Another place where the words of the text have a remarkable connection to an idea from antiquity is the phrase “father of heaven and earth.” The specific phrase does not appear in the King James Bible but occurs seven times in the Book of Mormon.[21] Nevertheless, a similar concept may underlie the passages in the KJV’s rendition of Genesis 14:19, 22 where God is a “possessor” of heaven and earth.[22] Daniel O. McClellan, while engaged in Jewish studies at the University of Oxford as a master’s candidate, examined the linguistic history of the Hebrew word qoneh (variously translated as “purchaser,” “Begetter,” “creator,” or “lord”) and concluded that “Gen. 14:19, 22 most likely represents an early expansion on the Syro-Palestinian formula ‘El, begetter of the Earth.”[23] The Book of Mormon phrase could not have borrowed from the KJV model but nevertheless appropriately reproduced a pre-exilic title that only later lost its procreative implications.[24] Because this phrase served as a title, it may have been preserved through the same processes that preserved specific names.
Notes for the Above
[21] 2 Ne. 25:12; Mosiah 3:8, 15:4; Alma 11:39; Hel. 14:2, 16:18; Ether 4:7
[22] Gen. 14:19, 22: And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth.
“And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth” (emphasis mine)
“And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth” (emphasis mine)
[23] Daniel O. McClellan, “qoneh shamayim wa’arez, Genesis 14:19, 22: ‘Begetter of Heaven and Earth,’” 16.
[24] Ibid.
Brant A. Gardner, The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011), 233-34
