Linguistics and the Book of Mormon

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Template:Short description Template:Npov Template:Book of Mormon The professed doctrine of most denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement is that the Book of Mormon is a 19th-century translation by Joseph Smith of a record of ancient inhabitants of the American continents, written in a script which the book refers to as "reformed Egyptian". There is no evidence of a language matching this description nor any evidence of Old World linguistic influences in the New World whatsoever.<ref name="IRR" /><ref>Simon G. Southerton, Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church (2004, Signature Books).</ref><ref>Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism-Shadow or Reality? (1972, Modern Microfilm Company).</ref><ref>Statement of Smithsonian Institution regarding Book of Mormon.</ref><ref>A Linguist Looks at Mormonism.</ref>

Some Mormon believers have claimed that the Book of Mormon contains stylistic forms they think Joseph Smith and his contemporaries were unlikely to have known about, in particular things they think are similar to Egyptian and Hebrew.Template:What What is better attested to is that the Book of Mormon includes language that is anachronistic and reflective of its 19th-century and English-language origins consistent with Smith's upbringing and life experience, as well as the books and other literature published just preceding the time that the Book of Mormon was published.<ref name="IRR">The Book of Mormon: Ancient or Modern.</ref>

Native American language

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Pre-contact distribution of North American language families north of Mexico

In 1922, LDS Church general authority B. H. Roberts (1857–1933) conducted a review of the research regarding language development and dialects among the Native American peoples; the University of Illinois Press published Roberts's study posthumously in 1985 as Studies of the Book of Mormon.<ref>Brigham D. Madsen, ed., B. H. Roberts: Studies of the Book of Mormon, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.</ref>

Roberts based his discussion on the assumption that the majority of Native Americans descend from the peoples described in the Book of Mormon – as is implied by the hemispheric model of Book of Mormon geography, which was the prevailing view among Mormons at the time. Roberts noted that linguistic evidence among the Native American peoples does not support the Book of Mormon narrative, inasmuch as the diverse language stocks and dialects that exist would not have had enough time to develop from a single language dating from AD 400 (the approximate date of the conclusion of the Book of Mormon record). Roberts noted the following facts to be true at that point to be:

  1. That there are a large number of separate language stocks in America that show very little relationship to each other.
  2. That it would take a long time—much longer than that recognized as "historic times"—to develop these dialects and stocks where the development is conceived of as arising from a common source of origin—some primitive language.
  3. That there is no connection between the American languages and the language of any people of the Old World. New World languages appear to be indigenous to the New World.

The fragmentation of language into many groups in the pre-Colombian Americas is at odds with a hemispherical geography model of the Book of Mormon’s peoples – and indeed with the Book of Mormon’s narrative of agricultural Nephites coming to the Americas and building a large-scale society. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, anthropologist Jared Diamond writes that “had any food-producing Native American peoples succeeded in spreading far with their crops and livestock and rapidly replacing hunter-gatherers over a large area,Template:Efn they would have left legacies of easily recognized language families, as in Eurasia,” which did not occur.<ref>Guns, Germs, and Steel, pg. 370</ref>

Mainstream investigations hold that there is no known special similarity between Native American languages and ancient Egyptian.<ref>Setting the Record Straight About Native Peoples: Lost Tribes of Israel. Native Languages of the Americas. N.d. Accessed April 1, 2024</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Linguistic anachronisms

Template:Main A variety of linguistic anachronisms show it to be the product of nineteenth century American authorship. These anachronisms include words that represent concepts that are not known to have existed in the Americas between 2500 BC and AD 400, or in ancient Israel and Judah.

"Christ" and "Messiah"

The words "Christ" and "Messiah" are used several hundred times throughout the Book of Mormon. The first instance of the word "Christ" occurs in parts of the narrative that many Mormons attribute to between 559 and 545 BC.<ref>See 2 Nephi 10:3.</ref> The first instance of the word "Messiah" occurs in the narrative that Mormons believe happened around 600 BC.<ref>1 Nephi 1:19.</ref>

"Christ" is the English transliteration of the Greek word Template:Lang (transliterated as Christós); it is relatively synonymous with the Hebrew word משיח, pronounced Template:IPA and rendered "Messiah". Both words have the meaning of "anointed", and are used in the Bible to refer to "the Anointed One".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In Greek translations of the Old Testament (including the Septuagint), the word "Christ" is used for the Hebrew "Messiah", and in Hebrew translations of the New Testament, the word "Messiah" is used for the Greek "Christ".<ref>BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 50 versions and 35 languages Template:Webarchive</ref> Any passage in the Bible that uses the word "Christ" can substitute the word "Messiah" or "the Messiah" with no change in meaning (e.g., Template:Sourcetext).

The Book of Mormon uses both terms throughout the book. In the vast majority of cases, it uses the terms in an identical manner as the Bible, where it does not matter which word is used:

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Richard Packham argues that the Greek word "Christ" in the Book of Mormon challenges the authenticity of the work<ref name="Packham-2007" /> since Smith clearly stated that "there was no Greek or Latin upon the plates from which I, through the grace of the Lord, translated the Book of Mormon."Template:Citation needed

"Church" and "synagogue"

The word "church" first occurs in 1 Nephi 4:26, where a prophet named Nephi disguises himself as Laban, a prominent man in Jerusalem whom Nephi had slain:

And he [Laban's servant], supposing that I spake of the brethren of the church, and that I was truly that Laban whom I had slain, wherefore he did follow me (Template:Sourcetext).

According to the Book of Mormon, this exchange happened in Jerusalem, around 600 BC. The meaning of the word "church" in the Book of Mormon is more comparable to usage in the Bible than Modern English. The concept of a church, meaning "a convocation of believers", existed among the House of Israel prior to Christianity. For instance, Psalms Template:Sourcetext speaks of praising the Lord "in the congregation of the saints"; the Septuagint contains the Greek word ecclesia for "congregation", which is also translated as "church" in the New Testament.

A similar question regards the word "synagogue", found in Alma 16:13:

And Alma and Amulek went forth preaching repentance to the people in their temples, and in their sanctuaries, and also in their synagogues, which were built after the manner of the Jews (Template:Sourcetext).

Synagogues did not exist in their modern form before the destruction of the temple and the Babylonian captivity. The oldest known synagogue is located in Delos, Greece, and has been dated to 150 BC.<ref>The Oldest Original Synagogue Building in the Diaspora: The Delos Synagogue Reconsidered," Monika Trümper Hesperia, Vol. 73, No. 4 (October–December 2004), pp. 513–598</ref>

Other anachronisms

Craig L. Blomberg has pointed out several verses in the Book Mormon apparently similar to biblical verses in the King James version of the Bible. According to Blomberg, Template:Sourcetext includes overt references to Template:Sourcetext, Template:Sourcetext, Template:Sourcetext, and were most likely written with their direct influence in mind. Furthermore, Blomberg claims that Template:Sourcetext contains allusions to Template:Sourcetext. Blomberg summarizes his overall position on Book of Mormon anachronisms as follows: "Indeed, the entire Book of Mormon abounds with explicit references to Christ, to his life and ministry and to the three persons of the Godhead long before New Testament times ... even though none of these concepts or terms ever appear in these forms in the Old Testament or any other ancient Jewish literature."<ref> Template:Cite book</ref>

Stylometry

Template:Fringe-section In 1980, researchers at LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University used stylometric techniques they called "wordprint analysis" to examine possible Book of Mormon authorship, through statistical analysis of the occurrence of specific words and phrases. They concluded that none of the Book of Mormon selections they studied resembled writings of any of the suggested nineteenth-century authors, including Joseph Smith.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> Jerald and Sandra Tanner challenged these findings on various points, most notably questioning the reliability of the data sources used and the methodology of the "wordprint analysis".<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> Additionally, D. James Croft wrote in Sunstone that there were several flaws in the methodology that were vulnerable to criticism.<ref>D. James Croft, "Book Of Mormon 'Wordprints' Reexamined", Sunstone, March 1981, vol. 6:2, pp. 15–22.</ref>

In a peer-reviewed study using a traditional authorship method and a new pattern-classification technique, several researchers at Stanford University concluded that Sidney Rigdon, Solomon Spalding, and Oliver Cowdery were more likely to have written the book out of a pool of authors that also included Parley P. Pratt and two statistical control authors (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Joel Barlow). Smith was not included in the pool of authors because a set of original works written by Smith alone could not be identified with confidence.<ref>Jockers, M. L., D. M. Witten, and C. S. Criddle, 2008. "Reassessing authorship of the Book of Mormon using delta and nearest shrunken centroid classification". Literary and Linguistic Computing (2008) 23(4): 465–91.</ref> However, this study only examined the relative likelihood of the five above-mentioned authors writing the Book of Mormon, not the possibility of an author or authors outside the five-person pool.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Self-published source Another study was published in the same journal that critiqued the methodology used in the earlier study and, using Smith's personal writings written in his own handwriting, concluded that stylometric evidence supports neither Smith nor a Spalding–Rigdon authorship.<ref>Schaalje, G. Bruce, Paul J. Fields, Matthew Roper, Gregory L. Snow. "Extended nearest shrunken centroid classification: A new method for open-set authorship attribution of texts of varying sizes", Literary and Linguistic Computing (2011).</ref>

In a 1991 study for the journal History and Computing, David Holmes used a multivariate technique to analyze the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine of the Covenants. He concluded that they were from the same author, Joseph Smith. He noted that “the style of [Smith’s] 'prophetic voice' as evidenced by the main cluster of the textual samples studied, differs from the style of his personal writings or dictations of a personal nature.”<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Proper names

Critics have pointed out the appearance of names in the Book of Mormon which appear to be anachronistic.

Language specialists discourage the use of small non-random lists of words to compare two separate languages.<ref>Setting the Record Straight About Native Languages: Linguistic Relationships (Page Section 5). Native Languages of the Americas. N.d. Accessed April 1, 2024. “You need to examine at least three languages to make a valid comparison, and you need to use vocabulary items that have not been hand-selected as the one word in the language that bears some vague resemblance to the other.”</ref>

Hebrew names

Critics have pointed out that many of the names in the Book of Mormon that are not drawn from the King James Bible are found in the local environment around Palmyra, New York, and would have been known to Smith.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref>A Linguist Looks at Mormonism, More on Book of Mormon Names</ref> Richard Packham has pointed out that several Biblical Hebrew names, including "Aaron",<ref>Template:Lds</ref> "Ephraim",<ref>Template:Lds</ref> and "Levi"<ref>Template:Lds</ref> are listed as Jaredites in the Book of Ether. He argues that these are anachronisms, since the Jaredites are supposed to have originated from the time of the Tower of Babel, and presumably did not speak Hebrew.<ref name="Packham-2007">Packham, Richard. "A Linguist Looks at Mormonism". April 30, 2007.</ref> In addition, Packham has pointed out that while "Isabel" is derived from the ancient Hebrew Elizabeth, the name Isabel did not exist until 12th century Spain, which he argues is evidence against the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.<ref name="Packham-2007" />

Egyptian names

In his book Lehi in the Desert, Mormon apologist Hugh Nibley compares names found in the Book of Mormon with ancient Egyptian names from Upper Egypt. The comparisons allegedly show that many names in the Book of Mormon are similar to names in a certain region and era of ancient Egypt.<ref>Lehi in the Desert, pp. 25–31.</ref>

Smith, in a letter written in 1843 to the Mormon publication Millennial Star, wrote that the name "Mormon" came from "the Egyptian Mon, hence with the addition of more, or the contraction, mor, we have the word Mormon, which means, literally, more good."<ref>Gallacher, Stuart A, "Mormon: An example of folk etymology", Western Folklore, vol. 8, no. 1, January 1949, p. 23.</ref> Benjamin Urrutia suggests the name "Mormon" is derived from Egyptian "mor" ("love") and mon ("firmly established"), rendering "Mormon" as "love is firmly established."<ref>Benjamin Urrutia, "The Name Connection," New Era, June 1983, p. 39.</ref> Packham criticizes Smith's interpretation, stating that the English word "more" or "mor" is out of place in an Egyptian name.<ref>Packham, Richard. "A Linguist Looks at Mormonism: Notes on linguistics problems in Mormonism".</ref>

Greek names

In 1843, Smith stated publicly "there was no Greek or Latin upon the plates from which I... translated the Book of Mormon."Template:Citation needed Richard Packham has pointed out that the Book of Mormon contains some Greek and Latin names, some of which are hellenizations of Hebrew names (e.g., "Antipas", "Archeantus", "Esrom", "Ezias", "Judea", and "Zenos") and some of which are Greek or Latin.<ref>A Linguist Looks at Mormonism, More Greek Names.
A Linguist Looks at Mormonism, Lucifer.</ref>

Notes

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See also

References

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Sources

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