Yet another stair-step parallelism in the Book of Mormon

[Bernard Gui]

9 hours ago, the narrator said:

Perhaps, but he never said what he wanted, just that "Your comments are welcomed unless you are the narrator"

oh...I guess I should have read that whole sentence.

Always love the comments when they are respectful and on topic. Always have, always will. 

[the narrator]

4 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

You and Narrator may not agree, but I would be happy to participate in a discussion of his making on the matter of chiasmus, autism, or memory, and I asked him politely to do that. My hope was to discuss 3 Nephi 27:13-22. The subsequent comments bear this out….

And yet no complaint against Longview, who arguably was the one to derail it by commenting about chiasmus.

Hmm.....

Also, stop acting like I wanted to make it about anything but a direct reply to and participation with the claims you were making. If anything, you are derailing the discussion with your odd red herrings.

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 7/11/2025 at 5:26 PM, Bernard Gui said:

While it may not perfectly conform with rhetorical structures we know (whatever those may be called,) this is a structure that is repeatedly and intentionally appears in Nephite discourse to teach important gospel ideas, and it does serve the purposes I have described.

I am not really seeing it. I think that there are a couple of issues. Let me start with your list of criteria:

On 7/10/2025 at 9:16 AM, Bernard Gui said:

·     They are used as teaching tools when something important needs to be communicated in a methodical and easily understood manner.

·     None is copied from the Bible.

·     Each example appears in an address or letter from a prophet or leader in his own words.

·     There is only one example in historical narratives (Alma 61:8).

·     Seven of the examples occur in discussions that include Abraham or the Abrahamic covenant.

·     Nine illuminate the Plan of Salvation in logical sequence.

·     Some include teachings that faithful LDS will recognize as information addressed in the temple.

1) The idea that something is important is one of these circular arguments. I think that it is easier to intuit the pattern and then assume that because you have found the pattern that the idea is somehow especially important. To be a little more clear, rhetorical (and the word rhetorical contains in its definition the necessity of intentional) figures are offset from the surrounding discourse in a variety of ways. For us to suggest that this is used to communicate something important is to suggest or argue that what is within this rhetorical structure that you have intuited is something that needs to be offset from the surrounding narrative as more important. I'll look at the first couple of examples here in a minute in the context of my discussion.

2) I am not sure that being copied from the Bible or not is a terribly relevant issue. Sure, if they were all copied from the Bible, we could claim that it was entirely caused by being copied from the Bible, but on its own, this is not a descriptive criteria of the alleged rhetorical figure you are arguing is being used.

3) I think that this could be a useful criteria. But, not all of your examples actually meet this criteria (as we will see in a minute) - and because they don't, either there is a real rhetorical figure hear that is involved in an oral use of language and some of your examples are misidentified as that rhetorical figure, or, it isn't an actual criteria of the rhetorical figure, or, what you are arguing as a rhetorical figure isn't rhetorical at all (it might be a stylistic element - which is a different sort of thing).

4) see (3).

5) - 7) These are all interpretational - and involve a modern interpretation of the text that probably would not be recognized by any early reader. It is difficult, for example, to claim that these texts reflect what is discussed in LDS Temple ordinances without also recognizes the problem that the Book of Mormon comes first, and the question of the extent to which the Book of Mormon influences the LDS Temple ordinance.

So let's jump in to the first one on the list: 1 Nephi 10:11 - I'll bold the repeated language that I believe you are looking at:

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And it came to pass after my father had spoken these words he spake unto my brethren concerning the gospel which should be preached among the Jews, and also concerning the dwindling of the Jews in unbelief. And after they had slain the Messiah, who should come, and after he had been slain he should rise from the dead, and should make himself manifest, by the Holy Ghost, unto the Gentiles.

I am going to make a series of observations about the text. First, the "And it came to pass" which is used here as a temporal marker in the text - the repeated instances offset chunks of text into narrative units. This unit covers from 10:11 - 10:17. I observe that this is not a quotation from Lehi, but a summary. But, in speaking of temporal markers in the text, there is another one here - so let me repeat the verse quoting a different word:

 

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And it came to pass after my father had spoken these words he spake unto my brethren concerning the gospel which should be preached among the Jews, and also concerning the dwindling of the Jews in unbelief. And after they had slain the Messiah, who should come, and after he had been slain he should rise from the dead, and should make himself manifest, by the Holy Ghost, unto the Gentiles.

This word after is used a lot in this chapter:

10: 2 after my father had made an end of speaking the words of his dream

10:3 after they should be destroyed,

10:3 after they should be brought back out of captivity

10:10 after he had baptized the Messiah with water

10:11 after my father had spoken these words

10:11 after they had slain the Messiah

10:11 after he had been slain

10:14 after the house of Israel should be scattered

10:15 after this manner of language did my father prophesy and speak unto my brethren

10:17 after I, Nephi, having heard all the words of my father

Now, the one in 10:15 doesn't belong - because the meaning of 'after' here is different (in English) from the others. But in identifying the patter in verse 11 that you are pointing to - the X, and after X, we see it in other places in this chapter. It looks like this:

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And it came to pass after my father had spoken these words he spake unto my brethren concerning the gospel which should be preached among the Jews, and also concerning the dwindling of the Jews in unbelief. And after they had slain the Messiah, who should come, and after he had been slain he should rise from the dead, and should make himself manifest, by the Holy Ghost, unto the Gentiles.

So going back to verse 3, which is a really clean example of this:

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That after they should be destroyed, even that great city Jerusalem, and many be carried away captive into Babylon, according to the own due time of the Lord, they should return again, yea, even be brought back out of captivity; and after they should be brought back out of captivity they should possess again the land of their inheritance.

Another good example comes in verses 9-10:

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And my father said he should baptize in Bethabara, beyond Jordan; and he also said he should baptize with water; even that he should baptize the Messiah with water. And after he had baptized the Messiah with water, he should behold and bear record that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of the world.

And this one is fascinating because of the additional parallel words being used, right? 

Verses 13 and 14 give us the same thing:

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Wherefore, he said it must needs be that we should be led with one accord into the land of promise, unto the fulfilling of the word of the Lord, that we should be scattered upon all the face of the earth. And after the house of Israel should be scattered they should be gathered together again; or, in fine, after the Gentiles had received the fulness of the Gospel, the natural branches of the olive tree, or the remnants of the house of Israel, should be grafted in, or come to the knowledge of the true Messiah, their Lord and their Redeemer.

So, here in Chapter 10, we get 4 examples of this structure. And there does appear to be a rhetorical value to the structure - but it isn't tied to the meaning of the parallel but to its use as a temporal marker in the text: X, and after X, Y. So I would suggest this is a stylistic element of the writing (and there could be any number of possible explanations which we have no idea about because we have so little knowledge of reformed Egyptian. It could even be a stylistic element of the English translation. To an extent, this forms a part of the structure of text. It is part of the way in which the text designates that it is moving from topic X to topic Y (and I'll get more into that in a moment). But, it isn't some sort of special rhetorical figure. It isn't poetic.

In any case, the thing is, this is written as a summary of Lehi's sermon - we are getting the highlights, and so this reads something like a summary. So, I think that the question of (1) is open here. For (2), there really isn't a biblical parallel. Yes, there are a couple of poetics that show something similar. The one we probably all know is 1 Kings 19:11-12 -

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And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice

And this is fun because it is both stair-step parallelism and anadiplosis (although I am not sure we would necessarily agree that a fire is greater than an earthquake) and the intention is quite clear in the Hebrew - although we, especially with our modern LDS thought - tend to really mess up the interpretation. The idea is that the still small voice is greater/stronger than the wind, the earthquake and the fire. And we see this interpretation of that particular idea in the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 11:3 - "they heard a voice as if it came out of heaven; ...  and it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn." And it is absolutely fascinating to me how this verse in 3 Nephi is meant to reflect back on that saying because look at the imagery of what gets repeated: the voice, the quaking, the burning. But I digress. In most places where this pattern would fit in the biblical text, the biblical text (in the KJV) uses either 'afterwards' or 'after that'. These are two very regularly used temporal markers in the biblical text. The frequency of usage in the Book of Mormon of this pattern suggests that we should either attribute it to the translation of the text or to something in the language in which the text was written - and that this is different from the biblical text and its translation. The Book of Mormon does, once in a while use 'after that' and almost never uses 'afterwards'.

Now, if I am right, perhaps we should start to see more of these as we look. So, we get to 1 Nephi 12:19-13:5 -

Here is the text, and I have bolded some parts for emphasis:

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... And while the angel spake these words, I beheld and saw that the seed of my brethren did contend against my seed, according to the word of the angel; and because of the pride of my seed, and the temptations of the devil, I beheld that the seed of my brethren did overpower the people of my seed.

And it came to pass that I beheld, and saw the people of the seed of my brethren that they had overcome my seed; and they went forth in multitudes upon the face of the land. And I saw them gathered together in multitudes; and I saw wars and rumors of wars among them; and in wars and rumors of wars I saw many generations pass away. And the angel said unto me: Behold these shall dwindle in unbelief.

And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.

And it came to pass that the angel spake unto me, saying: Look! And I looked and beheld many nations and kingdoms. And the angel said unto me: What beholdest thou? And I said: I behold many nations and kingdoms. And he said unto me: These are the nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles.

And it came to pass that I saw among the nations of the Gentiles the formation of a great church. And the angel said unto me: Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity.

I want to note that 12:19 is the last part of an earlier textual unit that starts in 12:15 (the "And it came to pass" associated with it is in verse 15).

So, I am going to start with the obvious here and that is that this isn't a rhetorical figure that covers all of this block of text - because it is crossing natural boundaries in the text itself. But, having said that, we have at least one example of the stylistic element I pointed out earlier: X, and after X, Y. There is a lot of repetition here. In fact, if I quote the section again and highlight all of the phrases that are repeated, it's a lot - and I need to add even a bit more - I am going to take this back to verse 13 in Chapter 12:

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And it came to pass that I saw the multitudes of the earth gathered together. And the angel said unto me: Behold thy seed, and also the seed of thy brethren.

And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the people of my seed gathered together in multitudes against the seed of my brethren; and they were gathered together to battle. And the angel spake unto me, saying: Behold the fountain of filthy water which thy father saw; yea, even the river of which he spake; and the depths thereof are the depths of hell. And the mists of darkness are the temptations of the devil, which blindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men, and leadeth them away into broad roads, that they perish and are lost. And the large and spacious building, which thy father saw, is vain imaginations and the pride of the children of men. And a great and a terrible gulf divideth them; yea, even the word of the justice of the Eternal God, and the Messiah who is the Lamb of God, of whom the Holy Ghost beareth record, from the beginning of the world until this time, and from this time henceforth and forever. And while the angel spake these words, I beheld and saw that the seed of my brethren did contend against my seed, according to the word of the angel; and because of the pride of my seed, and the temptations of the devil, I beheld that the seed of my brethren did overpower the people of my seed.

And it came to pass that I beheld, and saw the people of the seed of my brethren that they had overcome my seed; and they went forth in multitudes upon the face of the land. And I saw them gathered together in multitudes; and I saw wars and rumors of wars among them; and in wars and rumors of wars I saw many generations pass away. And the angel said unto me: Behold these shall dwindle in unbelief.

And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.

And it came to pass that the angel spake unto me, saying: Look! And I looked and beheld many nations and kingdoms. And the angel said unto me: What beholdest thou? And I said: I behold many nations and kingdoms. And he said unto me: These are the nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles.

And it came to pass that I saw among the nations of the Gentiles the formation of a great church. And the angel said unto me: Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity.

It should be obvious why I took in the extra verses. If I were to take more verse from Chapter 13, we would see the same sorts of things. The degree of repetition here is really high. You want to start a rhetorical unit in 1 Nephi 12:19 and to identify a rhetorical figure based on the repetition of words and phrases - and yet, if we are looking for repetition, we can't start in 10:19, we have to look earlier. After all - here is verse 19 - I have inserted the closet location moving backwards from verse 19 where the phrase occurs earlier:

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And while the [angel spake 16] these words, [I beheld 15] and [saw 18] that [the seed of my brethren 15] did contend against [my seed 15], according to the word of [the angel 16]; and because of the [pride 18] of [my seed 15], and the [temptations of the devil 17], I beheld that [the seed of my brethren 15] did overpower the people of [my seed 15].

The particularly problematic part for verse 19 is the references to pride and the temptations of the devil, because these are first spelled out in relative abstraction in verse 17, and then applied to Nephi's seed here in verse 19. The whole idea of one group overpowering the other group (which I am confident is a part of your rhetorical figure) becomes a running theme through the entire episode. These are all reflections back on the text of 12:1-2 -

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And it came to pass that the angel said unto me: Look, and behold thy seed, and also the seed of thy brethren. And I looked and beheld the land of promise; and I beheld multitudes of people, yea, even as it were in number as many as the sand of the sea. And it came to pass that I beheld multitudes gathered together to battle, one against the other; and I beheld wars, and rumors of wars, and great slaughters with the sword among my people.

And here we get the original pieces of some of these phrases. So the fact that you can arrange some of these phrases into a pattern isn't particularly significant. I think that I could come up with any number of patters with this density of repetition. But one thing is clear in all of this - that there isn't some sort of priority being assigned to the parallels in terms of what is significant or important here.  It's also clear that the repetition is consistently crossing narrative units - meaning that there is a high level of self-reference going on. The thing is, this self-referencing is almost random in it's patterns. If I were to assign each of these common phrases an alphabetic letter, and indicate their use in the text, we wouldn't see an AA BB CC DD pattern. If you are picking and choosing which phrases you want to include so that it creates such a pattern, then I think, you are engaging in what I referred to earlier - simply picking the pattern that fits the theory instead of trying to understand the text through its intentionality. But in any case, these are all serious concerns for the suggestion that this passage reflects a rhetorical structure that is shared in other places in the Book of Mormon.

I have a little more time so let's get to one more: 1 Nephi 19:2-5. I am picking this one because I like the text (and I have written some commentary on it). And not just that, but because it helps illustrate some of the points I have been trying to make (emphasis added):

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And I knew not at the time when I made them that I should be commanded of the Lord to make these plates; wherefore, the record of my father, and the genealogy of his fathers, and the more part of all our proceedings in the wilderness are engraven upon those first plates of which I have spoken; wherefore, the things which transpired before I made these plates are, of a truth, more particularly made mention upon the first plates. And after I had made these plates by way of commandment, I, Nephi, received a commandment that the ministry and the prophecies, the more plain and precious parts of them, should be written upon these plates; and that the things which were written should be kept for the instruction of my people, who should possess the land, and also for other wise purposes, which purposes are known unto the Lord. Wherefore, I, Nephi, did make a record upon the other plates, which gives an account, or which gives a greater account of the wars and contentions and destructions of my people. And this have I done, and commanded my people what they should do after I was gone; and that these plates should be handed down from one generation to another, or from one prophet to another, until further commandments of the Lord. And an account of my making these plates shall be given hereafter; and then, behold, I proceed according to that which I have spoken; and this I do that the more sacred things may be kept for the knowledge of my people.

There is our X, and after X, Y pattern. One of the things that occurs here is that there is again this high level of reused language. I don't buy the idea that Nephi is speaking to the reader - he is certainly addressing his audience, but we cannot draw from this any sort of orality of the text. The other thing is that this section of the text is actually tightly connected to 1 Nephi 9. Not just a little conntected, but very tightly connected. Consider the following (1 Nephi 9:2-5). I am bolding the material that is referenced or quoted in the passage you list:

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And now, as I have spoken concerning these plates, behold they are not the plates upon which I make a full account of the history of my people; for the plates upon which I make a full account of my people I have given the name of Nephi; wherefore, they are called the plates of Nephi, after mine own name; and these plates also are called the plates of Nephi. Nevertheless, I have received a commandment of the Lord that I should make these plates, for the special purpose that there should be an account engraven of the ministry of my people. Upon the other plates should be engraven an account of the reign of the kings, and the wars and contentions of my people; wherefore these plates are for the more part of the ministry; and the other plates are for the more part of the reign of the kings and the wars and contentions of my people. Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not.

Now why is this important? Because we are getting an update on what Nephi wrote earlier. And he is using these phrases to create a necessary continuity between the texts. As I have noted elsewhere, 1 Nephi 9 is the third introduction to his text, and eventually, in the fourth introduction (2 Nephi 33) he apologizes to us for not actually having filled the pages with the ministry of his people and instead simply providing us with recontextualized Isaiah texts. But what this suggests to me is that the high level of repeated language is part of the self-referential writing style that Nephi uses. It is the high level of repeated phrasing that allows it to be structured in a variety of ways (based on that common language). But when we do this, it makes a structure based on repeated language highly suspect. I also want to suggest that when we are looking at rhetorical devices - and trying to determine whether or not one is being used, it is important for us to be as exact as possible. There is a certain clarity in the example I quoted above in 1 Kings 19. The text has a cadence. It can be interpreted rhetorically - and we can see such an interpretation in the Book of Mormon. When we look at rhetorical figures that we believe are in the Book of Mormon, we have to consider the value that comes from reading the rhetorical figure as a part of the author's writing strategy - as a way that the text adds meaning to the words. And part of our recognition of a rhetorical strategy is in understanding how the identification changes our interpretation.

What that means is this - if we start reading a text believing that the most important things in the text are the elements that reference the Abrahamic covenant, and the plan of salvation, and content related to the temple experience, and nothing that we read changes that, then there is no shift. The alleged rhetorical value doesn't change the meaning for us - and instead, all we get is confirmation bias. But the passage in 1 Kings is interesting. The LDS Church routinely uses this passage to help us understand the idea that the Spirit speaks to us in "small and simple ways". It is something we have to learn to recognize - that is easy not to notice because we block it out in the business of our lives. This is a misinterpretation of the passage in 1 Kings - especially once we recognize the rhetorical function of the structure of the text. It is this sort of thing that we are looking for when we are tying to demonstrate the rhetorical function of a text. And it is these kinds of analysis of how a rhetorical device unfolds an author's intention that is convincing when listing out a set of parallels is generally not.

A final note - no one likes hyper-criticism of their theory of how to model the text. We tend to like the idea that we should show the parallelisms in the text visually, to help us understand that the text is built around these parallels. I tend to think that this has it mostly wrong. Language naturally contains a fair amount of repetition. Because of past efforts to try and make the Book of Mormon as much like the Bible as possible, we have elevated this search for poetic parallelisms (Parry) without recognizing the basic challenge that we have no idea how little of the Book of Mormon should actually be viewed as poetic. I think that we get far more mileage from understanding the self-referential nature of the Book of Mormon and its intertextual relationship with some of its sources rather than trying to invent rhetorical forms because we believe that the text should be read poetically.

[the narrator]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

We tend to like the idea that we should show the parallelisms in the text visually, to help us understand that the text is built around these parallels. I tend to think that this has it mostly wrong. Language naturally contains a fair amount of repetition. Because of past efforts to try and make the Book of Mormon as much like the Bible as possible, we have elevated this search for poetic parallelisms (Parry) without recognizing the basic challenge that we have no idea how little of the Book of Mormon should actually be viewed as poetic.

Ding ding ding. Especially this:

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

without recognizing the basic challenge that we have no idea how little of the Book of Mormon should actually be viewed as poetic.

As far as I have seen, the apologetic effort to point to possible poetic structures within English Book of Mormon as evidence of its historicity has yet to fully explain the provenance and literary chain of events from the original creation and recording, through whatever number of replications of the text, Nephi/Mormon/etc’s transcription on metal plates in a non-phonetic(?) script, and Joseph’s translation into English.

[Bernard Gui]

21 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

1) The idea that something is important is one of these circular arguments. I think that it is easier to intuit the pattern and then assume that because you have found the pattern that the idea is somehow especially important. To be a little more clear, rhetorical (and the word rhetorical contains in its definition the necessity of intentional) figures are offset from the surrounding discourse in a variety of ways. For us to suggest that this is used to communicate something important is to suggest or argue that what is within this rhetorical structure that you have intuited is something that needs to be offset from the surrounding narrative as more important. I'll look at the first couple of examples here in a minute in the context of my discussion.

2) I am not sure that being copied from the Bible or not is a terribly relevant issue. Sure, if they were all copied from the Bible, we could claim that it was entirely caused by being copied from the Bible, but on its own, this is not a descriptive criteria of the alleged rhetorical figure you are arguing is being used.

3) I think that this could be a useful criteria. But, not all of your examples actually meet this criteria (as we will see in a minute) - and because they don't, either there is a real rhetorical figure hear that is involved in an oral use of language and some of your examples are misidentified as that rhetorical figure, or, it isn't an actual criteria of the rhetorical figure, or, what you are arguing as a rhetorical figure isn't rhetorical at all (it might be a stylistic element - which is a different sort of thing).

4) see (3).

5) - 7) These are all interpretational - and involve a modern interpretation of the text that probably would not be recognized by any early reader. It is difficult, for example, to claim that these texts reflect what is discussed in LDS Temple ordinances without also recognizes the problem that the Book of Mormon comes first, and the question of the extent to which the Book of Mormon influences the LDS Temple ordinance.

The repeated use of "after" in 1 Nephi 10:2-14 does indeed create an interesting gradation. I have previously stated that not all the examples are textbook as we define them, but I don't expect them to be. They come from Nephite minds, not ours. 

 

Another interesting example of stair-step or parallel gradation is used to communicate something important. It is offset from its surroundings, an instructional aside to those who do not believe in Christ. Mormon intentionally leads the reader through the basic concepts of the plan of salvation in a logical gradated sequence using repeated words or phrases. It is not copied from the Bible, meaning Joseph did not borrow or adapt it from preexisting scripture. It is a real rhetorical gradated figure that appears in a doctrinal and instructional context. It is clearly parallel with the teachings of the temple endowment: Pre-mortal existence, Creation, Fall of Adam, Redemption through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, Return to the Presence of God, the Resurrection, Judgement, and Punishment or Salvation. It is a concise and masterful summation of the Plan. It clearly reflects what is discussed in LDS temple ordinances, but I believe, as per Hugh Nibley, that this teaching precedes both the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith's revelation of the Endowment. This knowledge has been around since the Council in Heaven. We shouldn't be surprised that it shows up in a variety of times and places. I don't think we need to be bothered about which came first.

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Mormon 9:11-13

11 But behold, I will show unto you a God of miracles,

even the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;

and it is that same God who created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are.

12 Behold, he created Adam,

and by Adam came the fall of man.

And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son;

and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man.

13 And because of the redemption of man, which came by Jesus Christ,

they are brought back into the presence of the Lord;

yea, this is wherein all men are redeemed,

because the death of Christ bringeth to pass the resurrection,

which bringeth to pass a redemption from an endless sleep,

from which sleep all men shall be awakened by the power of God when the trump shall sound;

and they shall come forth, both small and great, and all shall stand before his bar,

being redeemed and loosed from this eternal band of death, which death is a temporal death.

14 And then cometh the judgement of the Holy One upon them;

and then cometh the time that he that is filthy shall be filthy still;

and he that is righteous shall be righteous still;

he that is happy shall be happy still;

and he that is unhappy shall be unhappy still.

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

3 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

The repeated use of "after" in 1 Nephi 10:2-14 does indeed create an interesting gradation. I have previously stated that not all the examples are textbook as we define them, but I don't expect them to be. They come from Nephite minds, not ours. 

So, in your quoted material from Mormon 9:11-14, there are only two sections of text that could be described as having some sort of parallel intended as a rhetorical figure. The first is 9:12b-9:13a. The second is verse 14. Let me parse it out:

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... by Adam came the fall of man.

And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son;

and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man.

And because of the redemption of man, which came by Jesus Christ, they are brought back into the presence of the Lord;

The fourth line here breaks the pattern and ends the potential structure. The one in verse 14 is especially clear:

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he that is filthy shall be filthy still;

and he that is righteous shall be righteous still;

he that is happy shall be happy still;

and he that is unhappy shall be unhappy still.

Both of these patterns can be read as being offset from the surrounding text - but especially that last verse. The rest of this text does not follow an identifiable pattern. The repeated use of "from which" is interesting, but it isn't enough. There is problem though with the first one.

So we end up with two problems. One of the things that makes certain types of parallelism so easy to identify in Greek and Hebrew literature is that the patterns are fairly obvious in the original languages. They are meant to be identified by the casual listener/reader. There are a number of general strategies that are employed to make this identity easy. Here, we have prose. And it isn't clear that this may be something all that different from the surrounding material. The rest of this - including the patterns we can format verses 12 and 13 into - don't sound particularly different from the surrounding text. There is nothing in there that alerts me to the idea that this is supposed to be read as poetic language. We can see in that first example in the four phrases that I present, that there are extra clauses in there. "Even the Father and the Son" (which is an interesting sort of throwback to Alma, right?). "Which came by Jesus Christ" is a problematic phrase in terms of the notion of a parallelism. This is a bigger problem, rhetorically speaking, than your statement that its not a textbook example would suggest.Additionally we run into the problem that this structure - X, and because of X can be found in places that don't suggest any poetics at all. So, for example, 1 Nephi 1:6 -

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And it came to pass as he prayed unto the Lord, there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock before him; and he saw and heard much; and because of the things which he saw and heard he did quake and tremble exceedingly.

And if we open the pattern a little more, we get a much broader range of statements - like this one in 1 Nephi 1:7-8 -

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And it came to pass that he returned to his own house at Jerusalem; and he cast himself upon his bed, being overcome with the Spirit and the things which he had seen. And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.

Or 1 Nephi 7:12-13 -

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Yea, and how is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him? Wherefore, let us be faithful to him. And if it so be that we are faithful to him, we shall obtain the land of promise; and ye shall know at some future period that the word of the Lord shall be fulfilled concerning the destruction of Jerusalem; for all things which the Lord hath spoken concerning the destruction of Jerusalem must be fulfilled.

Anyway, we could make a long list. This repetition is a part of the prose text. To find examples of it - even three in a row - is not, I think, a particularly strong argument for re-identifying a prose text as a poetic one. I am not saying that there aren't things we can't say about the text. But this sort of emphasis on repeated phrases may be nothing more than an artifact of the translation of the text, or simply a style of the prose writing.

It isn't, in all of this, this sort of discussion of parallels which bothers me. It is the sort of conclusions that get drawn about the text and its meaning that are bothersome. To propose that we should understand the text as poetic, and that our proposed poetic structure should be taken into account in terms of developing meaning from the text - will only encourage misunderstanding the text if the proposal is wrong.