KJV in the Book of Mormon

[churchistrue]

In my computer analysis study, I identified 10,317 4-grams that match between the BOM and KJV Bible.  This is done excluding the long chapter length quotes of Isaiah, Matthew, and Malachi.  http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/king-james-bible-language-in-the-book-of-mormon/

I touch on four ways the KJV is used.  1) long block quotes 2) exegesis, ie Alma 7:11-13 as exegesis of Hebrews 2:17-18 3) KJV phrases pointing to intentional allusions, ie the kind of thing Grant Hardy writes about such as Abinadi to Moses, and what Benjamin Seeker has been writing about recently.  4) random phrases brought together, this is the most interesting piece to me, with more detail below.

On this aspect of it, Royal Skousen observed:

There’s another more interesting part that needs to be considered about the King James Bible, there’s all this phraseology in the Book of Mormon text which is sort of taken from different parts in a given passage, just woven together, it isn’t like somebody is taking something like looking at Hebrews and I’m going to make a little midrash on Hebrews and make a little comment and throw it in the text, it’s just phraseology that just happens to show up in Hebrews, and it is being used in a way that’s different than it’s being used in Hebrews, then there’s something from Exodus in that same passage, a little phrase, and it’s woven, and it’s like somebody that’s translating this knows that King James text so well and it can just use it. It isn’t like Joseph Smith spending all night whipping through his Bible looking at this and that and putting it together.

an example of this:

Mormon 9:2

2 Behold, will ye believe in the day of your visitation—behold, when the Lord shall come, yea, even that great day when the earth shall be rolled together as a scroll, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, yea, in that great day when ye shall be brought to stand before the Lamb of God—then will ye say that there is no God?

Isaiah 34: 4

And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.

Numbers 10: 10

Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your

2 Peter 3: 10

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Acts 23: 8

For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.

2 Kings 5: 15

And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant.

John 1: 36

And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!

Matthew 10: 18

And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.

Luke 21: 36

Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

Revelation 6: 17

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

 

 

I find all of this kind of mind boggling.  Is it realistic to think Joseph Smith knew the Bible this well to just throw together phrases together like this without spending time studying and doing it intentionally?

 

 

[Brant Gardner]

1 hour ago, churchistrue said:

Is it realistic to think Joseph Smith knew the Bible this well to just throw together phrases together like this without spending time studying and doing it intentionally?

The best work done on this topic is Nicholas J. Frederick, The Bible, Mormon Scripture, and the Rhetoric of Allusivity.  There are certainly cases where the allusions to the Bible appear to have textual meaning. However, there are many, such as many that you are suggesting, that really are the result of general biblical literacy (in the sense of education, not always reading). The KJV language pervaded that time period, aided in part by a relatively recent innovation in publishing which made Bibles cheaper and was combined with the efforts of a group to make it possible for all households to own a Bible. 

Lavina Fielding Anderson presented a paper at the Mormon History Association a few years back entitled "Mother Tongue," which examined the use of KJV language in the general correspondence of the Smith family. It was clearly a part of their common vocabulary. So the ultimate answer to your question about whether Joseph could have known the phrases to use without specific intentionality is that yes, he could--and his family also could, and did in their correspondence.

[churchistrue]

21 minutes ago, Brant Gardner said:

The best work done on this topic is Nicholas J. Frederick, The Bible, Mormon Scripture, and the Rhetoric of Allusivity.  There are certainly cases where the allusions to the Bible appear to have textual meaning. However, there are many, such as many that you are suggesting, that really are the result of general biblical literacy (in the sense of education, not always reading). The KJV language pervaded that time period, aided in part by a relatively recent innovation in publishing which made Bibles cheaper and was combined with the efforts of a group to make it possible for all households to own a Bible. 

Lavina Fielding Anderson presented a paper at the Mormon History Association a few years back entitled "Mother Tongue," which examined the use of KJV language in the general correspondence of the Smith family. It was clearly a part of their common vocabulary. So the ultimate answer to your question about whether Joseph could have known the phrases to use without specific intentionality is that yes, he could--and his family also could, and did in their correspondence.

That makes sense.  It would be interesting to see at what rate do other books of the time use these KJV n-grams.  But then you get back to the question of whether someone was intentionally trying to sound like the Bible, ie the ancient style, vs writing normally.  And then you get back to the question, well how difficult was it to write in the "ancient style".  hmm.

[churchistrue]

28 minutes ago, Brant Gardner said:

The best work done on this topic is Nicholas J. Frederick, The Bible, Mormon Scripture, and the Rhetoric of Allusivity.  There are certainly cases where the allusions to the Bible appear to have textual meaning. However, there are many, such as many that you are suggesting, that really are the result of general biblical literacy (in the sense of education, not always reading). The KJV language pervaded that time period, aided in part by a relatively recent innovation in publishing which made Bibles cheaper and was combined with the efforts of a group to make it possible for all households to own a Bible. 

Lavina Fielding Anderson presented a paper at the Mormon History Association a few years back entitled "Mother Tongue," which examined the use of KJV language in the general correspondence of the Smith family. It was clearly a part of their common vocabulary. So the ultimate answer to your question about whether Joseph could have known the phrases to use without specific intentionality is that yes, he could--and his family also could, and did in their correspondence.

Another question for you or anyone else.  If this mixing of random phrases from the KJV all over the place in the BOM is common or normal, why does it seem Skousen and Carmack find it so intriguing?  Or am I misunderstanding them?

 

[stemelbow]

THis also brings into question the notion that Joseph saw phrases in English as he peered into his hat and then read off the dictation.  It seems likely he had influence on the way things were said when he dictated, else why would a God-written text include KJV language? 

[Brant Gardner]

1 hour ago, churchistrue said:

That makes sense.  It would be interesting to see at what rate do other books of the time use these KJV n-grams.  But then you get back to the question of whether someone was intentionally trying to sound like the Bible, ie the ancient style, vs writing normally.  And then you get back to the question, well how difficult was it to write in the "ancient style".  hmm.

The attempt to use the style was in heavy use. See 

JOURNAL ARTICLE

"Written in the Style of Antiquity": Pseudo-Biblicism and the Early American Republic, 1770-1830

Eran Shalev

Church History

Vol. 79, No. 4 (DECEMBER 2010), pp. 800-826

Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40962868

Page Count: 27

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, churchistrue said:

That makes sense.  It would be interesting to see at what rate do other books of the time use these KJV n-grams.  But then you get back to the question of whether someone was intentionally trying to sound like the Bible, ie the ancient style, vs writing normally.  And then you get back to the question, well how difficult was it to write in the "ancient style".  hmm.

As I pointed out back in 1987 (Book of Mormon Critical Text, III:iii), Montague James of Cambridge Universtiy deliberately used a KJV-style of translation as late as 1924 in his The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924) – which appeared in a corrected edition in 1953.  James explained on p. xxi that he had “employed a style meant to remind the reader of the Authorized Version of the Bible.”  More recently, using modern idiom, J. K. Elliott sought “to produce as readable and coherent an English version as the original Greek and Latin allows,” without noting frequent allusions to the biblical text, saying that “the nature of many of these apocryphal documents is such that their authors were so steeped in Biblical or liturgical language that many echoes of scriptural passages occur throughout the writings without being conscious quotations” (Elliott, ed., The Apocryphal New Testament [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993], xv) – while actually footnoting direct quotations.

[clarkgoble]

What's interesting is looking at how some 19th century translations differ from the Book of Mormon in what elements of Elizabethan English they use. While I can't say I've done a systematic study here, the ones I looked at often varied on whether they used the second person personal pronoun (thee, thou, etc.) and other archaic bits of language.

[carbon dioxide]

It is all pretty interesting stuff.  The whole idea that Joseph just copied stuff out of the KJV is absurd to me.  Given the fact that the scribes said Joseph used not outside materials like a Bible in the translation process and he had his face in a hat, those who oppose the BOM would have me to believe the following.  Joseph Smith read and memorized several thousand words of KJV Isaiah for example.  Then put his face in a hat and repeated the words to a scribe with like 99% accuracy.  Then after this was done he went his way and memorized several thousand more word and the next day did it over again and then did it again and again.  Unless he is one of those freaks who have a photographic memory, I don't see how he could memorize so much KJV so fast and repeat it accurately in the manner he did. 

[Ahab]

10 hours ago, churchistrue said:

Another question for you or anyone else.  If this mixing of random phrases from the KJV all over the place in the BOM is common or normal, why does it seem Skousen and Carmack find it so intriguing?  Or am I misunderstanding them?

Heh, because it just is!  This was a book that was actually translated by the gift and power of God, and it was translated into KJV English!

So what we have here is God inspiring Joseph to use KJV English to translate the reformed Egyptian texts.

Yes, God actually using that language.

Not to toot my own horn, but I've been inspired on occasion to say some things through the power of God as the Spirit has moved me and while doing so I have used the language of scriptures that I am familiar with. I don't think there is anything particularly wonderful about KJV English, myself, but I grew up with it and it's just the language that is familiar to me when recalling scriptural thoughts that I know and want to convey.

[Ouagadougou]

13 hours ago, churchistrue said:

In my computer analysis study, I identified 10,317 4-grams that match between the BOM and KJV Bible.  This is done excluding the long chapter length quotes of Isaiah, Matthew, and Malachi.  http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/king-james-bible-language-in-the-book-of-mormon/

I touch on four ways the KJV is used.  1) long block quotes 2) exegesis, ie Alma 7:11-13 as exegesis of Hebrews 2:17-18 3) KJV phrases pointing to intentional allusions, ie the kind of thing Grant Hardy writes about such as Abinadi to Moses, and what Benjamin Seeker has been writing about recently.  4) random phrases brought together, this is the most interesting piece to me, with more detail below.

On this aspect of it, Royal Skousen observed:

 

an example of this:

Mormon 9:2

2 Behold, will ye believe in the day of your visitation—behold, when the Lord shall come, yea, even that great day when the earth shall be rolled together as a scroll, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, yea, in that great day when ye shall be brought to stand before the Lamb of God—then will ye say that there is no God?

Isaiah 34: 4

And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.

Numbers 10: 10

Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your

2 Peter 3: 10

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Acts 23: 8

For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.

2 Kings 5: 15

And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant.

John 1: 36

And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!

Matthew 10: 18

And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.

Luke 21: 36

Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

Revelation 6: 17

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

 

 

I find all of this kind of mind boggling.  Is it realistic to think Joseph Smith knew the Bible this well to just throw together phrases together like this without spending time studying and doing it intentionally?

 

 

To make it even more mind boggling:  JS used translation instruments like the seer stone, on which English words would appear.  This means that KJV verses/errors would have to appear as English words on the seer stone.  What's the time difference between the BoM and KJV? 

[carbon dioxide]

56 minutes ago, Ouagadougou said:

To make it even more mind boggling:  JS used translation instruments like the seer stone, on which English words would appear. 

If it actually happened this way regardless of what David Whitmer said.  Surely Oliver Cowdery could have seen those English words yet he could not translate.  Perhaps it was a little more involved than just looking at a stone and seeing words.

[Ouagadougou]

2 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said:

If it actually happened this way regardless of what David Whitmer said.  Surely Oliver Cowdery could have seen those English words yet he could not translate.  Perhaps it was a little more involved than just looking at a stone and seeing words.

"Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and read aloud the English words that appeared on the instrument.^26"

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng&old=true

[longview]

22 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said:

If it actually happened this way regardless of what David Whitmer said.  Surely Oliver Cowdery could have seen those English words yet he could not translate.  Perhaps it was a little more involved than just looking at a stone and seeing words.

It takes strong faith (deep and abiding) to be able to see through the interpreters.  When Joseph apparently lost the use of the interpreters, he turned to the seer stones which also require faith to utilize.  Eventually Joseph got to the point having so much experience in working with the spirit that he could dispense with the seer stones.  No more peering in the hat.

I am guessing Cowdery did not prepare sufficiently to obtain the spirit so he ended up not being able to discern with spiritual eyes.  The natural eye is incapable of seeing any 'projection' of translated words.  It is ALL in the mind.

I think the reason Joseph used the hat is because 'physical light' interferes with the thought process.  Not that the spirit manifestations got lost within the physical light.

[Glenn101]

13 hours ago, stemelbow said:

THis also brings into question the notion that Joseph saw phrases in English as he peered into his hat and then read off the dictation.  It seems likely he had influence on the way things were said when he dictated, else why would a God-written text include KJV language? 

Brant Gardener posted information that such a writing style was popular. I believe that God used that style because it was perceived to be a formal, scriptural style and would more readily be accepted as divinely inspired by those who would read it. Some of the modern translations may be easier to read and understand than the KJV and others like it, but the do not sound "scriptural."

As far as whether he had any influence on the text as it was dictated, it is an ongoing, enjoyable debate between a lot of LDS scholars. I sort of lean one way more than the other. Maybe the only thing that some of them can agree on is that it was brought forth by the power and inspiration of God. 

Glenn

[stemelbow]

10 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Brant Gardener posted information that such a writing style was popular. I believe that God used that style because it was perceived to be a formal, scriptural style and would more readily be accepted as divinely inspired by those who would read it. Some of the modern translations may be easier to read and understand than the KJV and others like it, but the do not sound "scriptural."

Well I get that assumption, but does it have any basis?  Its just as likely that Joseph thought scripture had sound like that so he influenced the way it came out, moreso than God or any other messenger who helped Joseph create it.

10 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

As far as whether he had any influence on the text as it was dictated, it is an ongoing, enjoyable debate between a lot of LDS scholars. I sort of lean one way more than the other. Maybe the only thing that some of them can agree on is that it was brought forth by the power and inspiration of God. 

Glenn

I'm finding it more and more unlikely (it's almost as if I could use the word impossible here) to think he did not. 

[probablyHagoth7]

On 3/23/2017 at 7:21 AM, stemelbow said:

THis also brings into question the notion that Joseph saw phrases in English as he peered into his hat and then read off the dictation.  It seems likely he had influence on the way things were said when he dictated, else why would a God-written text include KJV language? 

And we all know...the KJV ain't really KJV. It's essentially Tyndale.

Pirated by King James a generation after Tyndale's murder.

"Lord, open the King of England's eyes..." 

[Mormons Talk]

On 3/23/2017 at 3:30 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

As I pointed out back in 1987 (Book of Mormon Critical Text, III:iii), Montague James of Cambridge Universtiy deliberately used a KJV-style of translation as late as 1924 in his The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924) – which appeared in a corrected edition in 1953.  James explained on p. xxi that he had “employed a style meant to remind the reader of the Authorized Version of the Bible.”  More recently, using modern idiom, J. K. Elliott sought “to produce as readable and coherent an English version as the original Greek and Latin allows,” without noting frequent allusions to the biblical text, saying that “the nature of many of these apocryphal documents is such that their authors were so steeped in Biblical or liturgical language that many echoes of scriptural passages occur throughout the writings without being conscious quotations” (Elliott, ed., The Apocryphal New Testament [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993], xv) – while actually footnoting direct quotations.

It would be interesting to examine Montague James's work (and other pseudo-biblical works) to see if you find the type of Hebraisms in the BOM. If not, it seems to provide more evidence in favor of the BOM.

[RevTestament]

On 3/23/2017 at 6:51 AM, churchistrue said:

That makes sense.  It would be interesting to see at what rate do other books of the time use these KJV n-grams.  But then you get back to the question of whether someone was intentionally trying to sound like the Bible, ie the ancient style, vs writing normally.  And then you get back to the question, well how difficult was it to write in the "ancient style".  hmm.

This has indirectly been done. There have been several if not many attempts to "find the book(s)" from which the Book of Mormon was supposedly plagiarized using computer analysis. All these have really ended up showing imho is that as Brant says, there were many attempts at writing in the old English style in Joseph Smith's day. In these computer match studies even a history book which may have been used in NY schools pops up, and specifically says in its foreward that it is written in the old English style. There are many others such as The First Book of Napoleon. Really, all these studies end up doing is showing that the Book of Mormon adopts phrases which were in somewhat common usage at the time of the KJV which is exactly what one would expect from a translator of a religious text of the day, rather than showing the Book of Mormon was plagiarized from any one or two texts. I believe these computer studies defeat themselves.

[RevTestament]

On 3/23/2017 at 7:21 AM, stemelbow said:

THis also brings into question the notion that Joseph saw phrases in English as he peered into his hat and then read off the dictation.  It seems likely he had influence on the way things were said when he dictated, else why would a God-written text include KJV language? 

Hmm... don't know!? Why would the translators of the KJV use that language?

Is it possible that was the high English style used at the time?

Is it possible that remained the popular known style in colonial days? ...Unless you wanted to read the scriptures in Latin of course. And we all know how picky they were about changes in the Latin style and texts. In fact when Jerome introduced his Latin translation it made quite a stink, and the use of the older Latin style scriptures persisted for a good while.

The idea of scriptural style persists to this day, and there are people who feel any English version other than the KJV are perverted Bibles. In short the KJV became THE recognized English-style Bible. Why would God depart from that style in the Book of Mormon? To create additional controversy? It is what people recognized. Mind you I am by no means claiming the KJV is a perfect translation or version, but its style was the accepted style for scripture.

[RevTestament]

2 hours ago, Mormons Talk said:

It would be interesting to examine Montague James's work (and other pseudo-biblical works) to see if you find the type of Hebraisms in the BOM. If not, it seems to provide more evidence in favor of the BOM.

There has been a recent LDS scholar who goes through the Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon. It is a very interesting work. It shows many of the "awkward" phrases found in the Book of Mormon are a result of translating Hebraisms into English. This again tends to show that the uneducated farm boy Joseph Smith could not have been the author of the BoM.  

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/23/2017 at 5:59 PM, Ahab said:

Heh, because it just is!  This was a book that was actually translated by the gift and power of God, and it was translated into KJV English!

So what we have here is God inspiring Joseph to use KJV English to translate the reformed Egyptian texts.

...........................................

It might seem like King James Version English (Elizabethan-Jacobite English used in the 1611 edition) is being used, but the reality is that it is in Early Modern English, which is more archaic and has many structures which now seem ungrammatical.  They even seemed ungrammatical to Joseph, who set about correcting them for the second and third editions of the BofM.

[Johnnie Cake]

On ‎3‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 5:54 PM, carbon dioxide said:

It is all pretty interesting stuff.  The whole idea that Joseph just copied stuff out of the KJV is absurd to me.  Given the fact that the scribes said Joseph used not outside materials like a Bible in the translation process and he had his face in a hat, those who oppose the BOM would have me to believe the following.  Joseph Smith read and memorized several thousand words of KJV Isaiah for example.  Then put his face in a hat and repeated the words to a scribe with like 99% accuracy.  Then after this was done he went his way and memorized several thousand more word and the next day did it over again and then did it again and again.  Unless he is one of those freaks who have a photographic memory, I don't see how he could memorize so much KJV so fast and repeat it accurately in the manner he did. 

You're assuming that Smith was under the constant eye of an eye witness during the entire dictation of the Book of Mormon, this was not the case.  That he was familiar with Biblical phases is obvious...much of his personal writing is replete with it. That the Book of Mormon is filled with direct lengthy quotes from the very 1769 King James edition of the Bible owned by the Smith family, including it's translation errors unique to that specific edition of the Bible, leaves little doubt that Joseph not only had access to a Bible while dictating the Book of Mormon but borrowed heavily from that version of the book while dictating the Book of Mormon. 

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, Mormons Talk said:

It would be interesting to examine Montague James's work (and other pseudo-biblical works) to see if you find the type of Hebraisms in the BOM. If not, it seems to provide more evidence in favor of the BOM.

I have long said that the only Hebraisms worth considering in the BofM are those which do not appear in the KJV.  One needs to go to the Hebrew itself in the biblical text in order to make valid comparisons.  When that is done, all sorts of wordplay becomes apparent which is invisible in English.  On balance, however, I find far more Egyptianisms in the BofM text than Hebraisms.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[Mormons Talk]

29 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

One needs to go to the Hebrew itself in the biblical text in order to make valid comparisons.  When that is done, all sorts of wordplay becomes apparent which invisible in English.  On balance, however, I find far more Egyptianisms in the BofM text than Hebraisms.

I don't doubt that going to the Hebrew reveals all sorts of interesting things. If I'm understanding you right, you're saying that you'd look for wordplay in Hebrew that is not translated into the KJV, but which also shows up in the BOM?