Okay, lets leave chiasmus behind and go on to other literary evidences. Back in the early 1970s, the LDS leadership felt that it was important that the Book of Mormon be translated back into a native Semitic language, so that those in the world who spoke Hebrew and Arabic might be able to read it. Since there were many time more speakers of Arabic than Hebrew, they decided that the book should first be translated into Arabic.
Coincidentally, there was at that time at the University of Utah, a visiting professor from the University of Chicago. He was teaching in the Universitys Department of Middle Eastern Studies and was, in fact, a colleague of my father. He was a native Egyptian by the name of Sami Hanna. When Dr. Hanna moved with his family to Utah, he found himself suddenly immersed in a culture that was pretty different from the one hed left back in Chicago. The LDS culture intrigued him and he was particularly fascinated to learn that the Mormons' sacred text had supposedly been originally written in an Egyptian script by people whose native tongue was Hebrew. Dr. Hanna was obviously quite excited to be asked to be the translator of the Book of Mormon back into Arabic. Here is what Dr. Hanna had to say upon completing the translation:
When I began reading the Book of Mormon, and began making myself familiar with it, I expected to find a very poorly written book, as I had been told by critics of the unschooled nature of the youthful Joseph Smith as he had purportedly translated the book.
What I found, however, was not a book of poor English; but to the contrary, I found myself reading the most beautiful Semitic book I had ever read! Naturally, it wasnt long before I knew that I must join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This I did, and I now hold the office of elder in the Church.
Sami Hanna was a respected non-LDS scholar when he accepted the task of translating the Book of Mormon into Hebrew. He found a number of characteristically Semitic characteristics throughout the book. I wont go into all of them at this time, but will point out a few that I found especially significant.
In translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph retained the literal wording whenever possible, and in doing so, restricted his verb usage to that in which the original text would have been written. For example, you will find in the Book of Mormon, the frequent use of compound verbs such as did go, did eat, did smite, etc. This wording is awkward in English, but because Joseph wanted to retain the flavor of the language from which he was translating, he used the literal verb forms as he read them, instead of saying went, ate, and smote.
The use of function words in the Book of Mormon is typically Semitic. In fact, the Book of Mormon is teeming with phrases that are quite uncharacteristically unnatural for the English speaking person. Dr. Hanna gave three examples of this.
(1) There are many, many more ands in a typical Semitic sentence than you would find in a typical English sentence expressing the same thought. Lets look, for instance, at Helaman 3:14, which reads, 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 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 plundering, and all manner of abominations, and whoredoms, cannot be contained in this work
There are a total of 18 instances of the word and in this verse alone. Had Joseph simply dropped most of them, the sentence would have made perfect sense to a native English speaker and would have flowed much more naturally than it actually does. It would, however, have lost the Semetic characteristics it now retains.
(2) Just as the word and appears to be overused in the English version of the Book of Mormon, but not in a Semitic translation of the book, a similar situation exists with the use of possessive pronouns. For example, 1 Nephi 2:4 states, And he left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver and his precious things. We English-speaking people would have probably have omitted at least two (perhaps three) of the five uses of the word his in addition, of course, to the word and preceding each of them. Wed typically say, And he left his house, the land of his inheritance, his gold, silver and precious things. In the Semitic languages, each repetition of the word his is not only not considered redundant, but necessary for proper usage.
(3) The cognitive accusative is seldom seen in English. It sounds awkward and incorrect to us. Not so in Hebrew. Consequently, youll find the frequent use of phrases such as dreamed a dream, worked a work, and write a writing. Had Joseph simply been making up the book as he was going along, he would undoubtedly have written dreamed, worked, and wrote. Instead, he rendered the text into as literal a translation as he could and still make it understood.
Okay, thats enough for today. I have enough more material for two more posts on the literary evidences in the Book of Mormon (more, actually, but I had rather hoped to keep this thread to a reasonable length). Ill see if I can find time tomorrow to post more of Sami Hannas findings, and will then go on to share some of the findings of other scholars.
