Chiasmus in the BOM

[Beowulf]

MC pontificates:

For example: Mr. X's belief system is predicated on the premise that the earth is flat. If it turns out that the earth is actually round, his belief system would be proven false. Mr. X has dedicated his entire life to flat-earthism, raised his kids in the religion, married in a flat-earther temple, and derives his moral system (which impacts every aspect of his life) from flat-earth doctrine. Mr. X cannot view the topic of "round earthism" objectively, because he has too much to lose if he's wrong.

Mr. Y, by contrast, has a belief system which says absolutely nothing about the shape of the earth. Flat earth, round earth, triangle earth-- it doesn't matter.

Mr. Y is inherently more objective with respect to the shape of the earth than Mr. X. Mr. X will go to virtually any lengths to prove that the earth is, indeed, flat, dismissing clear evidence to the contrary. We can't really fault him for that--he's just

MC's allegory is hilarious, and a remarkably thinly veiled attack on what he believes is irrational thought on the part of LDS.

That's all right, I enjoy a good laugh regardless of the source.

However, since Mr. Y is apparently a thinly veiled reference to Dan Vogel (apologies to Dan in advance for this personal speculation), it is not entirely accurate, since Mr. Y was in this case once a believer in the Flat Earth, himself, and now is not. Ergo, does he not have an agenda to find things that, for him, disprove the Flat Earth, regardless of what comes up, whether it be Round, Triangular or Donut-shaped?

As you can see, I do not believe in MC's mythical totally dispassionate observer. EVERYONE has an agenda, and a bias, even in scholarly subjects that seem far removed from belief systems. (See, for example, the heated exchanges among physicists over the past 80 years regarding the reality or not of Neils Bohr's quantum system.)

Beowulf

[Del March]

So it goes with proposed chiasmus:  Mormons have been socialized to expect and seek out chiasms within the Book of Mormon, so voila! Instant chiasms.  Yet in reality, such chiasms in all likelihood don't actually exist.

This reminds me of what happened when I learned what a chiasmus was. I was chatting with my then-boyfriend on the net, and he mentioned that he was reading about chiasms. I asked me what it was, and he explained to me. Then this very night I read something in the scriptures that seemed to me to fit very neatly the definition of chiasmus that he had given me. So the next day, when we chatted again, I told him I thought I had found a chiasmus in the BoM. He was a bit surprised, and I started feeling foolish, especially since it was such a big chiasmus. Then he asked me where, and burst out laughing when I answered "the whole chapter of Alma 36"

I wasn't looking for it. I just saw it.

Del

[Dr. Shades]

Mighty Curelom writes:

No, I do not, nor did I make any mention of "purely objective" persons.

Yet Beowulf responds with:

As you can see, I do not believe in MC's mythical totally dispassionate observer.

As we have seen, Beowulf, neither does Mighty Curelom himself.

[Daniel Peterson]

Mighty Curelom writes:

No, I do not, nor did I make any mention of "purely objective" persons.

Yet Beowulf responds with:

As you can see, I do not believe in MC's mythical totally dispassionate observer.

As we have seen, Beowulf, neither does Mighty Curelom himself.

Largely a moot point on a practical level, though, since M. LeCurelom devoutly believes in the distinction between unbiased, objective scholars (non-Mormons and ex-Mormons) and biased, non-objective scholars or "scholars" (Mormons).

[Dan Vogel]

Ben,

Let me state right off that there is a difference between Chiasmus in the OT and Chiasmus in the BofM. In Hebrew, Chiasmus appears in poetry, but most examples apologists use come from rhetorical and narrative settings. The notion of complex chiasmus stems from simple parallelism and reverse parallelism, which appear in couplets (or bicolons or distichs). Yet, this form is rare in the BofM.

Applying the criteria of a growing number of Bible scholars to complex chiasms proposed by Welch and others at FARMS, particularly Donald Parry, one can easily see that the vast majority depart from what the chiasmists themselves call

[exegete]

Hi folks,

For those (especially my friends Ben McGuire and Dan Peterson) who believe that BoMor chiasmus is an intentional literary device as opposed to an imposed interpretive phenomenon, consider the following revelation issued by Joseph Smith in 1830:

• [D&C 29:30b

[Ray Callis Hatton III]

A nice little chiasm flanked by two additional chiasms that are themselves parallel with each other, yet D&C 29 makes no claim of antiquity.

Yet it does claim to be the words of the Lord there. The Lord is using the chiasms. Is it serving a rhetorical function? It would appear so. What function? I would suppose expectation.

[sidewinder]

Ray,

Yes but it weakens the apologist position. That's why Dr. Peterson directed me to his physicists who found the chiasms in the BOA (egyptian) and D&C (modern) unconvincing. It's very much in the interest of apologists for the BOM chiasms to be significantly better than in any other JS writings. It may be the case that the Lord throws around chiasms left and right irrespective of culture, but if that's true, it makes it impossible to chiastically explore the null hypothesis, "Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon." To reject the null would require us to find a significant anomaly in the BOM that doesn't appear in his other writings. all you can do with the "Language of the Lord" interpretation apologetically, which I also found on the web last night, is beg the question.

[jerm]

Well JS could have been so familiar with BoM writings that he was able to write like this almost without knowing what it was.

I think this one is mine. Chiasmus is supposed to be symmetrical. More importantly, complex chiasmus is believed to have evolved from simple reverse parallelism. But without a paralleled center, there is no point. It makes the whole chiasm unbalanced.

Well you forget that the origional text was not in English. In reformed egyptian it may have indeed been symetrical. One character may have represented multiple words in some cases and in others, multiple characters may have been used to write one word. "And it came to pass" was IMO probably one represented by one character for example. Upon translating, JS was not aware of such a writing style and therefore didn't make it symetrical. Also as the Lord helped JS translate it, he was able to add the writers origional intentions with words that were extremely limited in ancient egyptian therefore dragging some sentances out more than others and potentially eliminating the poetic aspects that were there when the writer, well, wrote it thus favoring the rhetorical aspects. :breath: (Sorry for dragging out that sentance)

[Daniel Peterson]

That's why Dr. Peterson directed me to his physicists who found the chiasms in the BOA (egyptian) and D&C (modern) unconvincing.  It's very much in the interest of apologists for the BOM chiasms to be significantly better than in any other JS writings.

Tsk tsk. Bad form.

"My" physicists might well be wrong. But you shouldn't affect to dismiss them on the basis of my (or their) allegedly suspect motivations or our supposed apologetic "interests." You should dismiss them, if you do, because of their faulty methodology, poor evidence, and/or bad analysis.

[sidewinder]

DCP,

You are reading something that wasn't intended. I wasn't dismissing the physicists in this instance. I was pointing out why Ray is going down the wrong path if he wants chiasms to have apologetic value. I was in fact, pointing to your physicists as ones who understand the stakes correctly. I did not intend to make judgements about their success or failure in the matter.

[enummaelish]

Hello Dan:

Let me state right off that there is a difference between Chiasmus in the OT and Chiasmus in the BofM. In Hebrew, Chiasmus appears in poetry, but most examples apologists use come from rhetorical and narrative settings. The notion of complex chiasmus stems from simple parallelism and reverse parallelism, which appear in couplets (or bicolons or distichs). Yet, this form is rare in the BofM.

To make this argument Dan you should probably first define what qualifies as poetry in the OT. Good luck.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Dan writes:

Let me state right off that there is a difference between Chiasmus in the OT and Chiasmus in the BofM. In Hebrew, Chiasmus appears in poetry, but most examples apologists use come from rhetorical and narrative settings.

Let me ask you a question Dan - did you notice that most of the examples which I provided did not come from poetic sections of the text? That is, the examples which I provided (from the OT - in Hebrew no less) came from narrative settings? There is very little difference between them (that is between the legitimate chiastic structures in the Book of Mormon and the legitimate chiastic structures in the OT).

The notion of complex chiasmus stems from simple parallelism and reverse parallelism, which appear in couplets (or bicolons or distichs). Yet, this form is rare in the BofM.

But they occur don't they. In fact, in your earlier comments you noted (and this is without being critical of your method or criteria) that 46 of the proposed chiastic structures which you discuss did not fail based on your criteria. Does this mean that you accept these as valid intentional chiastic structures? That seems to be the indication of your post.

Of course, I

[Benjamin McGuire]

Brent writes:

For those (especially my friends Ben McGuire and Dan Peterson) who believe that BoMor chiasmus is an intentional literary device as opposed to an imposed interpretive phenomenon, consider the following revelation issued by Joseph Smith in 1830:

Ok, Brent. I'm game. How did you determine that these structures (which you propose) are intentional chiasmus (functioning as a rhetorical device) as opposed to an accidental occurence? That is, of course, the point of this discussion.

Be specific please.

Do the serial chiasms in D&C 29 serve a rhetorical function? (If so, how so? If not, why not?)

You proposed them, why don't you answer this question. As I recall, Dr. Peterson earlier in this thread made the claim that chiasmus in the D&C doesn't appear to be intentional.

Were the serial chiasms in D&C 29 intended by the author? (If so, how so? If not, why not?)

Once more, it is your proposal. If you think it was intentional, then present your evidence. If you think it wasn't intentional, then what is the point in introducing it as an example in a discussion on the intentionality of chiasmus?

Who is the author of D&C 29? (... Joseph Smith? ... God?)

What difference does it make? Is the D&C a written text? If it is, then standard methods of literary criticism should apply independant of the authorship.

In what way do you consider the serial chiasms in D&C 29 less chiastic than any proposed chiasm in the BoMor?

I'll be happy to answer this question once you provide your answer to the first two questions which you posed.

Ben

[exegete]

Hi Ben,

You've done nothing to quell my concern that BoMor chiasmus is the quintessential apologetic snake oil, an interminably circular scam. I don't think I've asked too much, Ben

[helix]

As one who hasn't read one single journal concerning chiasmus, I'm going to ask some questions here. So be nice if I make a mistake or sound utterly dumb.

[D&C 29:30b

[Benjamin McGuire]

Brent writes:

You've done nothing to quell my concern that BoMor chiasmus is the quintessential apologetic snake oil, an interminably circular scam. I don't think I've asked too much, Ben

[Benjamin McGuire]

Helix writes:

Ignorant Question 1) Is there a length limit on portions of a chiasm? For example, B, C, D, d', c', and b' are short and have 1 word each (with the exception of c, which is 2 words). It seems to an observer like me that it's a stretch to try to take simple words from "whatsoever I have created" and "created I them" and split it up into three pairs.

Let me answer your questions through a basic analysis.

Often, chiasmus is identified in part by the way in which it is offset from the text. That is, it is distinguishable by a typical reader (usually, chiasmus is not written for the priviledged reader who has come into special knowledge by which to decipher the text). This is why, for many, the notion of a macro-chiasm isn't very convincing. It is hard to imagine that a reader is going to notice a chiastic structure covering an entire book of scripture. At the same time, usually a chiastic structure is limited to a literary unit. That is, texts form natural boundaries. These boundaries aren't always evident (the original BoM, for example, did not have the current chapters and verisification). But, in the D&C, we wouldn't expect a chiastic structure to cross sections. And, we would be very wary of any chiasmus which occured within a section which had been edited significantly from its original form. In general, we don't expect chaismus to cross other narrative barriers within the text.

Now, the first of the chiastic structures that is worth looking at from Brent's list is the last:

. . |x| First spiritual,

. . . . |y| secondly temporal, which is the beginning of my work;

. . . . |'y| and again, first temporal,

. . |'x| and secondly spiritual, which is the last of my work

[juliann]

The only enjoyment I get out of chiasmus is when you scroll down a post really fast. It looks cool.

My seer stone is telling me that Brent is about to become very "busy" again.

[Dan Vogel]

enummaelish,

Let me state right off that there is a difference between Chiasmus in the OT and Chiasmus in the BofM. In Hebrew, Chiasmus appears in poetry, but most examples apologists use come from rhetorical and narrative settings.

To make this argument Dan you should probably first define what qualifies as poetry in the OT. Good luck.

Are you saying you don

[Dan Vogel]

Ben,

Note: This response includes large sections of my paper I delivered at Sunstone.

Let me state right off that there is a difference between Chiasmus in the OT and Chiasmus in the BofM. In Hebrew, Chiasmus appears in poetry, but most examples apologists use come from rhetorical and narrative settings.

Let me ask you a question Dan - did you notice that most of the examples which I provided did not come from poetic sections of the text? That is, the examples which I provided (from the OT - in Hebrew no less) came from narrative settings? There is very little difference between them (that is between the legitimate chiastic structures in the Book of Mormon and the legitimate chiastic structures in the OT).

Yes, I recognize that there are examples of chiasmus from non-poetic sections of the OT, but it is primarily a poetic device built on the concept of parallelism and reverse parallelism. Rhetorical and narrative uses are atypical of Hebrew chiasmus (assuming the examples put forth are chiasmus). In one of the best essays in Welch

[enummaelish]

Are you saying you don

[Dan Vogel]

Ben,

Despite Juliann

[Dan Vogel]

enummaelish,

Hebrew poems possess neither rhyme nor meter. Hebrew poetry is simply elevated writ. Thus, I believe your statement,

[Benjamin McGuire]

Dan quotes Wilfred G.E. Watson:

The texts examined in this chapter are mainly in verse, but there is a