genesis text begin before the first chapter in the Old Testament?
Joseph Smith’s translation of Genesis is preceded in the manuscript with a text called the Visions of Moses, which is Moses 1 in the Pearl of Great Price.
Because I include all of JST Genesis where it appears, that text appears before Genesis 1.
In fact, it specifically leads into the first verse of Genesis 1.
Scholars have noted a dramatic stylistic shift in chapter 12. How did you approach that transition?
The material until the middle of chapter 11 seems to be somewhat of a flashback. The whole rest of the book is the story of one family over four generations. I just translated what was there.
However, throughout the book, I inserted headings describing the content of the following verses. These identify transitions in the narrative.
I didn’t honor the chapter breaks in any particular way, because they are artificial. Instead, I divided the text into over 90 smaller units, each with a heading that I think will help readers easily work through the text, such as:
- The origin of Satan
- Adam and Eve after the fall
- The ministry of Melchizedek
- Sarah gives birth to Isaac and rejoices
- Joseph reassures his brothers
Examples of Kent Jackson’s Translation Choices
The Hebrew words tōhû and bōhû appear together in Genesis 1:1. What went into your specific choices of “formless and empty”?
The words are synonymous nouns meaning “emptiness,” “nothingness,” “void,” “formlessness,” and the like—often best translated as adjectives.
Translators have chosen a variety of ways to render the words:
- “formless and empty” (New International Version)
- “a formless void” (New Revised Standard Version)
- “complete chaos” (NRSV updated edition)
- “without form and void” (English Standard Version)
Either way, I think the wording suggests preexisting chaotic matter from which God created.
While I was translating, I didn’t care much about that issue, because we don’t get our doctrine from verses like this anyway.
Also, while translating, I don’t consider doctrinal implications; I just translate into English in a way that I think best represents the Hebrew.
The Hebrew word ḥesed is famously difficult to translate. Could you walk us through the four word choices you landed upon (kindness, favor, loving-kindness, and lovingkindess)?
In Genesis I translated ḥesed with whichever of these I felt was most idiomatic in the context: kindness, favor, and loving-kindness are all correct.
Most editors prefer the hyphenated version (though I have had editors in other projects insist on ‘lovingkindness’). The one case of lovingkindness is a proofing error on my part.
In subsequent translations, I have tried to use the term ‘loving-kindness’ exclusively.
You provide a brief explanation of God’s name in Genesis. Can you elaborate?
The divine name that is written “the LORD” in the King James translation and in other English translations is spelled with four letters in Hebrew: yhwh. The scholarly consensus is that it was pronounced Yahweh in ancient times. It also appears in abbreviated forms, such as Yah, Yaw, and Yahu.
The rendering of the name familiar to English speakers is Jehovah, with the spelling and pronunciation first put in print in English by William Tyndale in the 1530s. Yahweh is God’s name in the Old Testament.
It appears over five thousand times in the Hebrew Bible.
The meaning of Hebrew names
Most Hebrew names had meanings that were understandable to native speakers. Names usually formed complete sentences that praised a quality or an act of God, or asked for a blessing.
The name typically includes a name or title of God.
For example:
- Jonathan means “Yahweh has given.”
- Jeremiah means “May Yahweh lift me up.”
- Elijah means “My God is Yahweh.”
- Daniel means “God is my judge.”
The meaning of Jehovah
Like other names, the name Yahweh creates a sentence. It is a conjugation of the archaic verb hwy (Biblical Hebrew hyh), “to be.”
The best explanation seems to be that it is in a “causative” form and means something like “He causes to be,” or “He causes to exist.” God creates. That’s what he does. The tense is one of continuous duration, suggesting that the Creator maintains and sustains as well as causes.
He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things.
Unlike most ancient Hebrew names, there is no deity name in this one, undoubtedly because the bearer of the name himself is the Deity.
And unlike many names, there is no object specified. The unstated but implied object is all-inclusive: Yahweh is the Creator and Sustainer of all things.
King James Translation of Jehovah
When Moses asked the Lord concerning his name, the King James translation reads, “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14). That is not a particularly good translation, but it shows us what is going on.
I AM is translated from the Hebrew word ’ĕhyĕh. It is the same word as Yahweh, but in a different conjugation of the verb.
Yahweh is the third-person form (“He causes to be”), whereas ’ĕhyĕh, what the Lord calls himself, is the first-person form (“I cause to be”).
So how did we end up with “the LORD” in place of God’s name?
After the end of the Old Testament period, Jews adopted a custom that it was inappropriate to pronounce God’s name. So in speech and even in reading biblical passage they used substitute words in place of it, usually the word ’ădōnāy, which means “lord,” or “my lord.”
Most modern Western translations have continued the custom. In the King James translation and in many other English translations, whenever God’s name Yahweh appears in the Hebrew text, the translators render it “the LORD.”
Small capital letters are used to set the divine name apart from the common English noun lord. I followed the custom in my translation (reluctantly) because I felt it would be better received by readers.
Examples of Kent Jackson’s Genesis Commentary
You note that the word covenant first appears in Genesis 6:18, but the JST uses it multiple times before this point. What do you make of that?
The big takeaway is that the covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants is the continuation of promises he made to earlier people, primarily Enoch.
In the Bible, God makes a covenant with Noah, and then the next time the word is used, it is in conjunction with God’s promises to Abraham.
In the JST, as can be seen in the Book of Moses, the word is used in earlier contexts.
How does your commentary connect the Hebrew words for Adam and Eve with the divine nature of humanity?
Adam means “human,” but it also suggests “earth man” (referring to the soil, not the planet), because the word comes from the same root as the Hebrew word for earth or dirt.
Eve means “Life-giver.”
So Adam’s name represents all of humankind and connects us with the soil out of which we are made. Eve’s name connects her with her awesome position as universal mother.
The Creation is completed with us.
In addition, the accounts go out of their way to connect Adam and Eve, and hence all of humanity, with the Divine. We are created only after everything else is in place, and the Creation is completed with us. We are made in God’s image, with Hebrew words that are clearly meant to be taken literally.
Kings in the ancient Near East were sometimes called the “image” of God because they represented the deity and the deity’s interests. We are God’s vice-regents on earth, and we’re assigned the stewardship of governing the rest of God’s creations. We shouldn’t get too puffed up about our lofty position, however, because as the Old Testament progresses, we learn that we do a very bad job of it.
And also, as Mormon reminds us, in practice, we are less than dirt because dirt obeys God’s wishes, and we generally don’t (Helaman 12:6–8).
Final Reflections
What is your next project?
I recently finished a translation of the book of Isaiah and prepared it for publication. Isaiah was much harder to translate than Genesis, and it took much more work. But I had a fun time working on it.
Isaiah is unnecessarily hard to read in the King James translation, so I recommend reading it in a good modern translation of the Bible. I hope that mine will be a blessing for Church members.
What do you most want Latter-day Saints to take away from your Genesis translation?
The Bible is intended to be readable. Genesis contains truths that can teach us how to navigate our own challenges in life.
Through the material revealed in the Joseph Smith Translation, we learn that Jesus is indeed the Christ and has been known as such since the beginning of Creation.
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About the Scholar
Kent P. Jackson is a Professor Emeritus of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, holding a PhD in Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East from the University of Michigan. A leading authority on the Joseph Smith Translation (JST), he has spent decades researching the original manuscripts and the history of Joseph Smith’s biblical revisions. His professional background includes serving as the publications director and an administrator for the BYU Religious Studies Center, where he specialized in bridging the gap between academic scholarship and faith-based audiences. Jackson’s most recent contributions focus on producing modern translations of Genesis and Isaiah, specifically designed to help Latter-day Saint readers engage with non-KJV translations of the Bible.
Further Reading
Explore more From the Desk articles about Genesis and translations of the Bible for Latter-day Saints:
- What Are Study Bibles?
- Why Do Latter-day Saints Use the King James Version?
- What Does Genesis Really Say About Creation?
- Did Brigham Young Teach That Cain Was Cursed?
- What Does D&C 77 Say About the Age of the Earth?
BYU Genesis Translation Resources
Read what other scholars and publishers say about Joseph Smith, Genesis, and translations of the Bible:
- Genesis: A New English Translation (BYU Religious Studies Center)
- “Sight and Power to Translate”: Revelatory Translation, Seership, and Joseph Smith’s Scriptural Productions (BYU Studies)
- The BYU Edition of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible (BYU Religious Education Review)
- The Visions of Moses and Joseph Smith’s Bible Translation (Interpreter Foundation)
- Joseph Smith Translation Appendix: JST, Genesis (Study Helps)
