And The Visions of All Is Become Unto You As The Words of a Book..." (Isaiah 29:11)

The comment was made to a family member of mine that The Book of Mormon reads a lot like the King James Version of the Bible (which Latter Day Saints accept as the most correct translation of the original Hebrew). Being a Hebrew student myself I must admit that it is a decent translation, I use it at times to help me with my translating homework. The Book of Mormon is very much like the Bible in every way, it stands as a clarification for doctrines that are often uncertain when just looking at the text of the Old and New Testaments. Like the Bible it also contains many Semitic complexities. The following post shall demonstrate the parallels between the two texts and serve as proof that the Book of Mormon is of an ancient origin and was not, as many claim, written by Joseph Smith.

The first similarity I would like to draw your attention to is a literary device that is completely Hebraic. Formally known as the “cognitive style” it is essentially using the same word as a verb to describe the action of the noun in the sentence. Some Biblical examples include:

“Joseph dreamed a dream” (Genesis 37:5)

“Wrote upon it a writing” (Exodus 39:30)

Some Book of Mormon examples include:

“I will curse them even with a sore curse” (1 Nephi 2:23)

“This was the desire which I desired” (Enos 1:13

“Work all manner of fine work” (Mosiah 11:10)

The next is an excessive use of ands. In a Semitic language this is a very correct way to create a list. Not to mention that the character that acts as “and” can also be translated as: “but”, “nor”, “or”, etc… essentially any conjunction you can think of this character can be. But when a Hebrew text is translated into English a native English speaker is most likely going to translate the character as “and” Evidence of this can be found in the Bible in the following verse:

“And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his son, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them into the valley of Achor” (Joshua 7:24)

There also many instances of this in The Book of Mormon:

“And they gave thanks to God, yea, all their men and all their women and all their children that could speak lifted their voices in the praises of their God” (Mosiah 24:22)

“But behold, a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people, yea, the account of the Lamanites and of the Nephites, and their wars, and their contentions, and dissensions, and their preaching, and their prophecies, and their shipping and their building of ships, and their building of temples, and of synagogues and their sanctuaries, and their righteousness and their wickedness, and their murders, and their robbings, and their plunderings, and all manner of abominations and whoredoms, cannot be contained in this work. (Helaman 3:14)

The next similarity which shows that both the Bible and the Book of Mormon are of an ancient origin comes in the form of idioms and word usages. There are so many instances in both the Bible and The Book of Mormon where words are used in a way which implies a definition that we would not give them in every day conversation or when writing popular literature. A good example in the Bible is:

“And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand” (Hosea 2:10)

I'm pretty sure if most of you translated that into on-the-street English you would say some thing like “Now I will expose” or “Now I will parade” still a little on the formal side but you get the point. We would not use the word “discover” in this context in every day English.

There are numerous examples in the Book of Mormon of this word usage and idiomatic phrasing. One example:

“But behold, how great was their disappointment; for behold, the earth round about them, which was so high that the Lamanites could not cast their stones and their arrows at them that they might take effect, neither could they come upon them save it was by their place of entrance” (Alma 49:4)

In every day English we might say “cast stones” but I can almost guarantee you that you would never hear “cast your arrows” to us English speakers you “shoot arrows” right? Phrases like this are incredibly Semitic and appear an innumerable amount of times in the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

One of my favorite evidences is the chiasmus. It’s a Hebrew poetic form, essentially a parallelism the topic goes some thing like this ABCCBA where the author starts  at one point and builds until he reaches his climactic or key principle then mirrors what he said previously to the end of the chiasmus. The best way to understand is to simply look at examples. Great examples in the Bible come from Isaiah and Psalms

A-Our soul is escaped as bird

B-out of the snare of the fowlers

B- the snare of the fowlers is broken

A- And we are escaped

(Psalms 124:7)

A-Make the heart of this people fat

B-and make their ears heavy,

C-and shut their eyes;

C-Lest they see with their eyes,

B-And hear with their ears,

A- And understand with their heart

(Isaiah 6:10)

Evidences of the Hebraic chiasmus in the Book of Mormon are just as prominent. Two examples are as follows:

A-Now the land south

B- was called Lehi

C-and the land north

D-was called Mulek

E- which was after the son of Zedekiah;

D-for the Lord did bring Mulek

C-into the land north

B-and Lehi

A-into the land South

(Helaman 6:10)

Who could forget the rather famous Chiasmus (for the LDS among us) of Alma 36

A- My son give ear to my words (v 1)

B- Keep the commandments and ye shall prosper in the land (v 1)

C- Do as I have done (v 2)

D- Remember the captivity of our fathers (v 2)

E- They were in bondage (v 2)

F- He surely did deliver them (v 2)

G- Trust in God (v 3)

H- Supported in trials, troubles and afflictions (v 3)

I- I know this not of myself but of God (v 4)

J- Born of God (v 5)

K- I sought to destroy the church (v 6-9)

L- My limbs were paralyzed (v 10)

M- Fear of the presence of God (v 14-15)

N- Pains of a damned soul (v 16)

O- Harrowed up by memory of sins (v 17)

P- I remembered Jesus Christ, a son of God (v 17)

P- I cried, Jesus, son of God (v 18)

O- Harrowed up by memory of sins no more (v 19)

N- Joy as exceeding as was the pain (v 20)

M- Long to be in the presence of God (v 22)

L- My limbs received strength again (v 23)

K- I labored to bring souls to repentance (v 24)

J- Born of God (v 26)

I- Therefore my knowledge is of God (26)

H- Supported under trials and troubles and afflictions (v 27)

G- Trust in him (v 27)

F- He will deliver me (v 27)

E- As God brought our fathers out of bondage and captivity (v 28-29)

D- Retain in remembrance their captivity (v 28-29)

C- Know as I do know (v 30)

B- Keep the commandments and ye shall prosper in the land (v 30)

A- This according to his word (v 30)

(Alma 36:1-30)

I have saved, in my opinion, the best for last. It is the beautiful literary device of climactic poetry (also referred to as climactic parallelism). It is essentially a building in the text, as if the idea developed as the reader went a long. A great place to find this example in the Bible is in the poetic book of Psalms:

The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

(Psalms 121:5-8)

And of course to end this thought,  two examples from the Book of Mormon:

Behold, he created Adam,

and by Adam came the fall of man.

And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son;

and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man.

And because of the redemption of man, which came by Jesus Christ,

they are brought back into the presence of the Lord;

yea, this is wherein all men are redeemed,

because the death of Christ bringeth to pass the resurrection

which bringeth to pass a redemption from an endless sleep,

from which sleep all men shall be awakened by the power of God

when the trump shall sound;

and they shall come forth, both small and great,

and all shall stand before his bar,

being redeemed and loosed from this eternal band of death,

which death is a temporal death.

When I discussed this concept with my roommate the other day she pointed this beautiful verse out as well. 

And if ye say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. 

If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also sy there is no righteousness. 

And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness.

And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery.

And if these things are not there is no God.

And if there is no God we are not,

Neither the EArth; for there could have been no creation of things

Neither to act nor to be acted upon;

wherefore; all things must have vanished away

(2 Nephi 2:13)

So after all you have read I submit to you the idea that the Book of Mormon is in fact of ancient origin. That it is exactly what Joseph Smith said it was, that is, the Word of God written by inspired men of ancient times. I invite all to read it by clicking on the link above and ordering a free copy. If you have already read it, read it again with a desire to know God and His word. If you are interested in learning more about the Semitic complexities of the Book of Mormon click here, it is a great page that I found which touches on even more points then I chose to talk about. May God bless you my dear readers, until you read again.