John A. Tvedtnes and Matthew P. Roper wrote a review to the essays against the Book of Mormon contained in the 2002 book, The New Mormon Challenge, perhaps the most sophisticated critique of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from an Evangelical Protestant perspective. Their review is:
The entire review should be read as it contains a wealth of excellent information about the Ancient Near Eastern background of the Book of Mormon; however, the following section is enlightening as it presents just a sampling of the Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon that cannot be explained away by Joseph Smith’s knowledge of the KJV:
The most impressive Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon are words that reflect wordplays understandable only in Hebrew and words that are better understood in Hebrew terms than in English due to the range of meaning of the corresponding Hebrew words.59 Here are a few examples:
— In Alma 49:4, we read that the Lamanites attempted to “cast their stones and their arrows” at the Nephites atop the wall of the city Ammonihah. Alma 49:22 speaks of “the stones and arrows which were thrown.” While in English, we would appropriately use the verb “throw” for stones, this is not so for arrows, where we would expect “shoot.” But the Hebrew verb yrh, meaning “to throw” or “to cast” (e.g., Exodus 15:4, 25; Joshua 18:6; Job 30:19), also has the meaning of “shoot” for arrows (e.g., Exodus 19:13; 1 Samuel 20:11, 20, 36-37; 2 Kings 13:17; 19:32). Indeed, in 2 Chronicles 26:15, the Hebrew verb (with a variant spelling) is used in the passage rendered “to shoot arrows and great stones” in the King James Version of the Bible.
—In 1 Nephi 1:6, we read that as Lehi “prayed unto the Lord, there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock before him.” The English term “dwelt” normally connotes setting up house or at least staying for a long time, and we would expect to read that the pillar of fire “sat” or “rested” on the rock. Significantly, the Hebrew verb ysb means both “dwell” and “sit.” For example, Jacob’s sons “sat down to eat” (Genesis 37:25), but “Israel dwelt in that land” (Genesis 35:22). The same verb is used in both passages.
—In Helaman 9:6, we read that the Nephite judge had been “stabbed by his brother by a garb of secrecy.” Critics have contended that this makes no sense in English, since “garb” has the same meaning as “garment” or “clothing.” This idiom is the same as the English “under cloak of secrecy.”60 But the Hebrew word beged means both “garment” or “garb” (e.g., Genesis 39:12-13) and “treachery.”61 This would seem to be a wordplay in the Hebrew original of the Book of Mormon. As for the preposition “by,” in Hebrew its range of meaning includes “in,” “with,” and “by means of.”
—Jacob wrote that Nephi instructed him regarding Nephite sacred preaching, revelations, and prophecies that “I should engraven the heads of them upon these plates” (Jacob 1:4). We really expect something more like “most important” to be used here. Indeed, the Hebrew word for the head of the body is sometimes used to describe things as “chief” (Deuteronomy 33:15; Psalm 137:6; Proverbs 1:21; Amos 6:1) or “precious” (Song of Solomon 4:14; Ezekiel 27:22), which seems to be the sense in which Jacob used the word.
— The land of Jershon has a valid Hebrew etymology, Yershon, meaning “place of inheritance.” Significantly, it appears in passages that employ the words “inherit” (Alma 27:24) and “inheritance” (Alma 27:22; 35:14). The wordplay makes sense only in Hebrew.
Notes for the Above
59. For a discussion of a Hebrew wordplay in Alma 32:21, see John A. Tvedtnes, “Faith and Truth,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 3/2 (1994): 114-17.
60. In 1 Samuel 28:8, we read that “[King] Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment” so he would not be recognized. See also 1 Kings 22:30 and Joshua 9:2-16.
61. The adjectival and adverbial forms are rendered “treacherous” and “treacherously” in Isaiah 24:16, Jeremiah 12:1, and Zephaniah 3:4.
It should be noted that Tvedtnes (see n. 56) stated that the topic of non-KJV Hebraisms will be discussed in further detail in his forthcoming The Book of Mormon and the Ancient World, which should be, as with Tvedtnes’ other volumes, an excellent contribution to Book of Mormon studies (he told me in an email a few years ago that it will be, in his humble opinion, one of the best books ever on the historicity of the Book of Mormon)
