Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon

[maklelan]

I think Professor Welch has done the most comprehensive work on finding out how much was known of Chiasmus in and around Joseph Smith's community. Many of the posters here seem to be unaware of the research he has conducted.

Few non-Mormons will try to make the assertion that Joseph Smith knew anything of chiasmus. The evidence points to a firm negative in that respect, and I've never seen ayone present any evidence beyond baseless speculation. The consensus seem to be that Joseph Smith, in imitating Biblical prose and style, unconsciously inserted chiasmus into his writings. This theory is held up in pointing out the presence of chiasmus in all of his "inspired" works (Pearl of Great Price, D&C). The most chiastic section in the D&C wasn't even written by Joseph Smith, it was written by Sidney Rigdon (not dictated to Rigdon - written by Rigdon). Sydney isn't imitating Biblical prose in D&C, so why is there chiasmus in his section?

Some members of a spin-off Mormon church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) point to chiasmus in a translation allegedly drawn from some Voree plates called the Book of the Law of the Lord. They find this to be evidence of the veracity of James Strang's appointment by Joseph Smith, but the chiasmus in the book is rudimentary and often forced.

If this theory is to hold water I submit that it would be necessary for someone to find and point out examples of chiastic structures in other publications from the same time period. If it is a common unconscious outcome of mimicking Biblical prose it will be found elsewhere. Not only does this need to be shown in other writings, but it needs to be comprehensively represented in them. Chiastic structures make up over 50% of the Book of Mormon's verses. The entire book of I Nephi is chiastic. The chiasms range from incredibly intricate to basic antithetic parallelisms, with chaisms inside of chiasims inside of chiasums. The fallacy of equivocation is a common problem with chiasmus, as all chiasmus is not the same, and certain chiasmus is prevalent in non-Semitic writing, while other chiasmus is rarely ever found outside of it.

It seems to me that any objection to chiasmus as a legitimate proof of the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon is mere speculation without the above evidence. I feel this is sound logic, but some will obviously disagree.

[chiaroscuro]

Gee -- if we're getting into those sorts of obscurities, let's also examine Sidney Rigdon's

1824 "3rd Epistle of Peter."

Then again, would we there be looking for sham Aramaicisms, as rendered into Rigdon's

English, from an ancient koine translation? Or did Peter write in Greek? Or did Rigdon?

Uncle I'm getting a headache -- where's my ice-pack? -- apply directly to the forehead!" Dale

What's so obscure about it? When you read a novel, doesn't the narrative voice sometimes influence your own narrative voice?

When people sit through a Star Wars marathon, speak like Yoda they do.

Not familiar with the 3rd Epistle of Peter. Did Rigdon write it?

[Uncle Dale]

When people sit through a Star Wars marathon, speak like Yoda they do.

Not familiar with the 3rd Epistle of Peter. Did Rigdon write it?

Ah, now there's a question that 'twould be good to answer!

All I know is that it mysteriously appeared in an 1824 pamphlet, issued by the two

leaders of the Pittsburgh "Church of Christ" -- Sidney Rigdon and Walter Scott, (the

latter day restorers of the one true church and the "ancient order of things").

The nagging question is -- how much of the pamphlet was written by Scott and how

much by Rigdon? That's the same thing that the IRS wanted to know about my 1980

tax return --- I blamed the whole thing on my wife.

Uncle "There sure were a lot of those 'one true restored churches' back then, eh?" Dale

[Jerubaal]

Uncle "There sure were a lot of those 'one true restored churches' back then, eh?" Dale

Before someone else says it:

They're Satan's counterfeits!

Now I personally don't agree with that, though I'm sure some here do.

It is my feeling that many at that time were looking back to the Bible, wondering what had happened to the one true church, and did their best to imitate it.

Joseph, fraud or the real mccoy, took it one step further. He did not arrive at his conclusions by studying the Bible, or learning from Mr. Rigdon (whom he did not meet until 1831, though I'm sure you may think differently on the matter Unk). He received revelation from God to direct him.

There are very few churches in this day and age, and in the 1800's that make such a claim. Mormonism stands apart.

EDIT: I realize now that mine and Unk's comments have gone off topic in the midst of our discussion of what other places we should look for Hebraisms. My apologies

[Daniel Peterson]

And it came to pass that Joseph Smith did write a historical novel.  And he called his novel "The Book of Mormon."  And his novel did have the a peculiar characteristic of using the word "and" exceedingly often.

And it came to pass that many years later, a Mormon apologist noticed that some of the sentences in the Book of Mormon also contained the word "if."  And he did rejoice, for sentences which contain both "and" and "if" were verily used in ancient Hebrew grammar.  And he did write an essay to demonstrate this parallel.

And it came to pass that the critics were unimpressed.  Verily.

This is the kind of nonsense makes one almost despair of serious discussion with critics here.

Might-C has no idea what the argument is. Or, if he does, he declines to state it accurately -- which is even more to his discredit. But that doesn't stop him from posting worthless drivel.

Might-C, this is my thread. If you don't have anything intelligent to contribute to it, go away.

(I hope my sentiments are clear enough.)

For others: This is not a thread about Hebraisms in general. It's a thread about the "if-and" conditional sentence.

[kawikadave]

From OneLowerLight: What other texts from the 19th century were also written as part of the Judeo-Christian culture, and how many hebraisms do they have in comparison with the Book of Mormon?

Dude response: You are absolutely correct, OLL. Next time I read the Chronicles of Narnia, I'll keep an eye out for Hebraisms.

Dude, I know you were just being funny about the Chronicles of Narnia, but just in case you decide to scour them for hebraisms, you've picked a book from the wrong century. C.S. Lewis wrote Chronicles of Narnia in the 1940's and 1950's.

I just saved you from a ton of wasted time! Don't worry, there won't be a fee.

[Jerubaal]

EDIT: Self-removed my somewhat off-topic and not very substantial contribution.

[Uncle Dale]

Joseph, fraud or the real mccoy, took it one step further. He did not arrive at his conclusions by studying the Bible, or learning from Mr. Rigdon (whom he did not meet until 1831, though I'm sure you may think differently on the matter Unk)....

EDIT: I realize now that mine and Unk's comments have gone off topic...

Well, yes -- off topic, but no doubt we can get back to the Hebrew stuff in due course.

You may have already noticed that you made a mistake in your date -- even from a

faith-promoting viewpoint. Consider the chronology given in the notes section, here:

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/NY/wayn1830.htm#122930

As for saying that Rigdon did not meet Smith until some certain date, or another --

how is it that I should accept such an assertion?

I mean, imagine for a moment that I was neither a Mormon nor anti-Mormon, and

simply wished to determine the facts of the past -- is there any particular reason

that I should accept the faith-promoting chronology, over the alternative reconstruction(s)

offered by non-LDS writers on the subject?

If you'd really like to provide an answer -- I'm all ears -- (just open a new thread).

Finally, to get back to the Book of Mormon's Hebrew-derived text, once we set aside

the obvious lengthy copying from Isaiah, how certain can we be that those passages

pointed out by the LDS scholars really qualify?

I mean -- are there any professional journals on the subject of biblical Hebrew, in

which these passages have been examined and commented upon by non-LDS

experts in the language (including translations/transliterations into English?

I am very much inclined to think that the LDS scholars' compilations in this field of

study are no more reliable than are their compilations of pre-1831 Rigdon activities.

Uncle Dale

[onelowerlight]

Uncle Dale -

- Is there any particular reason why we should accept the alternative constructions over the generally accepted chronology? To my thinking it's up to the critics to prove that there really was a connection between Rigdon and Smith before 1831; after all, the Restorationists have put forward the hypothesis that there was no connection, and according to the scientific method, the burden of proof lies with those who would disprove it, not the other way around.

About the Hebraisms, there are a significant number of Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon that appear outside of the Isaiah passages, and they have been documented fairly completely in Professor Donald Parry's The Book of Mormon Text Reformatted According to Parallelistic Patterns. I know that this work deals with more than just the if/and statements, but if I remember correctly, the if/and statements are there, and you can judge for yourself. Not somebody talking about it, just the raw text itself reformatted to make it easy to see and come to your own conclusions.

Of course, Professor Parry is certainly Mormon, but I don't think that it would be fair to apply an ad hominem attack in his case.

[Uncle Dale]

Uncle Dale -

- Is there any particular reason why we should accept the alternative constructions over the generally accepted chronology?  To my thinking it's up to the critics to prove that there really was a connection between Rigdon and Smith before 1831; after all, the Restorationists have put forward the hypothesis that there was no connection, and according to the scientific method, the burden of proof lies with those who would disprove it, not the other way around.

About the Hebraisms, there are a significant number of Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon that appear outside of the Isaiah passages, and they have been documented fairly completely in Professor Donald Parry's The Book of Mormon Text Reformatted According to Parallelistic Patterns. I know that this work deals with more than just the if/and statements, but if I remember correctly, the if/and statements are there, and you can judge for yourself.  Not somebody talking about it, just the raw text itself reformatted to make it easy to see and come to your own conclusions.

Of course, Professor Parry is certainly Mormon, but I don't think that it would be fair to apply an ad hominem attack in his case.

Well, once again we are getting far afield of Hebrew-derived text in the BoM.

When the LDS use terms such as "generally accepted," I think they often mean to

say, "officially taught by the Church, and not often challenged by the critics."

Thus, I might assert that it is "generally accepted," that Apostle George A. Smith had

nothing special to do with the Mountain Meadows affair -- or, that it is "generally

accepted" that the 1857 war between the Mormons and Federal troops was an unjust

persecution of the Saints -- or, that it is "generally accepted" that Rigdon knew nothing

about the Book of Mormon until he was presented with a copy in November of 1830.

For me, it is not so much a matter of starting out by "accepting the alternative

constructions over the generally accepted chronology," as it is a matter of setting all

the chronologies to one side, and beginning afresh with original sources. If I start

out with that clean slate, my question to myself is --- "Should I accept either the

Mormon explanation of things, or various anti-Mormon explanations, or perhaps the

rare "objective history" from a non-partisan source?

There is no immediate answer to the question, unless I am a rabid anti-Mormorn, out

to destroy the Church at all costs (or a testimony-bound TBM, who cannot admit any

alternative explanations) ---- instead, I have seen my task as one of piecing

together various sources, in order to reconstruct various possible views of history.

That is truly the way I hope to write my Rigdon book -- with all the undisputed facts

in one pile, and my various opinions and conclusions, clearly identified, in another.

But since you ask -- I'll cite a very simple reason for re-examination, and then

hopefully allow this thread to go back to the Hebrew-derived language discussion.

I said above that "it is generally accepted that Rigdon knew nothing about the Book

of Mormon until he was presented with a copy in November of 1830." Although I do

not think that this notion is "generally accepted" by all students of Mormon history,

it is frequently stated and restated -- and is most likely false. ..... Why so?

(1) Rigdon's most prominent LDS biographer (Van Wagoner) disputes this view,

and says Rigdon must have known of the golden plates, Smith, etc., before 1830.

(2) Both Eliza R. Snow and Orson Hyde (two of Rigdon's Campbellite religious flock

and students before becoming Mormons), both say they knew the golden plates

story before 1830.

(3) The story was published in the local newspaper, read in Mentor and Kirtland, as

early as 1829 -- the same paper that now and then mentioned Rigdon by name

during the 1820s.

(4) A number of Rigdon's religious associates from the 1820s who did NOT become

Mormons, testified that Rigdon knew of the gold plates and the forthcoming book,

well before 1830, and often spoke of tehse things, before becoming a Mormon.

Now, given those four facts, it appears that Rigdon was NOT telling the truth, when

he said (at various times) that he knew nothing of the book before he saw it in

the fall of 1830. Rigdon is known to have lied on numerous occasions, regarding

religious matters -- he lost his elder's license for such holy falsehoods in 1832 and

he was excommunicated in 1844, partly on the testimony of Kirtland old-timers,

who testified that he had always been just such a pious liar and religious plotter.

With all of this in front of me -- I really do think it is best that I reject the LDS faith

promoting material, as well as the occasional Gentile history that depends upon

that material (such as H. H. Bancroft, etc.) --- and begin the study afresh.

Now -- if there's a need for more discussion -- let's move what I just said to a new

thread and continue there.

UD

[grego]

Her Amun,

I've mentioned before two similarities between BoM language and Chinese/ English-Chinese pidgin:

1. "If/and" -- instead of "if/then" (just like the topic of this thread)

2. "My father" -- instead of "our father" (Nephi speaking to his brothers), etc.

[Olavarria]

1. "If/and" -- instead of "if/then"

I'll agree with the 1 but not the second.

Also,that one match has no relevance for it is not 1 of many.

also, their are many ........................................................damn im tired.

[cksalmon]

Dr. Peterson

[grego]

The second's there. I've documented it more than once in familial conversations (not sure about literature, though). Anyway, sorry about the small tangent.

[Mighty Curelom]

Alright, alright. For serious now.

Here are a few of the problems I can think of with respect to the if/and affair, in no particular order:

1- Out of 3000 grammatical errors thus far discovered, you've singled out half a dozen or so as evidence of Hebraic origin while dismissing the other 2,994 as inconsequential. That's cherry picking evidence. Given 3,000 grammatical errors, I'm not particularly impressed that you can find 6 that fit a common Hebraic construction. Also, in those 3,000 errors there are probably a few double-negatives, which are perfectly acceptable in Spanish but improper in English. Using the same "ignore the errors that aren't apologetically useful and highlight the ones that are" methodology, we could then say that these double-negatives are tell-tale signs of Spanish to English translation.

2- In order for the if/and construction to survive translation, the translation method would have to be more than just "tight." It would have to be super-tight. But that creates all sorts of havoc. How do you explain anachronistic KJV quotes in such a tight translation? How do you explain untranslated words, like curelom and cumom? How do you explain all the other anachronisms that are typically dealt with with vague noises about "the translation process"; ie. horses, steel, chariots, etc.?

3- And/if contruction is not a grammatically correct English construction. Carrying over a construction from one language into another where that construction isn't grammatically correct is poor translating. The only foreign language that I have any familiarity with is Spanish, so I'll use that as an example. Again, in Spanish, double negatives are okay. So a sentence like "No sabes nada" is perfectly fine. But you don't translate "no sabes nada" into "You don't know nothing." That's a bad translation. You translate it as "you don't know anything" or "you know nothing." So if the supernatural power that made the exact letters and words appear on JS's peep stone is responsible for this particular translational artifact, he's a pretty crappy translator.

Also, considering such a tight translation, wouldn't we see more ideomatic expressions which would be incomprehensible in English? For example, Mexicans use the word "fresa" to describe an effeminate man. Fresa means "strawberry." The kind of "super-tight" translation that would be necessary to preserve artifacts like the and/if construction would also give us nonsensical sentences like "that man is a strawberry." Do we see this kind of gibberish in the BoM? Are there any phrases or expressions that literally mean nothing in English, but make perfect sense in Hebrew? Which brings me to

4- I thought the BoM was written in "Reformed Egyptian." Not Hebrew. So Hebraisms shouldn't be there in the first place, unless they could survive first being translated into reformed egyptian and then translated a second time into English. Of course, you could claim that the BoM was written in the Hebrew language using the characters of reformed egyptian, the same way Japanese can be written using the English alphabet, but is that how the BoM describes it? Look what Mormon says in Mormon 9:34

But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof.

5- You cite Moroni as one of your examples of the if/and construction. If we set aside the whole Reformed Egyptian bit, and assume Moroni was a Hebrew speaker, we still run into a little problem. Lehi and his tribe arrived in the New World around 600 BC. By the time Moroni makes his if/and statement, it was around 400 AD. That's 1000 years of liguistic isolation; 1000 years of linguistic evolution. Whatever Moroni was speaking, the chances are virtually nil that he just happened to be use the same if/and construction that Old World ancient Hebrews would have used. For all practical purposes, Moroni would have been speaking a completely different language.

[Warship]

Uncle Dale said

" once we set aside

the obvious lengthy copying from Isaiah, "

its 22 pages out of 522 pages. There is nothing obviously lengthy about it, unless you have trouble with numbers. Its not even lengthy for the plates of Neph which have 132 pages, the two books of nephi are 107 pages long so it is not even lengthy for that. So, what is lengthy in relation to? I've heard this many times but still cannot concieve why it is so lenghthy. And I believe most all chiasms are outside of Isaiah..at least I've never read one inside of Isaiah and I have read a lot of them.

There are supposed hebraisms and chiasmus in Spaulding's manuscript. you can see acomparison here...

http://www.mormonstudies.com/defense1.htm

That being said...The chiasms never reach near the complexity of those in the BOM(like ALma36). I, myself, have found an over 600 word chiasmus whose complexity still heavily impresses me. The Spaulding ones seem to be cherry picked but the hebraisms are actually good enough so that it makes the bom hebraisms look less impressive.

I am not familiar with if/and conditionals besides a few things I read awhile back while I was exploring hebraisms, certainly not enough to speak intelligibly on the subject.

[Olavarria]

GREGO

The second's there. I've documented it more than once in familial conversations (not sure about literature, though). Anyway, sorry about the small tangent.

Nin shi zhong guo ren ba.

Any way, what your saying is probably correct. Though I must emphasize that those two matches can be attributed to pure chance. Especially, since the BoM people act in completly non-chinese ways. For example:

1) BoM writers never write in the femimine voice. Chinese officials would sometimes write to the king as if they were a gilted female lover. It isn't homo-erotic. Moroni should have said this to Pahoran, "My lord's lady is deprived of his attention, in not sending arms. Send your lady weapons, for I long for the affection of my lord."

2)BoM is totally lacks the taoist ideals of getting back to nature. None of the BoM rulers forsake city life for a life in the woods umongst the wood land creatures. If any confucian values could be detected they would be purly anachronistic for ancient confucianism was about ritual propriety and superstition where as Taoism was philosophical. It isn't until middle ages that the situation reverses.

3) BoM is toattly devoid of romance and the goings on between husband and wife. Classical chinese sagas often describe the the private conversations and troubles between the hero and his lady.

4) I assume you are talking about modern spoken chinese, to have a match with the BoM you would need to look at classical chinese(the language of the "ancient china"). Some easily recognizable and common "sinoisms" would be : AB也. "Me Nephite." "he lamanite."

A 而 B. "I am depressed under the condition of knowing my people's fate".

AB 呼. "You Nephite?"

5) Also when Moroni adresses Pahoran he uses first names. If they were ancient chinese they would speak to each other in the third person. If he were Chinese he would have said "Captain wants Judge to send more men."

6) Moroni's threat to attack the government at Zerahemla is very un-chinese. If he had been a good Han he wuld have commited suicide. That is what Chu Yuan(hero of the dragon boat festival) did when his king would not harken to his advice when faced with the threat of an invading army. Rather than go against the kings orderr and ignore the plight of the people , he drowned himself in a river.

so what does this have to do with hebraisms?

The BoM is unique is that it claims to be ancient book with hebrew and egyptian roots. Any parrallels found with these two cultures that date to the right time are very significant. One bulls eye can be attributed to chance. But repeated bulls eye after bulls eye can't. If Joseph Smith wrote the BoM, then Hebraisms, pre-exilic temple motifs, meso-american fortification, Arabian geography and egyptian personal names are not supposed to be there.

Given what I know about "ancient chinese" literature I find the idea that by searching hard enough one can find parallels to any place or culture to fit the BoM flawed. If it were so then the BoM could also be read as a chinese book with "sinoisms" appearing left and right. But It can't.

The DUDE: I will make that thread I promised

[The Dude]

Dude's theory also assumes the idea that Joseph could recognize the hebraisims-like chiasmus, in the Bible....

No it doesn't.

Then I assume you believe Joseph did it by chance? Fine. FAIR enough. In that case Joseph's mind would then have to subconsciously absorb the hebraisms from bible study, and subconsciously spill them on to the BoM?

I dont know, Alma 36 seems pretty delibrate.

I don't dismiss the structure apparent in Alma36, but there's no reason why it couldn't have been composed in the 19th century by someone completely oblivious to the fact that ancient Hebrews also used it at times. Keep in mind that a chiastic structure isn't functionally neutral; it's a pretty useful tool for delivering an idea, a sermon, a teaching, and for this reason we should not expect it to arise once and only once in the world. For example, a good science paper has a chiastic structure: introduction(tell what you are going to tell them), results (tell them), discussion (tell them what you told them). I don't think this should be taken as evidence of ancient Hebrew roots.

Similiarly, if Joseph Smith was the author of the BoM, I wouldn't expect to find extra-biblical parrallels to the ancient near east in there either.

Neither would I. From my POV, the best Hebraic parallels are going to be explainable as Biblical rather than ancient. The worst parallels -- like chiasmus -- are too vague to be meaningful or --like Nephi and Asherah -- require speculative links in the chain of logic.

[Warship]

Dude,

you say chiasmus is a weak link by saying Joseph Smith spontaneously came up with the idea bc it is a good idea?? And that idea just happens to be prevalent in the writing style of the people (and time period) who proport to write the book??

You cant be serious. Why are there not 100s of people who have done the same based on that logic? Have you ever tried writing a chiasmus? It is not that easy.

I'd prefer the sponge argument that says he might have got the idea from epanodos or inverted parallelisms in rare works around 1820.

Although none of those sources provide enough info to create the complexity found in BOM chiasms.

But I guess farm a boy with a third grade education could just figure out on his own what scholars of the day were just beginning to realize needed to be a subject of exploration.

Chiasmus is a very strong link....much stronger than the hebraisms.

[Mighty Curelom]

Okay, I have to jump in here for just a second.

Can anyone post, or link to, or otherwise reference an indisputedly authentic ancient Hebrew chiasmus that's 600 words long? Or the length and alleged complexity of the infamous Alma chapter? Or how about maybe a similarly complex and lengthy chiasmus from the Old Testament?

[The Dude]

I read the two pages of Dan's article that skim over the claim of if/and conditional sentence fragments in two passages of the original BoM (Helaman 12:13-21 and Moroni 10 verse 4). This is said to be characteristic of Biblical Hebrew.

Dan then states his incredulity that a 19th century author would have written this way, but speculatively an ancient Hebrew would have. Mighty Curelom disagrees...

5- You cite Moroni as one of your examples of the if/and construction. If we set aside the whole Reformed Egyptian bit, and assume Moroni was a Hebrew speaker, we still run into a little problem. Lehi and his tribe arrived in the New World around 600 BC. By the time Moroni makes his if/and statement, it was around 400 AD. That's 1000 years of liguistic isolation; 1000 years of linguistic evolution. Whatever Moroni was speaking, the chances are virtually nil that he just happened to be use the same if/and construction that Old World ancient Hebrews would have used. For all practical purposes, Moroni would have been speaking a completely different language.

I have to agree with MC that it doesn't seem much more likely that an ancient Nephite, 600 - 1000 years removed from his ancient Hebrew culture, would be that much more likely to use if/and conditional sentences than any possible 19th century authors.

Dan's argument is based on his own preference for what is incredible/credible, and kind of a bare presentation of the case at that. Maybe the original argument from Skousen does a better job but I don't have access to that. As it stands, the most incredible thing to me is that Dr. Peterson elected to support ancient BoM authorship with this kind of example. There has to be something better...right?

[The Dude]

Or how about maybe a similarly complex and lengthy chiasmus from the Old Testament?

This I would like to see... I have a suspicion that the Alma36 chiasmu does not resemble anything in ancient Hebrew, but is actually far more complex and composed than ancient examples of the form.

[The Dude]

Dude,

you say chiasmus is a weak link by saying Joseph Smith spontaneously came up with the idea bc it is a good idea??

...a 19th century author, possibly Joseph Smith.

And that idea just happens to be prevalent in the writing style of the people (and time period) who proport to write the book??

I think you are overstating your link. By an ancient authorship model, when and and by what person was the Alma36 chiasmu originally written? How far removed was this from the ancient Hebrews? Is there good reason to think this person could use a chiastic structure but a 19th century author could not?

I'd prefer the sponge argument that says he might have got the idea from epanodos or inverted parallelisms in rare works around 1820.

Maybe, because you think you know what the critic's position should be, you are having a hard time comprehending what it actually is.

But I guess farm a boy with a third grade education could just figure out on his own what scholars of the day were just beginning to realize needed to be a subject of exploration.

If you think that is my position then you aren't reading my posts very carefully.

[maklelan]

Or how about maybe a similarly complex and lengthy chiasmus from the Old Testament?

This I would like to see... I have a suspicion that the Alma36 chiasmu does not resemble anything in ancient Hebrew, but is actually far more complex and composed than ancient examples of the form.

Do you think it would be fair to say that any English translation of Hebrew texts is going to dilute much of the poetic value of the writing? When studied in the original Hebrew the layers of complexity in Biblical chiasmus are far more apparent.

The entire book of I Nephi is a chiastic structure. Have you looked at that one?

[The Dude]

The entire book of I Nephi is a chiastic structure. Have you looked at that one?

And as a chiastic structure, the book of 1Nephi is most similar to which ancient Hebrew composition...?