Invalid Linguistic Arguments against Mormonism

Richard Packham has an article entitled, "A Linguist Looks at Mormonism." I have critiqued this paper as well as other criticisms forwarded by Packham (click here) a couple of times on my blog. However, there is a section where, to his credit, he offers rebuttals to criticisms against the LDS Church which are still making the rounds. Here, I will quote an anti-Mormon briefly refuting fellow anti-Mormons (talk about a house divided against itself ;) [Matt 12:25]):

Linguistic Criticisms Which are Not Valid, or Quite Weak

            However much we might appreciate criticism of Mormonism, there are a few linguistic objections - mostly to the Book of Mormon - which are not valid or not convincing. At the risk of being accused of defending Mormonism, I will point them out.

Reformed Egyptian

            Some critics have objected that there is no such known language as "Reformed Egyptian." This objection fails on two counts. First, just because an ancient language is not yet known, one should not assume that it does not exist. Previously unknown languages are frequently discovered. Second, there is no reason to suppose that an ancient, isolated people such as the Lehites, using Egyptian as their language, would not modify it over the course of centuries. That is a very common phenomenon. Modern English, for example, might justifiably be called "Reformed Anglo-Saxon," or modern Italian might well be referred to as "Reformed Latin."

"And it came to pass..."

            One of the most frequent criticisms of the language of the Book of Mormon is the frequent use of the phrase "And it came to pass..." That may well be a valid criticism of the literary style of the supposed translation, but that criticism overlooks the fact that the very same phrase occurs quite frequently in the King James translation of the Bible, over 500 times in the Hebrew Old Testament and over 70 times in the Greek New Testament. The phrase in the New Testament is a translation of the one Greek word 'egeneto' meaning "it happened." In the Old Testament it translates a word of four characters, pronounced 'weyehi' meaning "and it happened." It is not unreasonable to assume that "Reformed Egyptian" might also have had such a single short word.

"adieu" (Jacob 7:27)

            The fact that a French word is used in an English translation does not mean that the original text had that same French word. "Adieu" is used in English in a special sense, a final farewell to one whom one does not expect to see ever again. If there were a word with such a specific meaning in an original text, it would be quite appropriate to translate it into English with the French word, since English has no word which is an exact equivalent.

" the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return" (2 Nephi 1:14)

            Critics object that this is a quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet, from the famous soliloquy beginning "To be, or not to be..." The line there is: "the undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns." (Hamlet III:1)            The metaphor, however, is not unique with Shakespeare. It occurs also in the Bible: "I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death" (Job 10:21)