The Three Four Pattern in the BOM

[enummaelish]

Now, at the risk of looking like an idiot, I fully admit that maybe I'm the whose no grasping the concept, but I don't see the dichotomy you are attempting to draw.

This is certainly how I understand the connections. In my mind, whether they are intentional or accidental will always be open to debate. However, the answer to whether they exist or not seems obvious.

[USU78]

Enuma: maybe you could do a followup piece on the instances of this 3/4 phenomenon's appearance in the BoM, BoA, & BoMoses. It might even be a footnote (or chapter) in a larger work bringing in instances you find elsewhere in the ancient Levant and environs.

[Benjamin McGuire]

USU78 writes:

Accordingly, the literary formulae we find so tedious (chiasms and now this 3/4 thingie) are what make the story interesting to the contemporary auditors and fun to compose for the writers.

Although I know of a few scholars who contend that the primary function of chiastic structures and similar devices is merely aesthetic, such arguments aren't usually used in the identification of these structures. Aesthetic appeal is far too subjective as a criteria - and offers very little in terms of establishing intentionality.

Of course, the fact that USU missed the allusion is quite interesting in such a discussion - since it demonstrates how easily authorial intent can go unnoticed if the reader does not resemble the ideal reader that the author writes for.

Ben

[USU78]

USU78 writes:

Accordingly, the literary formulae we find so tedious (chiasms and now this 3/4 thingie) are what make the story interesting to the contemporary auditors and fun to compose for the writers.

Although I know of a few scholars who contend that the primary function of chiastic structures and similar devices is merely aesthetic, such arguments aren't usually used in the identification of these structures. Aesthetic appeal is far too subjective as a criteria - and offers very little in terms of establishing intentionality.

Of course, the fact that USU missed the allusion is quite interesting in such a discussion - since it demonstrates how easily authorial intent can go unnoticed if the reader does not resemble the ideal reader that the author writes for.

Ben

You'll please notice I discarded the whole thing after having prematurely posted it.

<Author's note: my master's was in 18th-19th Century German literary criticism from the aesthetics point of view. You'll please excuse if I occasionally resort to aesthetics analysis if you find such things displeasing.>

[Benjamin McGuire]

I don't find aesthetics arguments displeasing at all. Often, we can argue from an aesthetics point of view that the author clearly intended something by the way in which he writes as much as the substance of what he writes. But, when trying to establish whether or not the style is intentional, aethetic arguments themselves take a secondary position to other arguments which can better demonstrate intentionality (and thus can tell us more about the text and/or the author).

Ben

[USU78]

I don't find aesthetics arguments displeasing at all. Often, we can argue from an aesthetics point of view that the author clearly intended something by the way in which he writes as much as the substance of what he writes. But, when trying to establish whether or not the style is intentional, aethetic arguments themselves take a secondary position to other arguments which can better demonstrate intentionality (and thus can tell us more about the text and/or the author).

Ben

I do not disagree.

[enummaelish]

Dear Brent:

I actually appreciate your critique and have now reread and pondered your objections. I see no logical reason why one could reach the conclusion that the examples I

[USU78]

Enumma: Another example came to mind in reading the thread on Rev. 11: In verse 9 it says the two prophets will lie unburied 3-1/2 days.

[enummaelish]

Enumma: Another example came to mind in reading the thread on Rev. 11: In verse 9 it says the two prophets will lie unburied 3-1/2 days.

Well that IS interesting. Since of course 3-1/2 days implies a climactic four. Additional examples must appear in the NT.

[USU78]

Re: New Testament examples:

In all 4 gospels Simon/Cephas/Peter denies the Master thrice, whereupon the rooster crows, the light comes on and he realizes the Master spoke true.

Then there's the three synoptic gospels + John.

One wonders what rhetorical point is being made by this use of the 3/4.

My wife and I were at the hospital last night waiting out the radiologist. We were talking about this and wondering why the 3/4. I suggested the following:

Father + Son + Holy Ghost (3) = One G-d (4). She told me she had just been thinking the same thing.

[enummaelish]

Father + Son + Holy Ghost (3) = One G-d (4). She told me she had just been thinking the same thing.

It

[juliann]

Rather than coming here and addressing the issue head on, Vogel is taking cheap shots here: http://www.fairboards.org/index.php?showtopic=6643&st=105

Disappointing but not unexpected.

[Dan Vogel]

John R.,

Joseph Smith certainly saw parallels between himself and the Book of Mormon when he encountered 2 Nephi 3 (I'm obviously assuming he was a translator rather than author). Despite Dan's self-criticism, I find the apparent parallels between Joseph's family and the Book of Mormon strained and less than compelling. They are interesting, but I don't find them personally convincing. The family relationships described in the Book of Mormon are not altogether unique, and could be fit to any number of living (and dead) families. Indeed, I am the fourth child in my family, and two of my older siblings rebelled against my parents, which caused them no end of grief. I took a great deal of grief from both of them, but I was supported by the elder sib who was closest to me in age (ala Sam). My father and mother even had dreams about my older sibs, due to their anxiety. Self-criticism doesn't make one's position right or wrong. Nor do correlations demonstrate causation.

I

[Dan Vogel]

Juliann,

Rather than coming here and addressing the issue head on, Vogel is taking cheap shots here: http://www.fairboards.org/index.php?showtopic=6643&st=105

Disappointing but not unexpected.

As if you had a high opinion of my opinions anyway!

Here Wade is paying for his unevenness in handling the interpretations of the critics and those of the apologists. Having the strictest possible standards of evidence, bordering on positivism, for the critics, and the loosest, admittedly uncritical approach to the interpretations of other apologists.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Confidential Informant writes:

The allusions and connections are so subtle that only an ancient audience would have clued into them.

King Folley responds:

Respectfully, how do we know that?

One thing about allusions - by definition, they have to be able to be missed. If it isn't possible to not recognize them, they wouldn't be "allusive". But, by nature, you have to be familiar with the source of the allusion before you can recognize it. This is often referred to as the "competency" of the reader. Some readers are better than others.

An example which I have used frequently over the years comes from the poetic works od Natan Zach, an Isreali poet who penned the following work in 1966:

Dantes, no. The mountain is sad. The treasure

Stolen. When all is said and done there will be no

Gold coin missing. No, Dantes, no.

I do not know what your opinion is. If you ask

For my opinion, you will hear my heart saying

What is it saying. If you listen carefully

You will hear it singing, "No. Dantes.

No, Dantes. No."

The time passed. The waves did not break the fortress.

No passage is possible. The fish let one die but not

Live. Like animals. I know that but

I also know what a brother said to a brother

In the forgotten night. And this is what he said: "No.

No, Dantes, no."

You found the key in the cell. If you have not been asked,

You will not be asked. It is always possible to fake a corpse.

The matter does not lie here. The deceit is not here. You

Yourself have outworn your body. You feel like

Someone who gave up a fortune. No matter. The thought

That it has passed, not happy but not consoled either,

At least not that. Not total darkness, but certainly not light.

Too much of a jail here. Too much of a dungeon. But to remember

That it exists, that it is more than the reality of man:

It can be touched, it would be possible to reach its heart

Warm. No. No, Dantes, no.

If you read the poem strictly considering its semantics and syntax - a reading produced throught knowledge of language, grammars and dictionaries, you will derive some meaning from the poem. If, on the other hand, you recognize within the poem the metonymical allusion to Alexandre Dumas's novel - Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, you might come to an altogether different meaning. (The signs of the allusion, by the way, if you are familiar with the novel - should be apparent with some consideration - the mountain, the stolen treasure, the water surrounding the fortress, the false corpse, the prison cell, etc. Even the fuller text of the story even provides a suitable environment in which the poem might have been uttered. On the verge of wreaking his revenge (justified maybe), Monte-Cristo regains his humanity and realizes that man cannot play God. The poem speaking to Dante seems to be suggesting this before Dante even begins to play God.) This meaning, however, is completely inaccessible to the non-competent reader. Competence in this case is in part defined by familiarity with Dumas's novel.

The Book of Mormon contains many allusions - particularly to the Old Testament text. The identification of the allusions is in many ways essential to understanding the intentions of the text. Yet, they are easy to miss (especially to those who do not have a sufficient familiarity with the Biblical text). There is, for example, a specific reference to the definition of a "prophet" in the first two chapters of the Book of Mormon. The text of the Book of Mormon alludes to (or refers to) Numbers 12:6 which reads:

"And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream."

This is referred to in 1 Nephi 1:8 and 1 Nephi 2:1

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.

FOR behold, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto my father, yea, even in a dream, and said unto him: Blessed art thou Lehi, because of the things which thou hast done; and because thou hast been faithful and declared unto this people the things which I commanded thee, behold, they seek to take away thy life.

The second reference is clearer than the first, since it duplicates more language with the KJV text. In any case, it is relevant since we have lots of discussion on the nature of a prophet (and more importantly, on what Joseph Smith considered to the role of a prophet to be).

In any case, Confidential Informant was probably also referring to the extensive literary allusion between the Laban/Nephi Narrative in the Book of Mormon and the Goliath/David narrative in the Old Testament. A topic which I will be publishing on sometime in the near future.

Obviously, his comments that "only an ancient audience would have clued into them." is an overstatement. The identification of these allusions by anyone today would counter this claim - and the existence of allusions which are wholly unavailable to a modern reader could not be demonstrated. However, the point that he was attempting to make isn't that there are allusions that we can't identify, but rather that there are allusions which we don't normally recognize simply because we are not the ideal audience to which the writer was writing, neither are we (generally speaking) as familiar with the sources as we might be. In this sense, I think that the Book of Mormon displays a complexity which far exceeds (in many ways) the scope which is normally given for that text. Certainly I think that many literary connections can be established despite the uncertainty which inevitably accompanies those arguments.

Ben

[wenglund]

Juliann,

Rather than coming here and addressing the issue head on, Vogel is taking cheap shots here: http://www.fairboards.org/index.php?showtopic=6643&st=105

Disappointing but not unexpected.

As if you had a high opinion of my opinions anyway!

Here Wade is paying for his unevenness in handling the interpretations of the critics and those of the apologists. Having the strictest possible standards of evidence, bordering on positivism, for the critics, and the loosest, admittedly uncritical approach to the interpretations of other apologists.

Would somebody from Vogel's side of the isle please take pity on him and pull him aside and explain the elementry, though vast, difference between:

1. Tossing out ideas on a message board vs. publishing an anthology arguing for a hypothesis.

2. Asking a question about the proportion of evidence in relation to speculation vs. applying "the strictest possible standard of evidence."

3. Quoting scripture to see if there is a pattern vs. contra-evidentiary conjecturing about the thoughts in someone else's mind.

4. Ethusiastic curiousity vs enthusiatic acceptance.

5. Making somebody pay vs. making a fool of oneself.

I tried explaining some of this to him several times, but he is suffering under some kind of self-dillusion that he knows better than we apologist what we apologist say or think. Even more bizzare, he thinks it the height of absurdity to suggest otherwise. So, you can surely understand the problem.

See what you can do, though I don't hold out much hope.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[John Russell]

Dan:I

[Marcelo]

At first, sorry for my English, Portuguese is my mother language.

I used my Boolean search in order to find out in the Book of Mormon some important event or meaningful teaching that happened after three hours, three days, three years or after three similar experiences in Nature. Here are the ones that I found:

Lihmi people try to fight three times against the Lamanites and then start to repent themselves (Mosiah 21-16)

Amalickiah and Lehonti war negociation (Alma 47:10-14)

Aminadab notice Nephi and the angels after heard the voice three times in the prison (Helaman 5:28-40).

Coriantumr and Shiz battle (Ether 14:28-31). Shiz gave up after the third time.

Famine in the land for three years and then the people start to repent (Helaman 11:4-9)

I Nephi 2:6. After 3 days in the desert, Lehi pitched his tent in a valley.

Mosiah 17:6. After 3 days in counseling the priests, King Noah and his priests find something to condemn Abinadi.

Alma traveled during 3 days in the North of the land of Melek and after that came to Ammonihah. (Alma 8:6).

Alma 14:18. After passing 3 days in the prison, he Nehor

[enummaelish]

At first, sorry for my English, Portuguese is my mother language.

Eu gostaria dizzer muito obregado por teu ajuda. Entao, fui muti interesante e con certeza Eu vou uzar estes coisas!! O Livro de Mormon e verdidero nao e? Voice e de qal parte de Brazil?

[ssbn623]

  I Nephi 2:6. After 3 days in the desert, Lehi pitched his tent in a valley.

  Alma traveled during 3 days in the North of the land of Melek and after that came to Ammonihah. (Alma 8:6).

  Alma 14:18. After passing 3 days in the prison, he Nehor

[Bernard Gui]

Very interesting topic. Thanks for bringing

all this to light.

Bernard

[Marcelo]

At first, sorry for my English, Portuguese is my mother language.

Eu gostaria dizzer muito obregado por teu ajuda. Entao, fui muti interesante e con certeza Eu vou uzar estes coisas!! O Livro de Mormon e verdidero nao e? Voice e de qal parte de Brazil?

Hello! Enummaelish

I'm a LDS from S

[enummaelish]

I'm a convert, as almost 90% of the Brazilians LDS!

Glad you're with us. Sorry about the poor spelling.

[Matt Andrews]

enummaelish, how about the first three books of Nephi, followed by the climactic Fourth book of Nephi?

(Less seriously, how about the three members of the Godhead, where is the climactic fourth member?)

[enummaelish]

Hello Matt:

enummaelish, how about the first three books of Nephi, followed by the climactic Fourth book of Nephi?

(Less seriously, how about the three members of the Godhead, where is the climactic fourth member?)

A good question. There are no literary patterns that are truly universal. Actually, given the important contributing factors of authorial preference and historical reality, I really find it quite amazing that the three four sequence appears so frequently in the Hebrew Bible and the BOM.

Since I do not necessarily believe that the three-four pattern was developed by divine intent, I would have a hard time applying the sequence to everything in the Gospel, including 4 Nephi, the Gospel of John, and the Godhead. At least, that's where I stand today.