Category: language
Fifty Years of Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon: The Story of Its Discovery
One of my favorite stories from the world of Book of Mormon studies is the discovery of chiasmus in the text by a young missionary serving in Germany. Fifty years…
The Rod of Iron: Part of Another Intriguing Wordplay in the Book of Mormon
In a recent article I prepared for The Interpreter, “The Great and Spacious Book of Mormon Arcade Game: More Curious Works from Book of Mormon Critics” (Interpreter: A Journal of…
David and the Psalms in the Book of Mormon: Weakness or Strength?
Overview A 2016 graduate thesis from Kyle Beshears at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, “Davidic References in the Book of Mormon as Evidence Against its Historicity,” proposes an intriguing new…
Janus Parallelism: Book of Mormon Hints? Part 3
In Part 1 and Part 2, we looked at a total of 7 possibilities for Janus parallelism in the Book of Mormon, relying primarily on examples identified by Scott Noegel…
Janus Parallelism in the Hebrew Bible: Could It Also Be in the Book of Mormon?
One of the most interesting books that I have read recently is Scott B. Noegel’s excellent research work, Janus Parallelism in the Book of Job (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press,…
Uto-Aztecan and Its Connection to Near Eastern Languages, Part 3: The Egyptian Infusion, Plus the Explanatory Power of Stubbs’ Framework
In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we introduced examples of cognates characteristic of two Semitic infusions into Uto-Aztecan, named by Stubbs as the Semitic-p and Semitic-kw infusions,…
Dusting Off the Chiasmus in Alma 36: The “Loose” Parts May Have More Structure Than We Thought
Part 3 of my series on dust-related themes in the Book of Mormon has just published: “‘Arise from the Dust’: Insights from Dust-Related Themes in the Book of Mormon (Part…
Robert F. Smith and the Preposterous Book of Mormon
Having raised the issue of linguistics and Book of Mormon evidence in my last post, let me point to an intriguing recent presentation with some weighty discoveries relevant to the…
Weeping, Wailing, and Gnashing of Teeth? No Need to Grieve Over Another Case of Alleged Plagiarism in the Book of Mormon
“Weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth” in the Book of Mormon has been criticized as an obvious mistake based on plagiarizing the New Testament. But there’s no need to grieve…
The FAIRMormon Conference: Dealing with Data on the Language of the Book of Mormon
FAIRMormon had its annual conference recently. Transcripts of some of the talks will be available soon, but I recommend watching the presentations by paying for video access. I got up…
