BYU professor Nick Frederick is doing excellent research on showing from a faithful perspective the how, what, and why of Book of Mormon and New Testament intertexuality. I highly recommend this excellent podcast interview with Laura Hales, which I will review here in this post.
Dr. Frederick has found 650 phrases from the New Testament in the Book of Mormon. Not the obvious ones like Jesus quoting from the sermon on the mount in 3 Nephi, but phrases here and there that are very confusing why they’re there and what they mean. He introduces the issue by talking about how difficult it is to talk about from a faithful perspective. Most people want a simple answer. Either don’t talk about it. Or we can just assume both the Book of Mormon and New Testament are relying on a common Old Testament (Brass Plates) source. They are afraid other reasons for this intertextuality will raise suspicion for BOM historicity. The important thing Dr. Frederick suggests to get over this mind block of historicity is to think of the gold plates and the Book of Mormon as separate texts.
Too often when I hear Latter-day Saints talk about the Book of Mormon, they talk about the Book of Mormon and the gold plates as if they’re the same text. I wonder if it would be useful for us to conceptualize them as two different texts. The Book of Mormon is an English document that was produced in the 19th century by Joseph Smith, however you want to see translation happening. And the gold plates are a record that was written 2,000 years ago by Moroni, by Mormon, and by Nephi. They’re not the same text. One is a translation of another one. (See here for more on translation. Hint: it doesn’t meant what you think it means)
If we’re comfortable saying that the New Testament is an antecedent text for the Book of Mormon, for the King James English 19th century Book of Mormon, then that opens up some wonderful avenues of inquiry. We can look at how those passages were understood in the 19th century and say, “Okay, is the Book of Mormon pushing back against something? Is the Book of Mormon affirming one of these ideas? What was the impact of these passages on early converts? How might this have changed through trajectories of 19th century theology?” Whereas if we just say, “No, no, no. It couldn’t be. There’s no way the New Testament was on the gold plates,” that just ends the conversation. If we see these as two different texts that are related through translation, then I think that helps us bridge this at least question of the New Testament in the Book of Mormon a little bit easier.
Dr. Frederick believes there is a way for faithful LDS to look at the intertextuality and come to greater understanding and appreciation for the Book of Mormon.
You have places like 1 Corinthian 13, and Romans 7, or the Sermon on the Mount in 2 Nephi 12–14 [where large blocks are copied and it’s very obvious to the reader], but the majority of places where the New Testament appears are just at the phrasal level. It’s just four or five (rarely) consecutive words. They’ll just be four or five words that are worked into a larger sentence, that are worked into a larger paragraph. But the words will be clear enough and obvious enough that you can say, “That’s likely drawn from the New Testament.” The problem is you just have to work to find them.
Grant Hardy’s work has been great here. His chapter on allusion in Understanding the Book of Mormon, where he deals with Hebrews 6 and 11 and Ether 12, and he shows that it isn’t just Moroni just wholesale lifting Hebrews. What Moroni is doing is carefully deconstructing and then reconstructing parts of Hebrews to create an entirely new text. And that’s what the Book of Mormon does with the New Testament that’s just so remarkable and so much fun to look for.
This is what I find so interesting about this subject. It’s not the simple fact that a few phrases are borrowed. But how and why it is being done. There are all kinds of Easter eggs that people like Grant Hardy and Nick Frederick are finding. And more yet to be found.
Dr. Frederick points out a few examples. One is from Mosiah 3, after comparing Mosiah 3:2 “Therefore, they have drunk out of the cup of the wrath of God.” to Revelation 14:10 “The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.”
In Mosiah 3, King Benjamin’s speech, you have five phrases from the Book of Revelation that appear between verses 20 and verse 27. If it was just one phrase, you might look at that and say that it’s possible that is from the New Testament, but five phrases all from the Book of Revelation suggests more strongly that what we have here is a conscious attempt to bring the language of the Book of Revelation into the Book of Mormon.
Another example. “full of grace and truth”
You could look at a phrase like “full of grace and truth” from John 1, from John’s prologue. That appears only once in the New Testament, but yet it appears in 2 Nephi 2, Lehi’s discourse with Jacob. It appears in Alma 5 when Alma is talking to Zarahemla. It appears in Alma 9 and 13 in his discourse within the city of Ammonihah. You would look at that and say, “It only appears once in the New Testament. Here it is four times in the Book of Mormon.” To me, that increases the likelihood that we’re intentionally supposed to see that as drawn from the New Testament.
Alma 5 and Matthew 3.
Alma’s discourse with the people in Zarahemla. It relies heavily upon the language of Matthew 3. Matthew’s story of the baptism of Jesus, in particular, John the Baptist’s own speech. As you look in Alma 5, you’ll find that there are phrases taken from verses 3, verses 8, verse 10, verse 12, that in several places actually follow the same sequential order that they do in Alma 5 as they do in Matthew 3. You’ll see a phrase from verse 3, followed by a phrase from verse 8, followed by a phrase from verse 10.
Several phrases in the same order in both Alma 5 and Matthew 3. I love Laura Hales’ reaction to this, which was the same as mine. Basically: “So cool!” Here is scripture we’ve read many times before and never thought they were connected, but pointing out the intertextuality, now makes us ponder on the Book of Mormon to make us think what is the Book of Mormon wanting us to understand, given the Matthew 3 intertextuality? Isn’t this a great way to read the Book of Mormon?! I love it.
Dr. Frederick talks about false positives. For example “hear the word of God” found in Mosiah 25 and Luke 5. He calls this a possibility but dismisses it as an example that shows clear intertextuality because of the vagueness of the phrase and the lack of other direct evidence. These phrases are all over the place in the BOM. I identified over 10,000, but most of these should be considered more as using common language in the translation process than direct intertextuality.
An extremely interesting insight that Dr. Frederick has made an emphasis in his research career is specifically the use of John in the Book of Mormon. He attributes non-LDS Krister Stendahl for drawing attention to this. In the Nephite version of the Sermon on the Mount, the Book of Mormon Jesus quotes the Matthew Jesus but not verbatim. There are some differences. Especially the use of “verily, verily” which is peculiar to John. Turns out the other differences are also from a Johannine lens of the gospel. The Book of Mormon is taking Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and Johannizing it. Mind blown.
More from John is the intertextuality between John 11 and Alma 19, which you may have heard before from “anti-Mormon” literature pointing out BOM plagiarism. The Book of Mormon intentionally inserts six phrases from John’s story of the raising of Lazarus to the Book of Mormon’s story of the raising of King Lamoni. This is hardly a case of plagiarism. This is an author inserting phrases into a story that’s kinda alike but not really in order to intentionally tip the reader off to something important. Dr. Frederick has a theory what that “something important” might be.
This is where the trick comes in. It seems that the Book of Mormon initially wants you to make the easy jump and see that Jesus is Ammon and Lazarus is Lamoni, Martha is the Lamanite queen, and Mary as Abish … What the Book of Mormon does that’s really cool is the Johannine narrative really pivots around this idea of Jesus as the one who encounters each of the other three one by one, eventually raising Lazarus from the dead. In the Book of Mormon narrative, you have the Jesus role taken up initially by Ammon, but then the twist comes when Ammon, himself, falls unconscious. Now your Jesus protagonist character has been removed from the action. You have people coming into the room, and it looks like their lives are in danger. The Jesus role now falls, of all people, to a Lamanite slave woman named Abish. It’s she who emerges as this giver of life who then comes forward and raises the queen by the hand in a similar action to what Jesus does to Lazarus. Then she disappears. Then the Lamanite queen is the one who raises the actual Lazarus figure, her husband, Lamoni. The Jesus role plays out through both Abish and Lamoni’s wife. Roles change…There are six named women in the Book of Mormon, only three of which actually appear in the Book of Mormon. And yet, here we have these two powerful female characters in Abish and the Lamanite queen. It seems the Book of Mormon is saying that female characters need not be only those who believe or do not believe, or those who are misunderstood, or those who are instructed. In fact, they can do the Jesus work themselves. They can extend the divine message. They can instill faith. They can be the active movers, not just those who are passively on the sidelines.
I never thought of the Book of Mormon as a feminist work. But maybe?
Dr. Frederick has identified 650 of these phrases he believes show intertextuality between the 1769 King James Bible and the Book of Mormon.
A couple I’ve noticed and written about before.
The exposition on the atonement in 2 Ne 9 riffing on 1 Corinthians 15.
| 2 Nephi 9 | 1 Corinthians 15 |
| 5 Yea, I know that ye know that in the body he shall show himself unto those at Jerusalem, from whence we came; for it is expedient that it should be among them; for it behooveth the great Creator that he suffereth himself to become subject unto man in the flesh, and die for all men, that all men might become subject unto him. | 28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. |
| 6 For as death hath passed upon all men, to fulfil the merciful plan of the great Creator, there must needs be a power of resurrection, and the resurrection must needs come unto man by reason of the fall; and the fall came by reason of transgression; and because man became fallen they were cut off from the presence of the Lord. | 21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. |
| 7 Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more. | 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. |
Another is the fascinating (at least to me) intertextuality between Ether 12 and 2 Cor 12:
Both Moroni and Paul have a weakness
Both pray to God to fix it for them
Both are told “no”
Both include comparisons of weakness and strength
common phrase “grace is sufficient” — This convergence may not seem as strong as it is, because the phrase “grace is sufficient” is used so commonly in our religious vocabulary, but this phrase “grace is sufficient” appears in exactly one verse in the Bible and exactly one verse in the BOM.
I’ve written on these subjects a lot.
http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/king-james-bible-language-in-the-book-of-mormon/
http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/19th-century-protestant-phrases-in-book-of-mormon/
http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/anachronistic-christian-doctrine-in-book-of-mormon/
I really hope this information gets digested and popularized to the LDS audience. It’s key to understanding this inpired book of scripture. It might make us rethink on historicity but it affirms the miraculous nature of the translation of the Book of Mormon.
I like how this dovetails nicely with Dr. Michael Quinn’s assertion that the Book of Mormon is a combination of literal translation and 19th century theology. I wish I had asked further details on that, but I think you are on to something here. https://gospeltangents.com/2018/08/20/smith-strang-translation-process/
“this mind block of historicity …” So he’s acknowledging that the prime directive of defending Book of Mormon historicity at all costs acts as a mind block to prevent deeper thinking about the Book of Mormon text, related scriptural texts, and intertextuality. He is suggesting that traditional apologetics has acted as a mind block to avoid serious engagement with the Book of Mormon. I expect he gets hate mail from traditional apologists.
“I expect he gets hate mail from traditional apologists.”
As one with a reputation for being a “traditional apologist,” you can read what I have to say about some of Dr. Frederick’s work here:
“The next section of the book (“Intertextual and Intratextual Lenses: The Book of Mormon and the Bible”) looks at the relationship between the Bible and the Book of Mormon as witnessed primarily in Mosiah 11–17. Nicholas J. Frederick (“‘If Christ Had Not Come Into the World’”) explores the nature of the quotations of the King James Bible in the Abinadi pericope, while Shon D. Hopkin (“Isaiah 52–53 and Mosiah 13–14”) looks at the variants in the Book of Mormon’s quotations of biblical texts and compares them to textual witnesses, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Masoretic Hebrew Bible, and the Greek Septuagint. Combined, their articles paint a complicated picture when it comes to how exactly the Book of Mormon quotes the Bible (and the significance of such).
On one hand, as Frederick points out, the Book of Mormon is very clearly “filled with hundreds of quotations from and allusions to the King James Bible” (117), including the KJV New Testament. At first blush this would appear to undermine the Book of Mormon’s claims to historicity. But on the other hand, at some key points the Book of Mormon’s quotations of the Bible include variant readings not found in the KJV that do nevertheless find support from ancient textual witnesses. As Hopkin explains, “In the Abinadi narrative, of the twenty variants that exist [between the Book of Mormon and the KJV], fourteen find support in an ancient manuscript witness — such as the Septuagint, the Targums, or the Dead Sea Scrolls — or they are an equally appropriate translation from the Masoretic Text” (153).
How might we reconcile this? Hopkin reasonably suggests, “The Book of Mormon may not have been a modern creation, but it was certainly a modern translation, purposefully reflecting language from Joseph Smith’s day, most importantly the King James Version, and [Page 259]departing from it only when necessary” (162, emphasis in original). All of this is to say that while this particular issue (the relationship between the KJV and the Book of Mormon) is still being explored, the intertextual work exemplified in Abinadi is precisely what is needed for further understanding.”
https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/approaching-abinadi/
Then there’s of course Brant “The Book of Mormon is Ancient and Took Place in Mesoamerica” Gardner and his treatment of the translation of the Book of Mormon, which includes his discussion of Book of Mormon quotations of the KJV (including the KJV New Testament):
https://gregkofford.com/products/the-gift-and-power
But I hope none of this stops the good posters of this blog from creating more boogeymen out of “traditional apologists.”
Dave B/Stephen I think many LDS Apologists would be fine with what he’s saying, but I’m not totally sure. The people he’s referring to that might send him hate mail over his take are the people he’s addressing in that quote who take the following view: “No, no, no. It couldn’t be. There’s no way the New Testament was on the gold plates,” He’s asserting that the BOM English is dependent on the KJV New Testament and addressing those that think that’s impossible.
For example, Skousen-Carmack and all those on board with him are fine with it. They’re championing the same kind of intertextuality research. They believe the BOM to a be a loose (Expanded) translation set in the 1600’s. I think those that have a strict historicity and tight(ish) translation view of the BOM would be the ones Frederick is talking about.
Whether multiple phrases in a single passage adopted from a NT source indicates a conscious adoption/importing of such phrases depends rather largely on the extent to which the translator (whether JS or Moroni (as has been suggested) or whoever) of the BoM was steeped in the NT language and used it without conscious effort. The mere frequency tells us nothing without that additional information.
On the Book of Mormon as a feminist text and the story of Abish as not just looking forward to the New Testament resurrection accounts, but also pointing back, my wife and I did an essay called Nephite Feminism Revisited in RBBM 10/2 back in 1998:
Significantly, the story of Abish and the Lamanite queen qualifies as a “type-scene,”8 a prophetic prefiguring not only of the resurrection of Christ, but also of the role of women in that event. As Robert Alter remarks, “The type-scene is not merely a way of formally recognizing a particular kind of narrative moment; it is also a means of attaching that moment to a larger pattern of historical and theological meaning.”9 Compare the general features of this account in Alma with a conspicuous pattern in ancient Near Eastern religion:
One of the most striking features of the ancient Sacred Marriage cult was that the goddess had an important part to play in the resurrection of her husband. . . . We will recall how Anath made possible Baal-Hadad’s resurrection by attacking and destroying his enemy, Mot, the god of death. In Mesopotamian myth it was Inanna-Ishtar who descended into the realm of death to destroy Erishkigal’s power so that dead Dumuzi-Tammuz could be restored to life. Aristide’s Apology describes how Aphrodite descended into Hades in order to ransom Adonis from Persephone. Cybele likewise made possible the resurrection of Attis on the third day, while in Egypt it was Isis who made possible the restoration of her husband, Osiris. . . . But no matter what the details of these ubiquitous Near Eastern death-and-resurrection legends, the underlying theme is the same: the god is helpless without the ministrations of his consort. . . . The reunion of Jesus and Mary Magdalene at the tomb on Resurrection Morning therefore clearly fits within this well-known tradition.10
The same motif also appears in the Mesoamerican Popol Vuh in the story of One Hunahpu’s death and the maiden daughter of the underworld lords, through whose courageous actions life was renewed.11
The stories of Abish and the Lamanite kings and queens also resonate with these traditions. Given the growing recognition that Book of Mormon authors consciously selected stories that present archetypal patterns, it is likely that these stories attracted the attention of Mormon as significant type-scenes, and as such, they receive due attention and prominence in the text.
Or they could both harken back to an older text, like the Brass Plates.
Stephen: ??? Traditional apologist is hardly an epithet. Seems like the best descriptive phrase for the Old Farms crew, now relocated to the Interpreter, where you frequently publish. Traditional apologists typically defend the mainstream LDS view that the BoM text is a literal translation of an ancient text, a view the Church seems to be qualifying for the Book of Abraham (see the Essay) but not at all for the Book of Mormon. Any sort of hybrid theory following Blake Ostler’s original theory along this line is a much different approach. None of them I am familiar with really offer any sort of method for distinguishing between authentic translation portions of the text and 19th-century expansions. So it’s not clear how one would actually use or apply a hybrid theory, except as indicating a general willingness to acknowledge widespread 19th-century influence on the BoM text. That, at least, is an improvement over simply denying any 19th-century influence on the text.
It may interest some that the Interpreter hosted a conference a couple years back where Dr. Frederick presented on intertextuality and the sophisticated weaving of New Testament language into the Book of Mormon text. That was my first introduction to his research. You can find the conference information and a link to a recording of his presentation here: https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2015-exploring-the-complexities-in-the-english-language-of-the-book-of-mormon/2015-exploring-complexities-conference-videos/
The “Restorationalists” (Denver Snuffer’s group) publish their NT and BOM in the same book because they found a quote of Joseph Smith stating that the two were supposed to be printed together. It me, it’s quite obvious that the verbiage chosen in the BOM translation process was meant to match the Bible. This allows for word-linking thus giving greater meaning to the text by reading the verses in the NT to which it’s referring. It also allows the BOM to fit in as just another portion of the Bible.
As a side note, the ESV seems to be the best modern translation of the Bible that retains the KJV language, allowing you to continue word-linking with the NT.
Trying to be nice…
I am a veteran of over a half a century in this conflict between traditional faithful belief in the Book of Mormon versus a logical conclusion based on “evidence” that it is the greatest fraud ever perpetuated on the American public. And I have at least in my mind served on both sides of this conflict, although generally faithful belief (allowing for minor mistakes) has been the “home team” for me.
As thinkers like Nick Frederick search for compromise and some middle ground, they are in effect retreating from traditional belief and conceding the essence of the conflict to the critics. They are indirectly saying a tradition faithful belief is not correct. They subtly contradict the testimony of Joseph Smith and all of his faithful associates and successors, including hundreds of apostles and prophets along with millions of faithful believers, all the way up through the 20th century on this central claim of the Book of Mormon.
If the Book of Mormon and the unexamined and effectively unknown golden plates are not the same text (allowing for minor discrepancies) then just how are they related? The major basis of the credibility of Joseph Smith as a Prophet rests on the direct relatedness of these two texts. Joseph Smith did not claim he miraculously read/comprehended some unknown source describing the history of a lost people and then mixed it together with his own religious beliefs (some of which are traditional Protestant and others outrageous heresy) and created a foundational, sacred text. He claimed God gave him divine tools (like seer stones) and/or direct revelation. The Book of Mormon is near sola scriptora for Mormons. It cannot be the allegorical ramblings of a 19th century New England mystic, however interesting and coincidentally connected to other sources they may be- without losing its “salt.”
***
For comparison, let us consider the Book of Abraham. Similar claims of recovery of ancient documents and inspirational translation are made by Joseph Smith. Later scholars develop expertise in reading ancient Egyptian texts. The original texts are compared and every expert agrees that Joseph Smith did not translate the ancient documents correctly. The church leaders admit so much in a somewhat obscure gospel topics essay.
Consider this article to comprehend just how far off Joseph Smith mistranslated the Book of Abraham. Joseph smith makes 12 + 24 + 6 explanations and gets all 42 of them hilariously wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_appraisal_of_the_Book_of_Abraham-
Joseph Smith’s “translation” of the Book of Abraham has no direct connection to the Egyptian papyruses. The apologists retreat back to saying they didn’t find all of the original texts. (If he gets the next 42 yet-to-be-discovered explanations right, then he still got the first 42 wrong). Or they search for indirect and frankly ridiculous coincidents that don’t work for very long. Vague archeotypes are the new theological hola hoops. Or other mental gymnastics (like tumbling on mats of brass plates) hard to describe or follow. We do the hokey-pokey and twist our thinking all around. ..The faithful are left with the ashes that maybe Joseph Smith really did screw this one up and Brigham Young didn’t canonize it for a reason. John Taylor and his associates did but that was a mistake. At least we have the solid rock of Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon upon which to rest our faith in his prophethood.
I have known for decades that there were many disturbing connections between the KJV NT and the BoM. At one point when I had a long commute, I listened to tapes of the BoM in the morning and tapes of the NT in the evening. I put over 100,000 miles on the car doing this and wore the tapes out. I often wondered if I had not mixed up the tapes. I would realize the BoM text was strikingly similar to the NT text I heard the day or two before.I could see that if a person with an obsession and a photographic memory of the New Testament wrote the Book of Mormon, it might turn out like this. Nick Frederick has pinned down 650 examples of this not counting the obvious long quotes and for this he is to be congratulated.
***
I’m sorry Brother Quinn et.al., if the Book of Mormon is a combination of literal translation and 19th century theology, then that makes Joseph Smith a liar and most everyone else who believed the traditional version dubbed. Joseph Smith was not followed and people did not die for his cause because of his great theological insights like Jonathan Edwards or his creative ideas like Ralph Waldo Emerson or Ron Hubbard. But because he claimed that God directly restored and revealed the pure gospel to him. The Book of Mormon is the evidence or proof of it.
I maybe could come to accept this kind of middle-ground thinking with time and fellowship. But please, do not ask me to swallow Mormon exclusivity with it. Please do not ask me to “rescue” others who do not accept it. We will lose at least 90% of the orthodox Mormons with whom I am acquainted. The annals of religion are filled with heaps of religious thinkers with fascinating insights. Why does Joseph Smith stand out for me, except that my ancestors believed him? And I do agree that this is a personal paradox: I have railed against Mormon exclusivity so I should welcome this undermining of it from another angle. But I don’t. It is a hard pill to swallow.
Sorry, I did read the rest of the article but I don’t have the energy to further tear it up. Except seriously, the BoM devotes almost nothing to women. A feminist text? Really? Taking one BoM story of religious histrionics and swooning including mere mention of female characters and twisting it around to the greatest miracle of Jesus is just too far-fetched and almost blasphemous for me. I have no intention of ever swooning without medical cause. But we all gotta walk that lonesome valley of death some day and hope that at the end of it Jesus calls to us and says, “come forth.” The story of Lamoni is embarrassing. The story of Lazarus gives me hope.
Mike: FWIW, I agree, you can’t have it both ways… I found your comment to contain all my thoughts and feelings on this post and the many supportive comments about it. You said it so much better and effectively than I ever could. Thanks.
Mike and fbisti are correct. Dr. Frederick seems really giddy about his research findings. That is understandable and kudos to him for taking an academic approach to the text of The Book of Mormon. However, he is caught in this space where he has to come up with a faithful interpretation of his findings. He’s at BYU, remember, so he is likely to find himself looking for a new job if he doesn’t find some way to fit this into the church’s narrative. The problem is that his fit, though probably the best fit one could possibly make, is quite awkward. It requires one to believe that either 1) “translate” didn’t mean what we all think it means and what Joseph Smith said it means, or that 2) Joseph Smith lied and The Book of Mormon is an inspirational fraud. Frankly, I’m uncomfortable with retroactively altering the definition of the word “translate.” The just seems weird and 1984-ish to me. However, there are some real problems with the church’s traditional narrative on BOM historicity.
The church is in an increasingly tight space and is coming rapidly to a crossroads. A theological crossroads and a cultural crossroads (that’s another story entirely). There is going to be a lot of spiritual carnage (indeed there already is) left in the wake of the church’s efforts to be more upfront with its history and publicized findings from legitimate academic research on the BOM text. I don’t see how the current direction can continue for much longer. I suspect that, 20 years from now, the church will look very different. Very different. Either it will stay the course that it is on and continue to lose members who are experiencing cognitive dissonance, or it will make changes that many cannot accept, resulting in their departure. Either way, I see the church shrinking significantly. I hope that’s not the case because, despite my doctrinal differences with many foundational teachings of the church – there is a sadness in that.
Wonderful post, thank you. Do you think the next step is to find language in the BoM that is closer to 19th century Protestant language than it is to the Bible? Richard Bushman has mentioned this. I have found some similar terminology between John Wesley’s teachings and the BoM (perfection/sanctification/purification), but it would require a bit of study to decide if BoM and John Wesley both derive independently from the Bible, or if BoM inherits some text or ideas directly from Wesley.
As for those who’s faith is troubled by this, I am very sympathetic and feel for you greatly! It’s been a long road for me personally. But it has really helped me to get to know some very believing and faithful Christians who see the Bible itself as a deeply human text, with a lot of these types of anachronisms. My advice is seek help and comfort from the many Christians who are trodding the same difficult road with the Bible. There is light on the journey!
Oops I was missing your previous post on 19th Century Protestantism!
I would be interested in a study of Joseph Smith’s, Sidney Rigdon’s, and Oliver Cowdery’s sermons looking for the same word combination and phrases. My sense is that given their familiarity with scripture you’d see a fair number of word for word borrowing.
Am I the only one that sees this as evidence that the KJV was the source for much of the BoM content? Am I alone in seeing this as further evidence that there wasn’t any literal translation of an actual historic record? I feel like many people are going to great lengths to avoid drawing these headlines, but wouldn’t evidence like this provided to an objective evaluator, be overwhelming evidence that the BOM is not what the Church claims it is?
Right on Mike! I should have read down to your comment before writing mine.
Has Nick Frederick published the 650 correspondences, or published criteria by which he determines which correspondences are important vs. unimportant?
Gregggg, no you are not alone in making these conclusions. People avoid drawing these conclusions because of what that inevitably means for the narrative that the church has built itself upon. But there is liberation in accepting the truth for what it actually is.
I find this research interesting. I agree with GBSmith that an analysis of Joseph Smith’s other writings for similar phrases would be useful to determine if he could be the source. Were these phrases intentionally inserted or was the BoM written in the language used by the translator? If someone else, such as Oliver Cowdery, translated the BoM, would the translation be the exact same or slightly different? One can google the Bible and get at least 17 different English translations, many of which use the same source text, and yet have verses worded differently because of the preferences of the translators.
I don’t find the discussion that Joseph Smith “copied” the bible compelling. In fact, I find the research adds an additional level of complexity. It reminds me of a photographic mosaic, a picture that is created by hundreds or thousands of smaller pictures. While Frederick’s evidence indicates more than one New Testament phrase per page of BoM text, they apparently are inter-twined in a fashion that creates a larger complex story. Mere copying doesn’t account for the effort needed to fashion the mosaic to include:
– The parallel of 1Nephi 1 to Joseph Smith’s experience ushering in the last dispensation: Prays seeking guidance, has vision of God and Christ, and receives a book from a heavenly messenger.
– The parallel of the overarching BoM storyline as a type for the Latter-Day/Christian concept of the ushering in of the millennium: The BoM starts with the JS story mentioned above, then emphasis on missionary work (Mosiah, Alma), wars (Alma, Helaman), the coming of Christ (from heaven as in the latter-days), the period of peace (representative of the millennium), and the final war at the end where the more evil faction is utterly destroyed.
– The beautiful chiasmus of Alma 36, centered on the atonement of Jesus Christ
– The term “land of Jerusalem” (not a term found in the Bible nor part of the 19th century understanding of the term)
– Details of Lehi’s desert experience aligning with obscure facts about the Saudi Arabian, peninsula (Nahom, possible locations fitting the land Bountiful).
This is not to suggest issues exist with the BoM (horses, chariots, DNA evidence for example) but I still haven’t found a compelling source for the Book of Mormon that does not involve coming from/through the mind of Joseph Smith, either as divine inspiration or his genius.
I have a really hard time with this approach that seems to fly in the face of what Joseph himself actually said about both the Book of Mormon and the translation process. It seems that if we are to take the book seriously, we must dismiss it altogether as many have done, or completely ignore and disregard what the author/translator himself said about it as well as hundreds of years of prophets within the LDS tradition.
Dave C;
Interesting comment on your journey in this conflict between traditional faithful belief in the Book of Mormon versus a logical conclusion based on “evidence” that it is the greatest fraud ever perpetuated on the American public.
Little pieces of evidence are sometimes extremely important to one person and nearly irrelevant to another. We each weigh the evidence on different scales. Many sources are clearly biased or weighted in one direction or the other. The conflict is not a open-and-shut case, or it would be long over; it has been fought by millions over nearly 2 centuries.
Stepping back, one overarching little fact is that in 2011 the church distributed its 150 millionth copy of the BoM and a couple years later the LDS church membership reached 15 million. Since 1829 many members have died, others stopped believing, and many people may read one copy of the book while none read another. The distribution of all these numbers has been heavily weighted towards more recent times which helps even out the discrepancies but not entirely . What I am trying to determine is that we can use these 2 solid statistics as a gross metric to make a conclusion- that somewhere around 10% of the people who read the BoM are convinced enough to make a public and mildly inconvenient expression of belief in the form of an immersion baptism and about 90% who read it make the opposite conclusion, at least that it is not worth further consideration. The relevance of this conclusion is based on the idea that many minds are better than one.
The next conclusion is the leap that the burden of proof of a faithful belief in the BoM is on us. The claims of the BoM are outrageous and unlikely. This is also true of the entire radical Christian message and Jesus put the same burden on us when he said, “Go ye into all the world…”
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What this means to me is that plausibilities that maybe retain, for a time, those with previous strong but wavering faith are not enough. A scholar or BYU professor needs to publish a book on some aspect of this conflict that reaches an audience of more than the jello belt. I would like to be able to march into the University of Georgia Archeology department and boldly declare that they need to read the BoM, using evidence that they will consider on a professional level. But the pieces of evidence to which we cling are not that. When younger I tried it and the results were predictable and laughable. (different university)
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Into the weeds: I once was impressed with finding Naham written in the desert. But then later I had these negative thoughts. Hebrew does not write the vowels. What is written is NHM. and the vowels are presumed. A quick easy simplified calculation: if you assume a 20 letter alphabet, then you might expect to find N once in every 20 letters on relics. And NH once on every 400 and NHM once on every 8000 relics. Its higher than that if you specify NHM instead of NMH. And lower if N,H or M are are more frequent than other letters. But the point remains that there have been far more than 8000 people wandering around the deserts for many years and they have found thousands of relics. So the NHM could easily be a nice coincident. Without other supporting evidence it is only that and nothing else. I don’t know if they can date it very accurately either.
Chiasmus have been a joke in my mind forever. Preliterate people used a variety of memory devices to preserve stories. Repetition was the most common. ABCDE, ABCDE, etc. But it is not much of a leap to use ABCDE, EDCBA. ABCDE,EDCBA. It has a sort of hypnotic effect. Many good ghost stories use the same pattern. Killed his wife, carried her body down the stairs, across the yard, out the gate, into the woods. Later that night her ghost comes out of the woods, through the gate (creak) , across the yard, and up the stairs (clomp clomp) to…. When one goes on a journey , or a hunting trip from the cave to a killing site and back, the landmarks form a chiasmus. It might be helpful to be able to remember them. I will go so far as to claim that dogs, wolves, feline predators and other intelligent animals form and remember chiasmus in their minds.
I am too lazy to cite examples but they are everywhere if you look for them. They are even in our genetic code. A piece of DNA is cut out and spliced in backwards. If the 3 bases groupings are preserved, an enzyme with a completely backwards sequence results and it might form active groves that works .I am not surprised to find them in the BoM. What I find ridiculous is that they are somehow characteristic of Hebrew and exclusionary of other sources. Like a pious genius fraud copying a Hebrew Biblical style. They add interest but their presence proves nothing about the source. Nothing.
We could go on like this for 50 years, actually I have gone on like this for almost that long it seems inside of my head.
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The last point you raise is important. If one believes the BoM is a 19th century production, who wrote it? And what if any sources did he or she use? Options include Joseph Smith (he was a genius not a dunce), those close to him at the time, and others. Using sources is likely as the KJV bible is obviously one. Many others have been proposed. A little-known phenomenon called automatic writing is done in sort of a spiritual/hypnotic state and many gifted people have produced remarkable things under these circumstances like finishing one of Dickens novels after he died..
The Rigdon (Campbellite theology) and Spalding (geography and journey story) theory seemed likely for decades until the Spalding manuscript was found and had little in common with the BoM and was debunked. Except now they say we got the wrong manuscript (same excuse we use for the book of Abraham papyrus) and they are looking for another. I have read carefully the View of the Hebrews as a possible source twice and BH Roberts identified about 20 paralles with it and the BoM, which he never published. I think because he didn’t finish the project, I find about 30 or 40 of them. So it is possibly a source of some inspiration but clearly not most of the material. I have considered numerous other proposed sources and some seem plausible and others less so. I think much of the handwriting in the BoM original manuscripts is that of Oliver Cowdery and I think he has not been scrutinized as a possible co-author very well. Neither has Emma Smith.
One defense often employed when multiple gun fighters are brought to trial is this- I didn’t shoot him someone else did. And all the shooters say it even though the dead guy has been shot 20 times. In our courts with presumed innocence that tactic theoretically might work. But it doesn’t prove the person was not shot. And that is what we are doing when we have many theories and none of them are simple and complete and so we reject them all. The old canard that Joseph Smith was too stupid to do it is illogical. Nobody is capable of winning over 20 gold metals in the Olympics, except Michael Phelps did it. Unusual and improbable do not prove something didn’t happen. As I said in the beginning IF Joseph Smith did create the BoM in the 19th century it is one of the greatest frauds in history.
Nick Frederick speaks of “the King James English 19th century Book of Mormon”. This statement may have in mind the biblical blending that he studies and is interested in. But it also tends to obscure an extremely important, more fundamental aspect of Book of Mormon English: its syntax and lexis.
In terms of syntax, the present-tense verbal system of the Book of Mormon is archaic and non-biblical. The present-tense system is not accurately characterized as a mixture of King James English and 19c English, which is how Frederick characterizes Book of Mormon English in the introduction to his 2016 monograph: “These [biblical] phrases were merged together with nineteenth century vernacular to create modern American scripture” (The Bible, Mormon Scripture, and the Rhetoric of Allusivity, page xi). Some aspects of it are found in pseudo-biblical texts, but some are not.
Specifically, the earliest text of the Book of Mormon has much more {-s} inflection than the 1611 King James Bible (which actually has a tiny bit), yet it is still heavily dominant in {-th} inflection. Inflectional mixing — sometimes in the same sentence — was common in the early modern era, and is found in the Book of Mormon. There is mixing in pseudo-biblical texts, so this feature of the text could be viewed as pseudo-biblical in character. But there is more intrasentential mixing in the Book of Mormon, which was characteristic of the late 1500s and the 1600s. The earliest text also has 180 ± 5 instances of non–3sg {-th} inflection, including five fine examples of the Early Modern English pronoun constraint (base verb forms after pronouns, {-th} forms in conjoined predicates). There are a few types of non–3sg {-th} inflection in the Book of Mormon, most of them not found in pseudo-biblical texts. The earliest text also has many examples of plural {-s} inflection (especially “things which is”), another feature of earlier English that is studied by linguists. It has higher levels of non-emphatic, affirmative periphrastic do/doth usage than the King James Bible, another early modern feature. I haven’t studied negation carefully in the Book of Mormon. Whether pseudo-biblical texts successfully mimic archaic negation to the degree it occurs in the Book of Mormon is to be determined. Overall, I would characterize the present-tense verbal system of the Book of Mormon as similar to 16c or 17c English, certainly not 19c English, and not even 18c English.
The past-tense verbal system of the Book of Mormon is archaic and non-biblical. The most obvious feature is the non-emphatic, affirmative periphrastic did usage. The text contains some rare variants found in the early modern era. There are also some simple past-tense verb forms that are archaic and non-biblical.
The perfect-tense verbal system of the Book of Mormon is archaic and non-biblical. Past participle leveling is a prime feature. “Had (been) spake” is a stand-out example of this. Because of the relatively high degree of verb form leveling, the best fit of this language appears to be the 17c, when this phenomenon was most prevalent in the textual record.
The future-tense verbal system of the Book of Mormon is close to biblical, but aspects of it, such as subject–auxiliary inversion rates, are closer to the 1568 Bishops’ Bible than to the 1611 King James Bible. Some pseudo-biblical authors were able to mimic this aspect of biblical usage.
Verb complementation in the Book of Mormon is archaic and non-biblical. It is heavily finite (think that-clauses). The King James Bible is heavily infinitival. Pseudo-biblical texts are heavily infinitival. Modern English was even more heavily infinitival. The modal auxiliary usage accompanying this verb complementation in the Book of Mormon is impressively archaic.
The unsurpassed complex finite complementation of the Book of Mormon is often non-biblical and hardly any of it is found in pseudo-biblical texts. Complex finite causative syntax is a noteworthy non-biblical feature of the earliest text (12 examples).
Subjunctive shall usage in the Book of Mormon far exceeds the biblical in several domains. Needless to say, it far exceeds pseudo-biblical usage.
The Book of Mormon’s “of which hath/has been spoken” phraseology is archaic and non-biblical.
The Book of Mormon’s “more part” phraseology is archaic and non-biblical.
The Book of Mormon’s “for this cause that may/might” phraseology is archaic and non-biblical.
The Book of Mormon’s archaic “that” usage after subordinate conjunctions exceeds pseudo-biblical usage, in particular in the cases of “because that” and “before that”. The earliest text also has archaic “since that” and “to that”, which aren’t found in the King James Bible.
The Book of Mormon’s unsurpassed “if it so be (that)” usage is archaic and non-biblical.
The Book of Mormon’s unsurpassed plural “mights” usage with prepositions is archaic and non-biblical.
The Book of Mormon’s unsurpassed usage involving the conjunction “save” is archaic and non-biblical. For example, “save it were/be/was/is” occur in the Book of Mormon 130 times and are not found in the King James Bible. Other usage with this conjunction is noteworthy as well.
The Book of Mormon’s personal relative pronoun profile is archaic and non-biblical and non-pseudo-biblical. Personal “which” usage is heavy. This was an uncommon, attested profile in the early modern period.
The Book of Mormon’s unsurpassed object “they” usage (36 examples) is archaic and non-biblical and non-pseudo-biblical.
The Book of Mormon’s double negative usage is archaic and non-biblical. “Nor no manner of X” is a good example — there are four of these in the earliest text. Examples of this archaic/formal phraseology are quite rare by the 1700s.
The Book of Mormon’s 57 instances of invariant “exceeding great” is unexpected in a text of 1829. Mixed use was the norm by this time, as can be seen in Hunt’s “The Late War” (1816) and even in George Washington’s letters in 1776.
The conclusion from all this hard linguistic evidence, and much more not mentioned here, is that neither Joseph Smith nor anyone associated with the 1829 dictation had the implicit linguistic knowledge to word the text that was produced that spring. Joseph may have been a genius, but that is irrelevant, since we are dealing with accumulated, subconscious grammatical knowledge.
These linguistic realities should inform Frederick’s work. They show that his larger view of Book of Mormon English, at least as expressed in his monograph, is inaccurate. Although fully aware of Skousen’s and my work, I haven’t seen that he takes seriously an array of Book of Mormon lexical and (morpho)syntactic evidence. From what I have seen, he continues to assume an unstudied and inaccurate view of Book of Mormon English. I would ask him and others to study the subject before writing about it. Doing so was more excusable in past decades, but it really should be avoided now.