A Hebraism In The Book Of Mormon

[zerinus]

People have done some amazing things that by all common expectations were far beyond what their upbringing, training, or education prepared them to do. The question that needs to be asked is not whether Joseph Smith could have written the Book of Mormon but whether the evidence shows that he, or someone close to him, did so. I'm afraid the answer to that question is Yes. And if Joseph or someone close to him (I am inclined to give Joseph the credit) wrote it, then of course he could have done so.

Except that evidence from his own early personal writings indicates that he was totally lacking the literary finesse to compose anything remotely like the Book of Mormon. It is only when he composed scripture (not just the Book of Mormon) under divine inspiration that he demonstrated that literary capability.

[Rob Bowman]

zerinus,

You wrote:

Except that evidence from his own early personal writings indicates that he was totally lacking the literary finesse to compose anything remotely like the Book of Mormon. It is only when he composed scripture (not just the Book of Mormon) under divine inspiration that he demonstrated that literary capability.

We could debate just what measure of literary finesse the Book of Mormon or other scriptures produced by Joseph Smith exhibited, but let me instead simply ask you for an example of the kind of text that Joseph Smith produced without inspiration that illustrates your point.

[zerinus]

The Book of Mormon first makes its appearance in recorded history in upstate New York in the late 1820s, in the midst of the Second Great Awakening. It would be poor scholarship not to consider that immediate context when seeking to determine the most likely origin of the Book of Mormon!

Okay, I will say it another way. What that "research" demonstrates is that the Book of Mormon, is not the by-product of (or influenced by) the "revivalist" movement of the time; but a unique book of scripture of Hebraic origin. The "revivalist link" (if it can be shown) is so minimal that it can be explained in other ways.

[zerinus]

We could debate just what measure of literary finesse the Book of Mormon or other scriptures produced by Joseph Smith exhibited, but let me instead simply ask you for an example of the kind of text that Joseph Smith produced without inspiration that illustrates your point.

Yes. Here is a typical letter that he wrote to his wife. I have done minor editing to make it more readable:

This day I have been walking through the most splendid part of the City of New York - the buildings are truly great and wonderful to the astonishing <of> to every beholder and the language of my heart is like this can the great God of all the Earth maker of all things magnificent and splendid be displeased with man for all these great inventions sought out by them my answer is no it cannot be seeing these works are calculated to make men comfortable wise and happy therefore not for the works can the Lord be displeased only against man is the anger of the Lord Kindled because they Give him not the Glory therefore their iniquities shall <be> visited upon their heads and their works shall be burned up with unquenchable fire the iniquity of the people is printed in every countenance and nothing but the dress of the people makes them look fair and bountiful all is deformity there is something in every countenance that is disagreeable with few exceptions Oh how long Oh Lord Shall this order of things exist and darkness cover the Earth and gross darkness cover the people after beholding all that I had any desire to behold I returned to my room to meditate and calm my mind and behold the thoughts of home of Emma and Julia rushes upon my mind like a flood and I could wish for

You can read the original here. It is not the best example, but good enough for a quick answer.

[zerinus]

Do you ever wonder why when it comes to anachronistic teachings, BOM prophets only copied the New Testament?

There are anachronistic quotations from the Old as well as the New Testament in the Book of Mormon.

I wonder why there are no similarities with the thousands of pages of original text modern prophets have given us, through writings or sermons?

Well, there are thousands of direct and indirect quotation in their sermons and writings form the Book of Mormon. How are you going to prove that they are copying from the Book of Mormon, and not the Book of Mormon anachronistically copying from them? LOL!

Why no duplication of Lorenzo Snow's couplet? Why no "no success outside the home can make up for failure inside the home?" Why no "never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved."

So who gets to decide what should be "anachronistically" copied and what shouldn't be? Is it you?

[wenglund]

Okay. Please provide citations showing that Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses preached such revivalist sermons. I will allow you to use Joseph Smith's supposed modern translations.

I am only obliged to provide requested references for the things that I have actually said. I didn't claim that Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses preached revivalist sermons. What I claimed was that they fit the "genre of religious leaders throughout the ages delivering the message of repentance, renewed faith, and the principles of redemption to waning believers."

Who needs to provide this "implicit context"? What do you mean by that term? Can you give me an example?

Here is an example: If I wish to allude to the Bible in a message, I may state explicitly something general like: "the Bible teaches us to be good." Or, I may provide context that implies that I am alluding to the Bible, such as: "our ancient prophets in the old world have said..." I can't reasonably do so idiomatically, by saying something like: "repent and be baptised," since such idioms are used by numerous sources, including 21st century conference talks.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Please provide an example of how the same reasoning that I use has been used to question the origins of material in the Bible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus#Scholarly_methods (see in particular, Linguyistic Analysis)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus#Denial_of_a_Historical_Jesus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

This doesn't follow at all. Idiomatic dissimilarities in and of themselves prove nothing except that each speaker or writer has some turns of phrase or ways of speaking that are distinctively his. Perhaps you'd like to give me an example of the kind of "idiomatic dis-similarities" that you think disprove the nineteenth-century origin of the Book of Mormon.

I gave several examples in my previous post.

I have already explained why there is no problem here. Joseph Smith adapted the revivalist extemporaneous speech genre to fit the context of his narrative in the Book of Mormon. The sermon also reflects some of Joseph's own views that were out of the mainstream of Methodist revivalism. Accounting for these differences is no problem at all.

Then please do so--preferably in a coherent way. This means providing evidence, apart from the Book of Mormon itself (so as to avoid question begging), that at the time the Book of Mormon was being produced, Joseph held certain non-mainstream Methodist views, and from whence those views were supposedly derived, and why he allegedly intermingled those non-mainstream views amidst the mainstream views and supposedly put them selectively in the mouth of one of many key characters in the Book of Mormon.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Rob Bowman]

Wade,

You wrote:

I am only obliged to provide requested references for the things that I have actually said. I didn't claim that Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses preached revivalist sermons. What I claimed was that they fit the "genre of religious leaders throughout the ages delivering the message of repentance, renewed faith, and the principles of redemption to waning believers."

Okay, so your claim does nothing to counter the point I made, which was that the sermon in Alma 5 fits very specifically the genre of revivalistic sermons or extemporaneous evangelistic appeals in the Second Great Awakening. Glad we cleared that up.

You wrote:

Here is an example: If I wish to allude to the Bible in a message, I may state explicitly something general like: "the Bible teaches us to be good." Or, I may provide context that implies that I am alluding to the Bible, such as: "our ancient prophets in the old world have said..." I can't reasonably do so idiomatically, by saying something like: "repent and be baptised," since such idioms are used by numerous sources, including 21st century conference talks.

I'm afraid you don't understand how allusion works. If I say, "Frankly, my dear Wade, I don't give a darn," anyone familiar with American cinema will know that I am alluding to Rhett Butler's famous closing line in Gone with the Wind (just cleaned up for the children). It is not necessary for me to mention Clark Gable, the movie, American cinema in general, or Margaret Mitchell for the allusion to be real. The allusion is clear because the verbal similarity between my statement and the movie line is distinctive enough and sustained enough that those familiar with the film will recognize it without any trouble. Likewise, if I were to say to you, "I'll get you, my Mormon friend, and your little dog too," you would not need me to identify the source of the allusion for the allusion to be there. On the other hand, if I were to say something like "I'll get you, Wade," that would not be an allusion to anything because it is not distinctive or sustained enough.

Now let's use your example. To say "Repent and be baptized" is to use an imperative that has been repeated countless times in the past two millennia. However, we know where this imperative was first used: in the first century BC, by John the Baptist. This conclusion rests on a very firm and substantial body of textual evidence. Now of course, if we found a papyrus that was carbon-dated to the sixth century BC and that used the same exact imperative (not just expressing similar ideas), we would have to admit that what we thought we knew was mistaken. In the absence of such evidence, the paper trail from the first-century Gospels to the present shows with a reasonable high degree of confidence, really beyond any reasonable doubt, that this specific imperative dates from the first century. By the way, "beyond any reasonable doubt" does not mean that it is absolutely, 100 percent certain, like a proof in geometry; it means that while it is barely possible not to be true there is no reasonable basis for doubting that it is true. Nor does "beyond reasonable doubt" impugn the reasoning faculties of anyone who disagrees; it simply means that there is no reasonable basis for disagreeing.

In the case of the clear use of Matthew 3:10 KJV in Alma 5, it really goes beyond "allusion." A fair assessment is that Alma 5 actually quotes Matthew 3:10 KJV, albeit without saying it is doing so. It's hard to know what to say to someone who professes not to see this. If I write, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but will have eternal life," you know I am quoting John 3:16, even if I don't admit that I am doing so. This is a quite comparable example to what we find in Alma's use of Matthew 3:10.

[cdowis]

Parallelism is a flawed argument.

For example, I can provide proof that the BOM was written in the 20th century. There are clear references to the Teliban, for example, where we have terrorists with a standing army who flee to the mountains in the winderness, and pursuit by government troops. Who could miss the the references to the Mafia and their oaths, We see "TV preachers", references to Darwinisn, to the arguments of modern atheists.

The BOM is clearly a production of the 20th century, based on the argument of parallelism.

The burden is on yourself to prove that there are references only to the 19th century, and to no other post 19th century culture.

Edited February 22, 2012 by cdowis

[Pahoran]

Parallelism is a flawed argument.

For example, I can provide proof that the BOM was written in the 20th century. There are clear references to the Teliban, for example, where we have terrorists with a standing army who flee to the mountains in the winderness, and pursuit by government troops. Who could miss the the references to the Mafia and their oaths, We see "TV preachers", references to Darwinisn, to the arguments of modern atheists.

The BOM is clearly a production of the 20th century, based on the argument of parallelism.

The burden is on yourself to prove that there are references only to the 19th century, and to no other post 19th century culture.

You forgot the obvious derviation of Cumorah from Qumran.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Pahoran]

When we put this one datum in the larger context of the speech patterns of the sermon as a whole and look at the other considerations I presented in my later post, the conclusion seems to me to be established beyond reasonable doubt.

Of course it seems that way to you, Rob.

But then again, we recally how obdurately, adamantly and stubbornly you tried to argue, in complete and direct defiance of the evidence of the text, that Alma 18 reflects the Book of Mormon teaching that God the Father is a Spirit. And then we realise what has actually been "established beyond reasonable doubt."

Regards,

Pahoran

[wenglund]

Okay, so your claim does nothing to counter the point I made, which was that the sermon in Alma 5 fits very specifically the genre of revivalistic sermons or extemporaneous evangelistic appeals in the Second Great Awakening. Glad we cleared that up.

As intended, it weighs against your point as used in relation to your claim that you have made an "extremely powerful case for the sermon originating in early nineteenth century America."

I'm afraid you don't understand how allusion works. If I say, "Frankly, my dear Wade, I don't give a darn," anyone familiar with American cinema will know that I am alluding to Rhett Butler's famous closing line in Gone with the Wind (just cleaned up for the children). It is not necessary for me to mention Clark Gable, the movie, American cinema in general, or Margaret Mitchell for the allusion to be real. The allusion is clear because the verbal similarity between my statement and the movie line is distinctive enough and sustained enough that those familiar with the film will recognize it without any trouble.

I had previously thought of similar examples like: "I have a dream" and "Ask not what your country can do for you..." However, I didn't bring them up because, unlike you, I actually do understand how allusion works, and I could see how these examples don't fit, on several levels, the issue at hand.

For one, the statements I just quoted are iconic, whereas the idioms you quoted earlier are not. This is a key point. Iconic statement allude to certain people and at certain time precisely because they are iconic. Idioms that are a part of the common venacular don't allude because they are common. The idioms you quoted are, by your own admission, common, particularly among 19th revivalists.

Second, given what was just said, the alluding of iconic statements are specific to a person during a specific event, whereas the allusion you are claiming is general, to the Bible.

So, even were the idioms you quoted to have been iconic (they weren't--as explained above), they may at best allude to, in the first case, the English translation of what Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians. The idioms you quoted don't allude to the Bible.

Do you understand the important difference?

If not, that's fine. This is really a trivial matter and I have no interest pursuing further.

Likewise, if I were to say to you, "I'll get you, my Mormon friend, and your little dog too," you would not need me to identify the source of the allusion for the allusion to be there. On the other hand, if I were to say something like "I'll get you, Wade," that would not be an allusion to anything because it is not distinctive or sustained enough.

Now let's use your example. To say "Repent and be baptized" is to use an imperative that has been repeated countless times in the past two millennia. However, we know where this imperative was first used: in the first century BC, by John the Baptist. This conclusion rests on a very firm and substantial body of textual evidence. Now of course, if we found a papyrus that was carbon-dated to the sixth century BC and that used the same exact imperative (not just expressing similar ideas), we would have to admit that what we thought we knew was mistaken. In the absence of such evidence, the paper trail from the first-century Gospels to the present shows with a reasonable high degree of confidence, really beyond any reasonable doubt, that this specific imperative dates from the first century.

Setting aside the issue of earliest NT manuscripts, we are talking here about "alluding," not etymology or the earliest know origins of various idioms.

In the case of the clear use of Matthew 3:10 KJV in Alma 5, it really goes beyond "allusion." A fair assessment is that Alma 5 actually quotes Matthew 3:10 KJV, albeit without saying it is doing so. It's hard to know what to say to someone who professes not to see this.

What you can say to that someone is that, thankfully, he isn't a narrow-minded dogmatist like you. He actually has the capacity to grasp the reasonable prospect that a translation of a 600 page religious text into English would likely share in common some phrasing, even in large chucks, with the English translation of another closely related and sizable religious text. He is smart enough to be open to the reasonable plausibility that shared phrasing, even in their original language, may have both derived from a common source. Most important, unlike you, he is wise enough to put his trust in the arm of God, rather than man, in matters of faith regarding the provenance of claimed scripture.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited February 22, 2012 by wenglund

[Rob Bowman]

Wade,

You wrote:

I had previously thought of similar examples like: "I have a dream" and "Ask not what your country can do for you..." However, I didn't bring them up because, unlike you, I actually do understand how allusion works, and I could see how these examples don't fit, on several levels, the issue at hand.

For one, the statements I just quoted are iconic, whereas the idioms you quoted earlier are not. This is a key point. Iconic statement allude to certain people and at certain time precisely because they are iconic. Idioms that are a part of the common venacular don't allude because they are common. The idioms you quoted are, by your own admission, common, particularly among 19th revivalists.

You're confusing two issues. The use of idioms or other familiar turns of phrase (i.e., of a few words each), like "souls expanded," is one issue, and has nothing to do with allusions. The use of modern speech patterns like idioms proves only that the Book of Mormon was written in modern idiom and was not a literal translation of an ancient text, if it was a translation at all. Their presence allows for the theory that the translation was done in modern speech patterns. Allusions refer to verbal echoes that go beyond a simple turn of phrase by recalling statements made in a specific context, like an allusion to a movie line or a famous statement by a political leader or a well-known passage of the Bible. The use of allusions to the New Testament in the Book of Mormon, such as Alma's quoting a statement from Matthew 3:10, are anachronistic on any plausible theory or model of its alleged translation.

[Rob Bowman]

zerinus,

You missed the second page of the letter. I don't see the great disparity between the literacy level of the letter and that of the Book of Mormon. Of course, the Book of Mormon is much longer and more involved, but the letter shows Joseph quite capable of soaring rhetoric, easy and multiple allusions and references to different parts of the Bible, and the like.

Yes. Here is a typical letter that he wrote to his wife. I have done minor editing to make it more readable:

This day I have been walking through the most splendid part of the City of New York - the buildings are truly great and wonderful to the astonishing <of> to every beholder and the language of my heart is like this can the great God of all the Earth maker of all things magnificent and splendid be displeased with man for all these great inventions sought out by them my answer is no it cannot be seeing these works are calculated to make men comfortable wise and happy therefore not for the works can the Lord be displeased only against man is the anger of the Lord Kindled because they Give him not the Glory therefore their iniquities shall <be> visited upon their heads and their works shall be burned up with unquenchable fire the iniquity of the people is printed in every countenance and nothing but the dress of the people makes them look fair and bountiful all is deformity there is something in every countenance that is disagreeable with few exceptions Oh how long Oh Lord Shall this order of things exist and darkness cover the Earth and gross darkness cover the people after beholding all that I had any desire to behold I returned to my room to meditate and calm my mind and behold the thoughts of home of Emma and Julia rushes upon my mind like a flood and I could wish for

You can read the original here. It is not the best example, but good enough for a quick answer.

[zerinus]

You missed the second page of the letter.

Yes I did. Thank you for pointing that out.

I don't see the great disparity between the literacy level of the letter and that of the Book of Mormon.

I do. There is considerable difference between the two.

Of course, the Book of Mormon is much longer and more involved, but the letter shows Joseph quite capable of soaring rhetoric, easy and multiple allusions and references to different parts of the Bible, and the like.

That letter is not a very good example, because it was written in October 1832, by which time Joseph Smith had already translated the Book of Mormon, and done most of the work of his inspired translation of the Bible (JST), as a result of which he had acquired that in-depth understanding, extraordinary familiarity and recollection of the Bible that stood him in good stead for the rest of his life, and he manifested in all of his sermons and teachings and preachings, and which he also demonstrates in that letter. He acquired that extraordinary insight into, and familiarity with the Bible as a result of working on the JST under divine inspiration. I believe that the Lord commanded him to do that work as much for his own training and education in his ministry, as for our benefits. Something written before, or around the time he translated the Book of Mormon, would provide a better example. Nevertheless, that letter also demonstrates what I am talking about. His high-flown style in that letter is nowhere near comparable to the literary finesse of the Book of Mormon or the revelations of the D&C.

Edited February 22, 2012 by zerinus

[wenglund]

Wade,

You wrote:

You're confusing two issues. The use of idioms or other familiar turns of phrase (i.e., of a few words each), like "souls expanded," is one issue, and has nothing to do with allusions. The use of modern speech patterns like idioms proves only that the Book of Mormon was written in modern idiom and was not a literal translation of an ancient text, if it was a translation at all. Their presence allows for the theory that the translation was done in modern speech patterns. Allusions refer to verbal echoes that go beyond a simple turn of phrase by recalling statements made in a specific context, like an allusion to a movie line or a famous statement by a political leader or a well-known passage of the Bible. The use of allusions to the New Testament in the Book of Mormon, such as Alma's quoting a statement from Matthew 3:10, are anachronistic on any plausible theory or model of its alleged translation.

Since this is off-topic on this thread, and there is another thread open where it would be on-topic, I will wait to address this there.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Getting back to the topic of Hebraism in the Book of Mormon, let me repost this since it went without response:

Speaking of parallels, my Sunday School instructor pointed out yesterday that the 4th chapter of 2nd Nephi, verses 17-35 may affectionately be considered the Psalms of Nephi.

My instructor pointed out that these verses were written structurally in a poetic form he called "parallelisms," which he defined something along the lines of: repeating sequentially twice in two different ways each thought in a series of thought.

The Catholic Encyclopedia defines it as: "The balance of verse with verse, an essential and characteristic feature in Hebrew poetry. Either by repetition or by antithesis or by some other device, thought is set over against thought, form balances form, in such wise as to bring the meaning home to one strikingly and agreeably."

According to Wikipedia: "Parallelism means giving two or more parts of the sentences a similar form so as to give the whole a definite pattern. Parallelisms of various sorts are the chief rhetorical device of Biblical poetry in Hebrew.^[1][2]"

Now, while "parallelism" may be found in the Bible (particularly the Old Testament), I don't know that it was a common way of speaking among relatively uneducated and young farmers on the frontier of 19th century United States.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[robuchan]

Getting back to the topic of Hebraism in the Book of Mormon, let me repost this since it went without response:

Speaking of parallels, my Sunday School instructor pointed out yesterday that the 4th chapter of 2nd Nephi, verses 17-35 may affectionately be considered the Psalms of Nephi.

My instructor pointed out that these verses were written structurally in a poetic form he called "parallelisms," which he defined something along the lines of: repeating sequentially twice in two different ways each thought in a series of thought.

The Catholic Encyclopedia defines it as: "The balance of verse with verse, an essential and characteristic feature in Hebrew poetry. Either by repetition or by antithesis or by some other device, thought is set over against thought, form balances form, in such wise as to bring the meaning home to one strikingly and agreeably."

According to Wikipedia: "Parallelism means giving two or more parts of the sentences a similar form so as to give the whole a definite pattern. Parallelisms of various sorts are the chief rhetorical device of Biblical poetry in Hebrew.^[1][2]"

Now, while "parallelism" may be found in the Bible (particularly the Old Testament), I don't know that it was a common way of speaking among relatively uneducated and young farmers on the frontier of 19th century United States.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

This thread brought some good points on how to evaluate potential Hebraisms. Look for the Hebraism in the KJV, literature available to 19th century New Englanders, and sample sermons from the time period. If you find the Hebraism there, it doesn't do much to support the idea that the BOM is an ancient document vs a 19th century document.

I'm guessing you could find "poetic form repeating sequentially twice in two different ways each thought in a series of thought" in this material.

[Robert F. Smith]

This isn't much of an answer. Speaking as a conservative evangelical Protestant who believes in the Bible as the word of God, I would simply say that the Bible does have "naturalistic origins" in a literary sense. Let's look at the New Testament in light of the three lines of evidence I presented regarding Alma 5. (1) Speech forms: the New Testament writings were written in koine Greek that was common in the first century AD. The New Testament books do not purport to be translations from third-millennium BC Egyptian texts and yet read like first-century AD Greek texts. (2) Literary dependence: When the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament, they did so using their natural knowledge of the Old Testament. The New Testament does not contain allusions to Beowulf. (3) Genres: The New Testament writings use genres common in the first century. The Gospels are written in the genre of ancient Greco-Roman biographies. Acts is written in the genre of ancient Hellenistic histories. The epistles are ancient letters with varying degrees of literary composition. Revelation is apocalyptic literature. We do not find medieval ballads, English sonnets, or systematic-theological treatises in the New Testament.

Rob,

re your post #16,

Wade does have a valid point here in that, as you admit “the Bible does have ‘naturalistic origins’ in a literary sense” – even if we set aside for the moment what that might mean for your belief that “the Bible is the word of God,” possibly in some inerrant and infallible sense.

That becomes a major issue vis à vis Book of Mormon origins when we observe that the New Testament is not simply a koine Greek 1st century AD document narrowly tied to typical literary genres of that region and time (Greco-Roman biography, Hellenistic espistolary form, and apocalyptic literature). In addition to all that, what we find in NT literature (including Jesus’ own words) are systematic quotations from and allusions to Jewish rabbinic and sectarian sources going back centuries – including what we now classify as apocrypha and pseudepigrapha – and even transparent use of pagan magical and wisdom literature, and pagan stories.¹

You say that “when the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament, they did so using their natural knowledge of the Old Testament,” by which I assume you mean to say that the primary form of the OT quoted and alluded to by the NT authors (all of them writing long after the death of Jesus) is the Greek Septuagint (LXX) version of the OT and not the Hebrew Bible. Yet, quite often, when Jesus is quoting the OT he uses the Aramaic Targums² – which depart from both the Greek and Hebrew content and meaning. Moreover, some of the most important NT scholars have regularly used Aramaic parallels to understand what Jesus was in fact doing and saying.³

¹ Luke 16:19-31, for example, is seen as derived from Egyptian Setne II (“Setne Khamwas and Si-Osire” compared in J. Jeremias, Parables of Jesus, 178,183; H. Gressman, Vom reichen Mann und armen Lazarus, with talmudic parallels; and K. Grobel, “. . . Whose Name Was Neves,” NTS, 10:373-382).

² Craig A. Evans, “Introduction,” xii-xvii, to the 1998 Hendrickson reprint of Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, 3rd ed. (Oxford Univ. Press, 1967).

³ Aside from Matthew Black (immediately above), see Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (London: Chapman, 1971).

[Rob Bowman]

Robert,

You wrote:

Wade does have a valid point here in that, as you admit “the Bible does have ‘naturalistic origins’ in a literary sense” – even if we set aside for the moment what that might mean for your belief that “the Bible is the word of God,” possibly in some inerrant and infallible sense.

I explained what I meant. Your response doesn't seem to connect with my explanation. The fact that the biblical authors don't quote books they never saw (!) doesn't undermine the trustworthiness of what they say.

You wrote:

That becomes a major issue vis à vis Book of Mormon origins when we observe that the New Testament is not simply a koine Greek 1st century AD document narrowly tied to typical literary genres of that region and time (Greco-Roman biography, Hellenistic espistolary form, and apocalyptic literature). In addition to all that, what we find in NT literature (including Jesus’ own words) are systematic quotations from and allusions to Jewish rabbinic and sectarian sources going back centuries – including what we now classify as apocrypha and pseudepigrapha – and even transparent use of pagan magical and wisdom literature, and pagan stories.¹

I haven't a clue what this has to do with anything I said. All of that literature is part of the background and cultural milieu of the New Testament. The NT fits chronologically into its traditional time period. Paul may quote pagans, but he doesn't quote Marcus Aurelius!

You wrote:

You say that “when the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament, they did so using their natural knowledge of the Old Testament,” by which I assume you mean to say that the primary form of the OT quoted and alluded to by the NT authors (all of them writing long after the death of Jesus) is the Greek Septuagint (LXX) version of the OT and not the Hebrew Bible. Yet, quite often, when Jesus is quoting the OT he uses the Aramaic Targums² – which depart from both the Greek and Hebrew content and meaning. Moreover, some of the most important NT scholars have regularly used Aramaic parallels to understand what Jesus was in fact doing and saying.³

You're pulling out all the stops of what appears to be fairly sophisticated knowledge about the Bible, yet you are completely missing the point. Yes, Jesus and the New Testament authors quoted the Old Testament in a variety of versions, and in some cases paraphrased it. But they didn't quote the Old Testament in German or Sanskrit!

Edited February 22, 2012 by Rob Bowman

[cdowis]

This argument has been addressed previously. The problem is that one can prove ANYTHING given certain assumptions. This argument is based on several assumptions which the antimormons refuse to disclose, so let's take a look ==>>

We know that there are missing texts from the OT time period, and these texts are quoted in the Nt-- that the Messiah would be a Nazarene, and Jude quoting the book of Enoch. The BOM quotes OT authors who are missing. But this argument makes the flawed assumption that we have all of the OT writings, and that Paul is speaking for himself, when we already know that he is constantly quoting other authors, including the OT.

Thus, BOM and Paul are quoting the same *missing* texts from OT authors.

[Robert F. Smith]

This thread brought some good points on how to evaluate potential Hebraisms. Look for the Hebraism in the KJV, literature available to 19th century New Englanders, and sample sermons from the time period. If you find the Hebraism there, it doesn't do much to support the idea that the BOM is an ancient document vs a 19th century document. I'm guessing you could find "poetic form repeating sequentially twice in two different ways each thought in a series of thought" in this material.

robuchan,

While you are looking for something in 19th century literature as beautiful and well-structured as the Psalm of Nephi (please let us know when you find it), bear in mind that most Hebraisms can be be adduced from carefully reading the KJV Bible. That makes so-called Hebraisms largely moot as evidence of antiquity, since what we really need are unique and remarkable ancient characteristics not available in Joseph Smith’s day.

We can find such characteristics in Egyptian literature, and what makes that impressive is that such literature was not available to Joseph. Indeed, Joseph’s apparently “absurd” claim that the Book of Mormon (and the Plates of Laban) were written in Egyptian, compels us to examine it for Egyptianisms. And we find them in profusion. A few examples will have to suffice here, pending publication of my “Egyptianisms in the Book of Mormon”:

1. An Egyptian Weights & Measures system, though it appears to follow a base-8 rather than decimal system.¹

2. Systematic literary topoi in common with the chiastic ancient Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe, at I Nephi 4:18, 17:5-6, Alma 17 - 19.

3. Abridgment, use of the double negative, etc., all absent from Hebrew.

4. A group of authentic Egyptian names, which even the late William F. Albright affirmed in two cases.

5. The “iron rod” as the “word of God” is an equivalence or pun only possible in Egyptian.

In his recent book, The Mormon People (Random House, 2012), 28, Matthew Bowman argues that Joseph Smith was a child of the Enlightenment who realized that he needed to present “evidence” and “experience” in order to support his extraordinary claims. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether he has succeeded in doing so.

¹ M. Bowman, Mormon People, 25.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

Robert,

I explained what I meant. Your response doesn't seem to connect with my explanation. The fact that the biblical authors don't quote books they never saw (!) doesn't undermine the trustworthiness of what they say.

I haven't a clue what this has to do with anything I said. All of that literature is part of the background and cultural milieu of the New Testament. The NT fits chronologically into its traditional time period. Paul may quote pagans, but he doesn't quote Marcus Aurelius!

You're pulling out all the stops of what appears to be fairly sophisticated knowledge about the Bible, yet you are completely missing the point. Yes, Jesus and the New Testament authors quoted the Old Testament in a variety of versions, and in some cases paraphrased it. But they didn't quote the Old Testament in German or Sanskrit!

Sorry to go over the top, Rob,

but I wanted to clarify the fact that the 1st century AD mise en scene for the NT is not as cut and dried as you suggested. That over-simplified view often gets in the way of understanding how to evaluate the Book of Mormon as literature of its own time. For in neither case are they only literature naturally springing from their own time. Each entails great antiquity and deep spiritual meaning -- and neither can be fully understood by reading contemporary literature. Just as Jesus speaks like an 8th century prophet,¹ so too Lehi carries on like an ancient Hebrew patriarch, each behaving quite authentically.

¹ Claude Montefiore, "What a Jew Thinks About Jesus," Hibbert Journal, 33 (1934-1935), 516, cited by Donald A. Hagner, The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus: An Analysis and Critique of Modern Study of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 239.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[Rob Bowman]

Robert,

You wrote:

Sorry to go over the top, Rob,

but I wanted to clarify the fact that the 1st century AD mise en scene for the NT is not as cut and dried as you suggested. That over-simplified view often gets in the way of understanding how to evaluate the Book of Mormon as literature of its own time. For in neither case are they only literature naturally springing from their own time. Each entails great antiquity and deep spiritual meaning -- and neither can be fully understood by reading contemporary literature. Just as Jesus speaks like an 8th century prophet,¹ so too Lehi carries on like an ancient Hebrew patriarch, each behaving quite authentically.

Nothing you are saying here in any way conflicts with what I said, nor have you shown that my comments about the New Testament were too "cut and dried." It certainly is not my suggestion that the New Testament writers drew only from sources contemporary with themselves. Of course they quoted much older literature and lived in a culture with roots deep in the past. Likewise, there would be no problem with the Book of Mormon quoting Old Testament literature pre-dating 600 BC or exhibiting cultural roots from the Old World that went back centuries and even millennia prior to the time of writing. But so what? This has nothing to do with anything I said. Lehi carrying on "like an ancient Hebrew patriarch"? No problem. Alma carrying on like a modern Methodist revivalist? Big problem!

[Rob Bowman]

Charles,

I'm a little confused as to your point. Which argument are you trying to rebut? Which quotation that is in both Paul and the Book of Mormon are you claiming came from the same missing Old Testament text?

[Robert F. Smith]

Robert,

I would agree with this principle, though I would take it in a different direction than you do. As I look at Alma 5 as a whole, I find three considerations that lead me to conclude that Alma's sermon in Alma 5 originated in the early nineteenth century AD rather than the first century BC.

First, the idioms and other speech forms in the sermon all fit easily and obviously within Joseph Smith’s early nineteenth-century Anglo-American culture. Let’s take the part of the sermon with which we started, in which the idiom of souls “expanding” appears. A convenient unit is Alma 5:7-10. I will reproduce the text of these verses below with underlining to indicate whole expressions that I found using Google Books search for the years 1775-1829. The verbal parallels are exact except where noted. Thus bracketed words in the text are words not found in English literature parallels; in each case those bracketed words are not important to the idiom. I have not bothered with isolated words that in most languages and cultures would be expected to have numerous exact parallels. I have crossed out two words that are in the current edition of the Book of Mormon and that were not in the 1830 edition (neither of which is particularly consequential).

Alma 5:7-10

7 Behold, he changed their hearts; yea, he awakened [them] out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God (cf. “awake to God”). Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls [were] illuminated by the light of the everlasting word; yea, they were encircled about by the bands of death, and the chains of hell, and an everlasting destruction did await them.

8 And now I ask [of] you, my brethren, were they destroyed? Behold, I say unto you, Nay, they were not.

9 And again I ask, were the bands of death broken, and the chains of hell which encircled [them] about, were they loosed? I say unto you, Yea, they were loosed, and their souls [did] expand, and they did sing redeeming love. And I say unto you that they are saved.

10 And now I ask of you on what conditions are they saved? Yea, what grounds had they to hope for salvation? What is the cause of their being loosed from the bands of death, yea, and also the chains of hell?

We could go through the whole sermon like this and the evidence would simply amass. Any parallels from ancient Egyptian texts will pale in significance when one considers the pervasive presence throughout the sermon of idioms and other figures of speech and turns of phrase that were part of the speech patterns of English-speaking people in Joseph Smith’s day. Such idiomatic expressions as changing hearts and singing redeeming love and loosed from the bands of death, considered cumulatively, prove beyond reasonable doubt that the language of the sermon derives from modern English speech patterns. The sermon’s speech patterns do not derive from ancient Egyptian or Hebrew, even though there are places where ancient idioms may happen in a few places to coincide with the English text.

Now, there are some theories or models for understanding the Book of Mormon as a translation that admit the use of modern English idiom. Such models affirm that Alma did deliver a sermon in the first century BC and that the sermon’s message was essentially what we find in Alma 5, but then explain that Joseph used modern English idiom to convey Alma’s message in terms familiar to Joseph’s contemporaries. The precise wording of the sermon may in that narrow sense be anachronistic, but the sermon itself was still ancient and the message of the sermon does not derive from modern English sources.

Here is where the other two considerations come into the picture. The second consideration is that in several places the sermon betrays a clear dependence on the New Testament in the King James Version (KJV). I will present several of the more obvious examples, passing over some for sake of time—but the more of these one sees the weightier the evidence for dependence.

Two things stand out about these allusions to the New Testament. The first is that there are so many of them—and again I have not exhausted all of the legitimate allusions. The second is that these allusions come in the context of a sermon that refers explicitly to “Jesus Christ” (v. 48)! The uses of that name and of so many clear allusions to the KJV New Testament are anachronistic in a way that cannot be accommodated by an English-idiom translation model of the Book of Mormon.

The third consideration is that the genre and message of the sermon in Alma 5 appear to be very much that of a revivalist preacher during the Second Great Awakening that was in full force during the 1820s. Its epicenter was, of course, upstate New York, the “burned over district” where Joseph Smith lived when he produced the Book of Mormon. Alma’s sermon reads very much like the sorts of off-the-cuff exhortatory sermons that the Methodists and other revivalists were giving in that Awakening—adapted to the Book of Mormon’s chronological setting of the first century BC. The sermon uses frequent rhetorical questions, pressing the hearers to examine their spiritual condition to determine if they have been “born again,” if they truly believe, and so on. It uses intertwining biblical allusions throughout, seemingly without effort. It contains urgent warnings to escape hell and be “saved.” It warns that the hearer could die at any moment and be unprepared to face God in judgment. It is especially concerned about those who profess to be righteous but whose lives show that profession to be a sham. The sermon even ends with an “invitation” to come and be baptized (v. 62)!

To review: (1) The sermon in Alma 5 is pervasively composed in the idiom or speech patterns of English and American speakers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. (2) The sermon contains several clear allusions to the New Testament that considered as a whole show that the sermon is definitely dependent on the New Testament. (3) The sermon is in genre and in the substance of its message consistent with and typical of revivalist sermons in Joseph Smith’s immediate culture. These three considerations of speech patterns, sources, and genre/message, taken together cumulatively, seem to me to make an extremely powerful case for the sermon originating in early nineteenth century America.

Rob,

In your post #13, you listed some excellent parallels between the Book of Mormon and the NT, which I do not believe present any sort of “problem” (or “big problem!” as you put it in post #73). None of the parallels you present are new or surprising to those of us who have been cataloguing and publishing thousands of them in great detail now for a generation.

Beginning in the 1970s and early 80s, for example, John L. Hilton I and Kenneth D. Jenkins (at UC Berkeley) used computers to compare phrases of all sizes between the Bible and Book of Mormon. My colleagues and I used such lists and other techniques to develop a sophisticated apparatus of thousands of significant parallels accompanying the two massive editions of the Book of Mormon Critical Text published from 1984 - 1987 by FARMS. I’m sure that you find just such an apparatus (footnotes) of some help to you in your use of the The Greek New Testament, 4th ed. (UBS, 1983), when you want to know what source is being quoted. I know I do.

I also appreciate the comparisons you have made with Alma 5:7-10 using Google Books for phrases in common with sources from 1775 - 1829, even though some of those phrases are so quotidian as to have very negligible import, e.g., “I say unto you,” “nay, they were not,” and the like. However, as you yourself say, “there are some theories or models for understanding the Book of Mormon as a translation that admit the use of modern English idiom,” and it is here that I think we find the primary issue for both of us:

I am not at all surprised to find detailed points of contact between contemporary language and the translation of an ancient document, even in the types of parallels which you present. For, as Blake Ostler¹ and others have pointed out, translation methods can and have certainly included midrashic expansion and dynamic metaphrase in rendering very interesting ancient parallels -- which can be expressed in modern parlance. This might be particularly true (as observed by Socrates & Plato) of an oral culture, or at least a largely oral culture (epic memory in preliterate cultures is very strong). For Joseph was certainly not well trained in reading and writing, but apparently knew a great deal about the Bible and revival phrasing from his oral information environment. Translating the material he encountered on the plates may have involved a mental feedback system in which he sought to make the Egyptian text readily accessible to readers of the Book of Mormon – even theologically accessible . . .

You might want to compare a variety of translations ranging from high to low, from the NEB to the Word on the Street (Rob Lacey, Zondervan, 2004), the latter perhaps not being a “translation” in the strict sense of the word. What I would recommend you avoid is the tendency to strain out gnats and then swallow camels in an effort to predetermine what Joseph was doing. Instead, a bit of induction is called for.

Meanwhile, where some have gone wrong is in imagining that the issue is all of one complexion, a notion which I have tried to allay in my piece on “Shakespeare and the Book of Mormon” here http://www.scribd.com/ doc/55708000/Death-in-Shakespeare-and-in-the-Book-of-Mormon . After all, when the ancient parallels are more compelling than the contemporary ones, one need not continue doggedly to maintain what is manifestly false.

¹ Blake T. Ostler, “The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an Ancient Source,” Dialogue, 20 (Spring 1987), 66-123.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Robert F. Smith