Did Joseph Smith Know Hebrew?

Joseph Smith in his King Follett Discourse introduces many new doctrines to his followers, one of them is the plurality of gods. He comes to this conclusion through a misunderstanding of scripture by way of a misunderstanding of the Hebrew Language.

"I shall comment on the very first Hebrew word in the Bible, Berosheit. I want to analyze the word; baith--in, by, through, and everything else. Rosh--the head. Sheit--grammatical termination. When the inspired man wrote it, he did not put the baith there. A man, a Jew without any authority, thought it too bad to begin to talk about the head. It read first, "The head one of the Gods brought forth the Gods"; that is the true meaning of the words. Baurau signifies to bring forth. If you do not believe it, you do not believe the learned man of God. No man can teach you more than what I have told you. Thus the head God brought forth the Gods in the grand council." (From the King Follett Discourse, can be found here)

More on this subject can be found in other writings by Smith...

". . . Paul says there are Gods many and Lords many; and that makes a plurality of Gods, in spite of the whims of all men. Without a revelation, I am not going to give them the knowledge of the God of heaven. You know and I testify that Paul had no allusion to the heathen gods. I have it from God, and get over it if you can. I have a witness of the Holy Ghost, and a testimony that Paul had no allusion to the heathen gods in the text. I will show from the Hebrew Bible that I am correct, and the first word shows a plurality of Gods; and I want the apostates and learned men to come here and prove to the contrary, if they can. An unlearned boy must give you a little Hebrew. Berosheit baurau Eloheim ait aushamayeen vehau auraits, rendered by King James' translators, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." I want to analyze the word Berosheit. Rosh, the head; Sheit, a grammatical termination. The Baith was not originally put there when the inspired man wrote it, but it has been since added by an old Jew. Baurau signifies to bring forth; Eloheim is from the word Eloi, God, in the singular number; and by adding the word heim, it renders it Gods. It read first, "In the beginning the head of the Gods brought forth the Gods," or, as others have translated it, "The head of the Gods called the Gods together." . . . The head God organized the heaven and the earth. I defy all the world to refute me. In the beginning the heads of the Gods organized the heavens and the earth. Now the learned priests and the people rage, and the heathen imagine a vain thing. If we pursue the Hebrew text further, it reads, "Berosheit baurau Eloheim ait aashamayeen vehau auraits"-"The head one of the Gods said. Let us make a man in our own image." I once asked a learned Jew, "If the Hebrew language compels us to render all word sending in heim in the plural, why not render the first Eloheim plural?" He replied, "That is the rule with few exceptions; but in this case it would ruin the Bible." He acknowledged I was right. . . . "(Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed., B.H. Roberts, from this website here).

Smith makes several mistakes when he says these things. One would be the removing of a word because some fictitious old Jew added it, "Baith." Another would be a simple mispronunciation of a word, "Rosh." Yet another would be an ignorance of the use of the plural form of certain words to denote royalty or majesty.

It seems silly to blame an old Jew just so you can make a point, which it is, but Smith gets more wrong than just this. The word "Baith" is not a word at all but the letter "bet." Also, "Rosh" isn't the way this word is pronounce, it is "Ray." The problem with this is that "Rosh" means "head" in Hebrew while "Ray" does not. So Smith is clearly in error when translates Genesis as "In the beginning the head of the gods..." To support this he uses the fact that Elohim is a plural word, but this is just a common word usage to show the majesty of someone. We see this clearly throughout the Bible where we have the plural use of Elohim followed by singular word forms such as "he."

I hope that this was informative and that it gave you a greater understanding of what Mormons actually believe and what their prophet actually taught. For more information on this very topic refer to the jewsforjudaism.org website. This here is basically a summary of what is found on there.